I am based on the coastal NSW in Australia. I am wondering if any other aussies can shed some light on outdoor growing seasons for our local climate. Obviously we are headed into winter and I am unsure if anyone has any luck with growing outdoors during winter?? (No frost)
I have two options and that is to hold off until after winter - or do I propagate now indoors and give the plants time outdoors during the heat of the day??
I have only just received my seeds (WW auto) and I have soaked and planted some seeds now, but I’m worried it’s too late into the season.
First time grower and I have no equipment to grow indoors properly.
Welcome to ILGM forum. Not Australian but there’s several members here that are. I’ll tag a couple for you that may be able to help. @Enlightened420@kettle.
Thanks for the tag @Bulldognuts.
Welcome fellow Ozzy Gromie, @SinCityKitty.
Hmm to partially answer your question, as you know the Australian climate can be quite harsh, during all seasons, for example, where I am it’s 15% RH
today, it was 7°C last night, 85% RH, It would be extremely difficult for me to deal with these issues, without the proper equipment.
What I’m saying is, you have to factor in all of these variables into your grow and dare I say it, control them to some extent (indoor).
Outdoor you have less control over these factors, including heat, sunlight and RH. Coming into Winter is going to be tough, to pull a successful harvest, without an additional light source to supplement.
Question, how where you planning on propagating inside, without a light? Or where you planning on a windowsill birth?
I don’t have any experience with autos, you may be able to pull it off, they are an amazing plant.
My personal perspective, if I was doing autos, I would invest in a half decent light, for the colder seasons when I it’s not possible to grow outside, ideally if I were growing outdoors the seeds would be germinated before the first day of spring.
My friend @kettle may have a different perspective, as he has a lot more experience than I.
welcome buddy, I agree with what @Enlightened420 completely, if your going to go outside, there just isn’t that much light for the little guys and autos you really want to give them their best chance. so yep, outside wait till the beginning of spring… indoors do some research, see if you could find something that would suit u… good luck…
Years ago, like over 20 years ago this is how we grew, planted late spring, to late for them to flower, though still warm enough for them to germinate and get to about 20 to 30cms in height, weed out all the taller (male) plants about 1 month after seeding. Then not go back for at least another 3 months.
We prepared trenches with lots of raw chook shit, blood n bone and some NPK blue, with it mixed in and then with at least 4 to 6 inches of plain top soil, just using the exsisting dirt.
The plants would not appear to grow much at all over winter but would be growing healthy roots. That chook shit would absorb all the winter rain and be enough to keep them growing over the summer without any watering needed.
All that said this was alot of work and you are looking at least 7 months from seed to first harvest, though it did have the advantage that you did get a second and even a third set of buds grow from some of the plants.
I have seen this technique used before it works great, but as you said @StevOz A lot of preparation, time and hard work is needed.
My friends Dad grew this magic Christmas tree once, using same technique. It was approx. 3m tall and 3 men holding arms, could not reach around it, total yield was somewhere between 4 to 5 pounds and it was some of the darkest weed I have ever had the privilege to smoke, looking back now, I think it was some type of Afghan or similar.
That said that method would not work with autos and I suspect plain untreated seeds would best.
To give you an idea, we would plant several 100 seeds per patch and after weeding out males, plus a few that will die over winter, you may have 20 to 40 plants, though those that did survive would grow strong.
Thankyou for your time in responding. I had thought i may need to wait until September, but i was impatient and have soaked some seeds already. Only 4 out of 6 ‘sprouted’ and i have transfered them into various pots. I thought i might leave one in a massive pot outside to see how that fares - but the cold has seemingly set in over the last two days now.
The others are in little seeding trays and i was thinking of keeping them in overnight and perhaps putting them in direct sunlight for some of the time during the day - after reading your response - looks like I might need to bite the bullet and purchase a light to maintain the rage. Ill have to keep the mushrooms in the dark and the weed in the light!!!
I will start researching lights. Will Bunnings be of any use to me, or am i looking at a speciality horticulture place??
Thankyou for your time. There is so much information and I am trying to not get confused or overwhelmed. It’s hard to suppress the shear excitement as well - I’m new to growing ANYTHING! Regular food is surviving, so now onto medication…
Should the outdoor trial survive during winter, i would be interested to see if i get a second and third yield, though would an auto flower do that?
Can i ask where you would recommend to purchase a reasonable light source? Bunnings or somewhere more specific??
@Enlightened420 - i can only hope to produce such a mythical tree, but i dare say it would be a fluke!!
The answer is purely relevant to these factors:
1, Do you want to grow decent weed?
2, Do you want a good yield?
3, Do you want dank bud?
If the answer is yes to all three of these questions, I would say bite the bullet and bite it HARD
Personally I have Quantum Board’s and love them, but it’s all relevant to your price range.
dbrn32 is the resident light wizard, when you are ready to talk lights, tag him and ask your questions.
Just wanted to back up everything that @Enlightened420 has pointed out. Many first time growers, myself included bought cheap lights off Amazon. Many of those lights will grow cannabis sufficiently during veg, but won’t really produce heavy dense buds. If you have the financial means to invest in lights its the most important aspect of growing cannabis.
Best bet here in Australia is via ebay from an Australian source. It will cost I’d say you are looking at least $500 AU for a decent quantum grow light.
My picks…
TSW2000 ( actually 200 watts power draw = to a 400 watt light ) lesser lights would only be good for veg or maybe a few tightly bunched plants in a small area.
Personal favourite and I will be getting one of these soon, just waiting to move to a place I can call my own soon. This light should be killer and over twice as good as the TW 2000.
Is it a super big no no to do a combined grow? As in - start off indoors and then finish up outdoors? I don’t want to make the mistake of transitioning mid grow if there is a high failure rate.
that’s cool - I don’t want to piss around and waste time and good seeds!!