A question from a fellow grower:
My plants will be placed on our balcony (Orange County CA) facing west south west, second story, getting from 5 to 8hrs. average direct sun depending on the season. When can I get started if I don’t want to supplement with artificial light after germination?
Hopefully we can help you.
I know your climate is similar to mine in the heart of Florida. My first thought was what type of seed? Photoperiod or Auto?
If you plant a photo early in the season, two harvests are possible, though the first one is generally small. This also would allow you to sex the plant early, if you don’t have feminized seeds.
If the plant is an Auto, your yield will most likely suffer since our daylight hours are shorter right now. There is no second harvest with them, according to my own experience.
Either way, you would need to protect them from frost or freeze.
I guess it depends on what you plan on doing. Are the seeds good quality known strains? Just some bag seed you want to try your hand at?
Bag seed, I’d say go for it. The experience will help with future grows. If it is good quality seed, I would wait until I could get the most out of them.
No matter what you decide, we would love to help you get the best out of your grow! Just in case you haven’t already, here is plenty of good reference material for you to go over…
Plenty of people here that could be more helpful than me. We all want to help…
Being in California if you wanna use just natural light, than a good time to start is late February to mid March hope this helps 
I am in San Diego, but somewhat inland so a frost is possible here. My guestion is similar. For photo period only. We could grow 6 mos vegetatively until June 21, the longest day of the year, and then let it flower with the shortening of the days until it was done. But it seems to me that it would either simply stop growing or go to flowers early even though the days up until June 21 are would be getting longer. My guess is that planting around March 21, giving 3 months of vegetative growth then flowering after June 21, would work best for maximum yield. Anyone have any thoughts? Rocky
I live in so cal and my last outdoor grow was in the late 90’s. All regular photoperiod strains.
I would start indoors under small light or window sill around feb 1 and transplant outside after 1-1.5 month approx. My spot had approx 8-10 hrs of direct sunlight. But just because the light is not direct, does not mean that the photoperiod is being recorded as direct sunlight only. Meaning plants won’t prematuely flower as if indoors for 8 hours only.
One of my most successful grows was 5 super skunk plants in 7 gal containers placed up in a tree. They had shaded sunlight the entire time.
I’m following this same cycle this year, kind of. I have 10-2 week old Aaghani fem plants that starting today will go outside every morning and be brought in at night for a few weeks to guard against cold.
I also have 5 other strains that I am starting at 1-2 weeks apart that will get the same treatment.
Buy your seeds from ILGM, you will have them in several days!
Good luck
Hi, i’m in Florida, February 24th… please help with this question! My female plant is 3 weeks in flower (indoors) and doing great, I’m wondering if it can be moved out doors now that our nights ar warmer, will it disrupt the growing and budding? Thanks
Depending on the strain, it might finish before the light cycle goes up.
Do it, it’s an experiment.
Thanks! I will expreriment and see what happens.
Happy growing folks!
I live in East Central MN and im wondering when the light cycle changes for plants to start flowering. I just seen hairs on 7/27/19 but I would like to start flowering a couple weeks early given the shorter flowering time here and plants normally dont get to finish and mature fully. Also what would be the best way to start flowering outdoors early. And also can I still do any HST or LST to my plants like topping, mainlining (manifold), lollipopping or super cropping of any kind?