What's up my fellow Cannabis Lovers and Enthusiasts!? It's time to welcome you all back to another edition of:

If I'm going to be honest with you, I fell behind a little bit in my writing this past week and ended up publishing the last edition of "After Hours" about a week late! A lot of factors contributed to this delay, and while I had the majority of the update written, I fell behind during my editing and adding in all the pictures!

****Edit, I haven't been on Hive in so long, I didnt even realize I left this unpublished!!****

I have also taken on a new project recently, so that is a contributing factor as well, but it is a project that I am very proud to be a part of, and one that I do think that some of my fellow gamers out there will enjoy! I hope that some of you will check that out when the time comes! 😊

But, I do pride myself on providing you all with the most current updates possible! My main reasoning for this is so that you all get the opportunity to watch our plants grow, as they grow! But, this also comes with a selfish reasoning attached to it as well, because another hope of mine is that if something is wrong with the plants and one of you more experienced growers give me advice, I would have the ability to address the issue immediately rather than try to play catch up a week or two down the road!

With all of that being said, as we are officially nearing the flowering stage of our first outdoor grow, I think things have definitely started to slow down as far as a weekly basis is concerned! So, in order to provide you all with the most up-to-date information about our plants, I feel like it may be time to change up our updates a little bit as we move forward!

But before I get too far ahead of myself, let's go ahead and dig into our review from the last edition of "After Hours"!

Highlights from Week 9!

Well, even though things have started to slow down tremendously, we still had quite a lot that happened last week!

First off, while Junior and I were outside tending to our backyard garden, I decided to sneak away and check out our "After Hours" garden, and while I was inspecting another plant, Junior ended up giving Plant 1 a "high five"!

He definitely bent up the stalk pretty good and at first I didn't see any sign of a break. The next day, however, I noticed that the top had broken about halfway through, leaving it hunched over, but thankfully still attached!

I also noticed that the next set of branches had some slight breaking underneath as well, but only on the large fan leaves! Hopefully this doesn't hurt the plant too much, but I'll continue to monitor it to see how this one reacts!

Right after the "high five" incident, I (with the help of @ericwilson and @futuremind) discovered that Plant 3 was in fact a male! So, I immediately pulled it from the bucket and threw it away in the trash, trying to be careful not to shake it too hard around the other plants!

The very next day, I started to see the first signs of white pistils on Plant 4, which are an indicator of a female plant! I can't even begin to express how happy I was, but I decided that I needed to wait a few more days before actually getting my hopes up! Then a few days later, there was no questioning that it was, in fact, our first female plant! 💚

While it only sprinkled some rain at the beginning of the week, and even though I did start degassing some tap water, I never actually watered the plants at all during week 9! They did hit somewhat of a "super droop" during the middle of the week, but they rebounded very well, and we're looking outstanding when we left off!

I guess that it didn't go too slow after all, now did it? But, with that, let's take a look at what I was able to take away from the grow last week, and what I can apply to our future grows!

Recent Learning Experiences!

Well, after Junior "high fived" Plant 1, I got to experience first hand what some call "super cropping" or "High Stress Training"! Apparently, in order to perform a super cropping or "HST" on your plant, you must break the outer membrane without breaking the piece off completely. This actually allows the plant to grow stronger in that spot as it heals, which will cause the plant to become sturdier altogether!

Although I didn't actually top my plants, I do understand the importance of the technique! Not only could you use this clipping as a clone, but once you cut off the top, the next set of branches will take its place. This effectively produces two top buds instead of just the original one!

While I am still afraid to potentially hurt the plants by trimming the leaves wrong, I do want to try to top the plants on my next grow and see how this method works for myself!

Other than that, I think I have started to learn one of the most important lessons in cannabis growing that you can ever learn; how to tell a male plant from a female plant in the early flowering stages before the males have a chance to pollinate the females!

This is largely due to our friends in the WeedCash Community, who graciously helped me understand first hand what male pre-flowers look like! What also helped, was Plant 4 started showing a white hair-like pistil, which is a definitive sign of a female pre-flower!

But, now that I've shared what I learned this week, I guess that means it's time to move on to the real reason you stopped by!

The Daily Breakdown for Week 10!

We'll pick back up on Monday, July the 25th, which we actually got a slight sprinkling of rain, but it definitely wasn't worth claiming as a drink for the plants!

The substrate has been fairly dry the past few days, as I've tried to wait between waterings more to see how it goes! I'm not trying to starve them by any means, but I just want to make sure I'm not overwatering them this far into the grow!

However, I did decide to use 1 gallon of the degassed tap water between all four of the plants! I tried to use an equal amount in all of them, so I'm not exactly sure how much I used in each, but the substrate immediately soaked it up! :)

Of course, on the night that I chose to water, we had a good rain storm come through in the middle of the night that carried on into the early morning hours of Tuesday, July the 26th! I checked them before I went to work to make sure everything was ok, because they are partially sitting under a half dead tree, so I was kind of worried about branches falling on them, but all was well!

It continued to rain steadily throughout the day, but it wasn't a downpour by any means! It had cleared up by the time I got home, but only long enough for me to take a few more pictures before it started up again!

Unfortunately, I also discovered that Plant 6 is a male, which means that we are officially down to a total of three plants! This is really disheartening, and not just because he turned out to be a male plant, but this plant was the biggest and best looking plant out of all of them in my honest opinion!

Since it had started to rain before I got the chance, I officially pulled Plant 6 and disposed of it on Wednesday, July the 27th! After finding two males so far, I also set aside Plant 2 as a precaution, because I haven't noticed any pistils and the nodes do seem to look like a male pre-flower.

Both Plant 1 and Plant 4 are both doing very well, and the pistils on Plant 4 are exploding! The pistils on Plant 1 are difficult to capture, even using the macro setting, but I can definitely see that they are present during a visual inspection! Hopefully they will start to become more visible within the next few days!

Moving right along into Thursday, July the 28th, I didn't make it outside to really do much with the plants, or much of anything at all, because Murty and I were having some issues. But, all I know is I have to keep my head up and keep moving in a positive direction. My updates may not be as lively, but I'll still be posting as often as I can!

Things were pretty tense around the "Alcove" on Friday, July the 29th, especially since we had Junior's birthday party that evening. I got off pretty early, and arrived home a little after lunch and I immediately rotated the pots and tried to tuck them back against the fence to prepare for our guests that evening.

As of now, I'll be moving my things on Sunday, and thankfully I kept them in buckets and have been getting rid of the males. I really hope that they will survive the transition to the new location.

The pistils on Plant 4 are looking amazing, and I'm definitely seeing more of them all along the branches of the plant! Plant 1 is doing well, and I'm able to see the pistils on the top pretty easily now! I'm wondering if I can trim back the larger fan leaves? Or have I waited too long?

Plant 3 still shows no signs of being a female, but I'll keep it separate for the time being and continue to monitor it!

I did water the two known females today, just because I wanted them to have a good healthy drink before our move on Sunday, and I would like them to be as comfortable as possible during the trip! I used a gallon of the "degassed" tap water, splitting it a as evenly as possible between the two plants!

I started getting a little nervous about the countdown on Saturday, July the 30th. Although, Murty worked for most of the day, so at least it wasn't as tense as it was yesterday! I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep my babies outside or not, so hopefully I can save up some extra cash soon so I can get a better light for the flowering stage!

All three of the plants are looking good, but I do suspect that Plant 2 is a male, so I probably won't be taking it with me during the move. I will be keeping the soil and buckets, but I don't know how many mature plants I can house at my new location!

I do currently have a smaller light that I was planning to start the germination process and into the vegetative state for an indoor grow, thanks to a very generous member of the WeedCash Network, who would like to remain anonymous, but I truly thank you and appreciate your support on my journey! However, I don't think it will be anywhere near what they need for flowering, so I'll definitely have to figure something out soon!

Fortunately, my personal countdown ended for the time being on Sunday, July the 31st. Murty and I have decided that we are going to attempt to make the living situation work for Junior's sake. I'm not sure how our relationship is going to be affected by this, but we have to keep strong for our son!

After watering them yesterday, I checked them in the early morning around 7:30 and rotated their planters! I have Plant 2 separated, and it is still showing signs of being a male unfortunately.

Plant 4 has really increased in size over the last few days. I swear it's grown almost 6 inches overnight! It's getting huge!! The top bud on Plant 1 looks to be healing pretty good, and the branches around it have shot up too! Definitely not as tall as Plant 4, but she is still looking better every day!!

Now that we have gotten this far into our first grow, I do want to attempt to trim and clone one of our plants, but with it getting later into the season, I know it's too late to start another outdoor grow.

So, in order to keep growing, we've recently started planning out and working on a makeshift closet setup to be able to complete a grow this winter! This should allow us to attempt to clone our "Lemon Skittles" females, and see how that process goes! 😊

But, as I mentioned at the beginning of the update, I feel like our "After Hours" updates may change a little as we move forward in our grow, although I can assure you there will be plenty more to come!

I hope you all have a great week, and don't forget to tune-in tomorrow for the final installment of our very first "After Hours" outdoor grow! Stay Trippy, My Little Hippies! ✌️💚