When it comes to marijuana strains that produce euphoria and relaxation, you’d be hard-pressed to find a strain as effective, popular and beloved as the Northern Lights. The high produced by this variety a strong, physical experience that feels comfortable, lazy, and relaxing.
The Northern Lights is a small plant with flowers covered in resin and broad, Indica-like leaves. The plant itself is dark green, fairly short, with leafy floral clusters. Many of today’s marijuana growers are fans of Northern Lights because this plant produces a guaranteed return of the time and effort invested into cultivating it. It’s also known to suppress insomnia, anxiety, and help with symptoms associated with diseases of the spinal nerves.
ILGM offers autoflowering Northern Lights varieties. Autoflowers provide many advantages over the non-autoflowering variety. First, they are shorter in structure, rarely outgrow their space, and can be hidden amongst other foliage easier, making them the ideal choice for an indoor or stealth grow.
Perhaps the biggest advantage for growing autoflowers is there’s no need to change the light cycle. If setting timers and the principle of light cycles confuse you, it’s better to choose autoflowering strains.
Autoflowers are also hardy plants with a degree of tolerance against mildew, bugs and improper nutrition. People who struggle with feeding may also want to grow autoflowers.
This grow journal chronicles the early stage of growing Northern Lights autoflowers.
Grower: hobbygardener
Location: Southern USA
Yield NA
June 25th
It’s the third grow for this grower and this time, only a single plant is cultivated. It’s the auto-flowering Northern Lights which can reach up to 120cm. This will be an outdoor grow in a container garden. The Northern Lights plant will receive plenty of good southern exposure with only partial obstruction.
The starting soil for seedling is Pro Mix Ultimate: Organic Seed Starting Mix – a mild level of time-release nutrients. The goal is to switch over to a 3+ gallon container using a commercial soil/peat moss mix blended with 50% homemade organic compost, supplemented with Gaia Green slow release organic 2-8-4 fertilizer with micro-nutrients.
And the seed jumps into the pool at noon today. Off to soak in a jar of tap water left in a warm, dark cupboard for a few hours (before it’s obsessively checked for signs of germination).
June 26th
The seed sank after 6 hours, then removed after 18 hours and transferred to a damp paper towel placed in an open Ziploc bag, and stored in a dark, dry place. After twelve hours, a tap root is finally showing.
June 27th
The tap root is looking great. Time to add it to the seedling container.
Had great success on a previous grow by using 2 small containers for each plant. One of them has the bottom cut out and a side cut from top to bottom.
This is then inserted into the unmodified container. The idea is that when it is time to transplant the seedlings to its next container, simply dig a hole to the side of the seedling container, remove the outer container, insert the plant into the hole, and then slide the remaining container out of the hole, resulting in a transplant with virtually zero root shock.
Into the starter mix it goes. The tap root is down and seed is about ¾ of a centimeter beneath the surface.
Time to give the starter mix a good soaking.
And now it’s off to sit in a sunny, warm location.
The starting soil for the seedling is Pro Mix Ultimate: Organic Seed Starting Mix. It’s about 80% peat moss, and the seedling will only be in it for a few weeks before it gets transferred to its final growing container which will be a commercial soil/peat moss mix blended with 50% homemade organic compost supplemented with Gaia Green slow release organic 2-8-4 fertilizer with micro-nutrients.
June 29th
Saw this bad girl pop up early this morning while on the way out the door to work. It was quickly watered. Came home at the end of the day, and the soil was bone dry. It needed a good drenching. Will check the soil tomorrow evening to see how water retention is doing in all of this heat.
July 5th
Day 8 since the tap root appeared. Nice strong stem. So far so good.
July 16th
Checked the bottom of the pot yesterday. Some roots are beginning to peek through. This means it’s time for the final container.
Slid off the external container to reveal the modified container without a bottom. The roots are looking very good.
The soil looks awesome and rich with worms. It has good moisture retention. Its composition is nice and pliable for easy root development. This is a perfect opportunity to add a little 2-8-4 organic slow release fertilizer. Seeing as this soil is 50% organic compost, there should be lots of available nitrogen.
Decided to finally experiment with using an oya to water the plants. For those who aren’t familiar, an oya is an unglazed clay pot, buried with the plant that acts as a slow release water reservoir. Water gradually seeps through the clay, and the roots seek out the moisture, leading to a situation where the plant quickly self-waters as needed and the plants get much better water retention.
Also planning on being away for a week later this summer and it’s not possible to have a water system on a timer so it was decided to go old school with an oya. This is a method about 1000 years old in terms of watering methods in the hot regions of the world.
And now for the lid.
And there we have it – the first and final transplant for this grow, including old school oya watering system. Can’t wait to see how this works.
Grower: hobbygardener
Location: Southern USA
Yield NA
Unfortunately, the grow journal ended abruptly when the plant was transferred to its permanent home but there are still a couple of techniques for outdoor grows worth picking up such as the modified container that makes it easier to transfer a seedling from one container to another.
Given the success rate of ILGM Northern Lights, it’s safe to assume this grow was successfully completed to harvest.
How do you deal with growing autoflower outdoors?
Happy growing!