Rain Coming!

TIP: Roots often grow through the bottom of cloth pots and through drainage holes in the bottom of other containers. If moving your plants is part of your grow strategy, make sure to move them every few weeks throughout the season. Root growth can quickly anchor your plants in place.

What’s to be done when moving a plant isn’t an option?

Some folks will put pop-up tents over their grow. These block a bunch of sunlight, and also blow away if they aren’t properly anchored. Hard pass for me.

Better is to construct a canopy of some sort with greenhouse plastic or clear panels as the roof. Done properly, this will allow for more sunlight transmission and hopefully won’t blow away… Probably consider digging post holes when constructing this kind of canopy. This approach strikes me as overkill.

Why are we putting a canopy over the plant to begin with? Well, we want to keep our plant dry… because mold. I think I disagree with the idea that we need to keep our plants from being rained on. Bear with me here.

I was mentioning the whirlwind of social media around impending storms to my girlfriend, about how we are scrambling to protect our plants from mother nature's onslaught. "Don't plants LIKE getting rained on?", their response a worthy question and discussion point.

Something happens when it rains outside, which is actually the whole reason it’s raining. The humidity spikes. This humidity is what causes mold spores to germinate, and a canopy will not keep that humidity down.

Raindrops falling on a plant actually wash some mold spores off of the plant surfaces. If it’s raining anyway, and the conditions are ripe to grow mold due to the increased humidity, having some rain drops wash some spores away is a net win in my opinion.

But the raindrops do more. Everything that lives on our earth exists because of water. The microbiome that lives on the plant’s surface begins reproducing rapidly as the rain falls. This includes beneficial bacteria and fungi that help our plants ward off bud rot and powdery mildew. These beneficials synthesize anti-fungal compounds and outcompete damaging molds on the plant surface.

The raindrops enliven the biology at the soil surface as well. Organic processes require water and make nutrients available to the plant’s roots, so while a plant gets a good drink it also gets more of the nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, etc… that she needs to grow strong.

TIP: Maximize the opportunity the coming rain presents with a top dress of compost, earthworm castings, or your favorite dry amendments.

Wind and rain go together like tired and platitude. The best thing you can do is prepare for the wind, in my opinion.
As the rain falls, wet flower quickly becomes heavy and will bend branches down. Weaker branches may break, which represents an early harvest. If you are on the fence as to whether to harvest early in anticipation of the rain, maybe wait it out. You’ll possibly end up with a branch or few that come down of their own accord. Don’t throw the baby out with the rainwater by harvesting a whole plant too early.

Most effective as far as a rain preparation strategy, in my experience, is trellising. I use thick twine, which holds up for the whole season (the thin shit breaks after being outside for a bit). When harvesting, twine can simply be cut away and tossed in the compost. Focus on supporting heavy flower sites so that the weight of rainwater combined with the wind doesn’t cause them to snap off. If you like to micromanage, plan to shake excess moisture from your colas after the rain has passed, to help them dry out a little quicker. Bonus points if you install some kind of air movement device to help wet flower sites dry out quicker, but remember that electricity and water are a spicy combination!

Then, sit back and watch as the rain falls. Leaves and branches will droop, a happy plant getting a really good drink and a shower. When the clouds clear, watch closely and you might see the happiest garden you’ve seen all season.

Every season, without fail, it seems we get about midway through the flower cycle and the weather takes a turn. Hurricane season pretty much assures that our garden will get a good drink some time in September.

Sound the alarms!

Many growers will get their precious cannabis plants into shelter to weather the storms. If you are growing properly large plants, or have your garden in the ground, this isn’t an option. I have found that containers larger than about 25 gallons can quickly become unmanageable if I’m moving them solo.