Mid-Summer Tactics for Outdoor Marijuana Growing Success

The outdoor marijuana growing season is flying by us fast.

We’re already more than a month past the longest day of the year.

Depending on your geographic location, you’ve only got 3-6 more weeks of “grow phase” that corresponds to the 18-hour phase you get under controlled conditions indoors.

By the end of August, most outdoor strains, especially those with heavy doses of Indica and Afghanica genetics, will have started pre-flowering.

So now’s the time to set yourself up for big harvests and healthy plants with these five tactics.

Trim Tops and Clean Up Suckers

Now’s the time to top your outdoor marijuana plants one last time.

Even off your canopy so you’ve got the same height rather than tall colas towering above shorter ones.

Remove most if not all sucker branches and leaves in the bottom 5-20% of the plant, but don’t lollipop.

Lollipopping is stripping the bottom third of the main stalk bare. That’s too much removal.

Take a look at the videos in this article to see proper foliage density.

If your marijuana plants have too much leafage and small sucker stalks, remove the extra foliage so your plants are less dense.

If sun isn’t able to penetrate to hit those leaves and sucker stalks, they’re useless to you.

Outdoor marijuana growing works best when you shape and profile your plants.

Set Up Plant Supports

Trellis netting, cages, and/or multiple stakes and plant ties can be put in place now to support development of large limbs loaded with buds.

Many outdoor growers who are working with beauties six feet tall or taller train the budding tops through two or more nets to keep them supported all the way up.

That way, you get buds 5-7 inches in diameter and longer than a baseball bat.

Feed Organic Systemic Pest Control

Until General Hydroponics sold out to become Scotts Miracle-Gro, the one product I liked from them was Azamax.

Now that they’re part of the Scotts Miracle-Gro poison empire, I refuse to give them my money.

Fortunately, I can get the same base Azamax ingredient in a safe, non-GH pest control product called Azatrol.

Azatrol is a systemic and a foliar.

I suggest you use it both ways throughout the grow phase.

Then you use it only as a systemic through week three of bloom phase and stop using it after that.

Properly applied (not in direct sun, not when it rains soon after foliar application, following manufacturer instructions for dosing and timing), it stops spider mites, broad mites, thrips, root aphids, foliage aphids, budwords, leaf cutters, and other insect predators that harm outdoor marijuana plants.

Also consider totally all-natural organic pest control instead that you can concoct yourself, as in this video…

Feed for Bigger Buds, Resins, Roots,
Armoring, Stress Relief

It might be difficult to do if you’re guerilla growing, but if you can get these marijuana hydroponics nutrients formulas to your plants, they’ll do better.

I use Rhino Skin because it contains potassium silicate that protects plants from the inside and out so they’re better armored against heat, drought, stress, insects, wind.

I use B-52 vitamin booster because B vitamins relieve stress, boost plant vitality, and help promote the metabolic pathways that create cannabinoids.

I use Bud Ignitor because it promotes early flowering and more budding sites.

I use Bud Candy because it feeds carbos to the plants and to beneficial microbes in the root zone.

I like Voodoo Juice, Piranha, and Tarantula beneficial microbes that help roots resist drought and increase size into bloom phase.

I like SensiZym because it breaks down organic matter in the root zone so your plants have more nutrition for uptake.

Check Your Security

If you’re guerilla growing you can look for footprints, worn foliage trails, manmade debris, tire tracks, cigarette butts and other signs that somebody may have discovered your grow op.

Also check for non-human invaders such as insects, deer, bunnies, mold, powdery mildew.

You may want to install motion-activated infrared cameras to confirm or dismiss your suspicions.

If you find non-human invaders, you have to spray and/or systemic feed the appropriate interdiction to your plants if the invaders are insects, molds, or mildews.

If the invaders are animals, consider fencing. But please don’t poison, trap, or shoot animals. The woods are their home.

Remove Insects & Give Your Leaves a Shower

Sometimes I’ve camped a few days near my outdoor garden.

I spent part of the time hand removing insects from my plants, raking the soil underneath the plants, applying nutrients as I outlined above.

This is most useful when buds have set. You don’t want to spray much of anything other than pure water on buds.

I’ve spent many an hour doing the fun outdoor marijuana growing task of picking caterpillars off my buds and squashing them.

When the plants are dry and dusty and it hasn’t rained for a while, if I have access to clean water I spray the top and underside of their leaves to give them a break from the heat and help them breathe.

Outdoor marijuana growing is a very hard job if you’re doing it guerilla in a remote location.

It’s a moderately hard job if you’re doing it in controlled space such as your back yard.

It’s a relatively easy job if you’re doing it in a greenhouse in a controlled space.

No matter which of these three scenarios are yours, the outdoor marijuana growing tips we just gave you will set you up for larger yields of more potent buds.