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Winter Gardening III

From
September 22, the first day of Autumn, until March 22, the first day of Spring,
the planet Earth receives fewer hours of light than darkness. Marijuana plants
measure the number of hours of un

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Click here for part II of Ed’s Winter tutorial. 

F

rom
September 22, the first day of Autumn, until March 22, the first day of Spring,
the planet Earth receives fewer hours of light than darkness. Marijuana plants
measure the number of hours of uninterrupted
darkness. When they get at least 11 hours of darkness for about a week,
almost all varieties initiate flowering.

Within
days of setting up the garden, and after I wrote last month’s feature, I had a
chance to spend some time with my tiny plants that, at nature’s urging (in the
form of a long period of darkness nightly), would soon experience the change to
reproductive mode, flowering. They were so small and took up so little space.
Each would produce only a small amount of genuine California outdoor bud, and
they needed such little maintenance—just watering with bloom formula a couple
of times weekly during warm weather, and once weekly or less during cooler
periods.

While contemplating the garden I decided to adopt more plants to join the few plants that were already there. My friend George had a teenage Purple Pineapple that he was going to clone out when he had the chance, but he saw those tiny plants and felt that they needed company. Then I decided to check out the teenager situation at one of the local dispensaries, twice. Each time there was only one suitable plant. I was looking for plants that had at least a few strong branches that would support cola growth.

After I brought the plants home I transplanted them from the six-inch one-quart pots they were growing in to five-gallon containers. Then I set them out to meet their new friends and to introduce them to their new source of energy—el sol. Although it was a bright sunny day, the light in February in the San Francisco Bay Area is not so intense that plants need a gentle introduction using shading or protection of some sort.

As expected, the plants started to flower soon after they were placed outdoors. Now the plants are three weeks into their flower growth with another five to go. I expect to harvest the first week in April. I don’t expect a large harvest, but it will be nice to have some ounces of fresh outdoor to use this Spring.

TIP
OF THE MONTH FROM ASK ED®

Regeneration

Do
you have an indoor garden that is about to be harvested? You can reuse those
plants by regenerating them and placing them outdoors. When you are harvesting,
don’t remove all the leaves and buds. Leave some on the major branches. Change
the light regimen from flowering’s 12-12 to 18 hours of light daily. Within a couple
of weeks many varieties, especially sativa-dominant ones, will begin growing
vegetatively again, supporting new leaf, not bud growth. Continue growing the
plants indoors, or place them outdoors on warm sunny days, and then bring them
back indoors as the temperature drops at night. Provide them with supplemental
light at night so the plants receive at least 18 hours of light. If it is warm
out at night and you can place a light over the plants to extend day length,
that’s okay too. By late May/early June, the outside day length will be long
enough to keep most plants in vegetative growth until autumn, when the
shortening light period will shift the plants back into flowering once again,
and you can take your second harvest.

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