Article - Tips for your summer crop - Soma

[align=center]Tips For Your Summer Crop

Article Taken From: Heads (vol. 4 issue 8)
Written By: Soma[/align]
Growing cannabis plants outside in the summer can be a great learning experience. Before you begin, there are a few rules to consider. It is critical to use the correct genetics for your climate. Choosing strains that take too long to finish in a cold environment is something to be avoided. Also you want to have a bud structure that will not mold easilyâ??not too dense.

Another important factor is the right soil mix. A mix that is cannabis-friendly is essential. Many soil mixes have the wrong pH and a poor combination of nutrients, so when acquiring your soil do a thorough check of the NPK and the principle ingredients. Make sure that the soil has good drainage so it can handle being rained on a lot and wonâ??t become to soggy.

Cannabis plants love full sun, so think carefully about where they will be placed. I always â??super-cropâ?? my plants, and outside do it even more. By super-cropping I mean a structured bending of the branches. This is a handy technique for controlling height and shape. Plants can be bent multiple times to obtain the desired dimensions.

Here is how it is done. I usually wait until a plant is about 10 inches high, then with my thumb and forefinger I roll the stem in between my fingers gently squeezing them together. I do this at about 3 inches from the tip of the branch. You can feel a crunching sound as the inner pulp of the cannabis plant is pressed together. After your plant has been bent, you must leave it be for a few days, making sure that the bent part does not receive any additional stress. Within 24 hours you will notice that the tips of the branches are already starting to point upwards again, and within a week have turned directly back to the sky.

What I like to call â??elbowsâ?? start to form where the bend was made, and with time get stronger and stronger. All of the side branches next to the elbows get much bigger and stronger to make up for the injury and stress. These bends can be made quite a few times on the same plant over time but only while the plants are in the vegging phase.

You end up with a plant with multiple top colas all of a large size. Besides getting a larger yield per plant and more tops, it also improves the overall health of the plant. This is also a great technique for keeping your plant from getting too tall. I have compared buds from the same strain that were super-cropped with buds that were left alone, and my conclusion is that the super-cropped plants were always better. The main stalks are greatly strengthened by the super-cropping helping them to withstand strong winds and heavy rains.

Even though I am primarily an indoor grower, when it gets to be this time of year, I canâ??t help but have a few outside. Itâ??s just so nice to see the natural sun at work. Growing in a climate like Holland, most cannabis strains have a hard time finishing up before it gets too wet and cold. One solution to this is to make a light proof box big enough to place over the entire plant. Start to give your plants 12 hours of light in the last days of July and they will finish by the end of September, before the weather gets too harsh.

All of these cultivation methods are a little extra work, but are well worth the time and energy. I donâ??t know about you, but I sure love having a few sacred cannabis plants around just to look at, even if I never get to smoke them. Being a medicinal user it has become even more important to me to grow and study this magnificent healing plant, and getting a chance to study it outside in the sunshine is a real treat.

that's a nice post student. i love growing in the outdoors; in some ways it's better than indoors. when i grow outdoors i can plant away from my property, i can grow larger plants, and i can save money. however, i cant control my enviroment, which sometimes can be a problem. it's a good thing the southern us has good weather for growing!