Do's & Don’ts of flowering: Don’ts
Growing outdoors for beginners. So, what are things your plants really aren’t happy with in the flowering phase? In this topic we’ll discuss things you’d better not do while your plants are in bloom.
How not to help your plants
Lots of moving. You can’t completely eliminate moving your plants, especially if you want to black them out. After all, you’ll have to move them to a shed or blackout tent. Moving your plants does have some risks, however. Branches will get heavy and bend as flowering continues. The jostling during movement can cause top heavy branches to bend too far and break. Check if there are branches that need support before moving the plants. Another thing to keep in mind: plants point themselves at the light. Each time you put them in a different location, they need to turn to the light again. This stresses the plants, so don’t move them too often.
Trimming. This is a real don’t. Do not remove large amounts of foliage. It’s fine to remove some old leaves that are going yellow or brown. These are lower down on the plant and probably don’t catch much light anyway. Theoretically, you can also remove some branches with healthy foliage, in order to spare more energy for flowering. But trimming creates small wounds, right at a moment when the plant is vulnerable to infections. The plant needs to heal the wounds and that takes energy.
Too much water. Water is good, but you can overwater your plants! Roots take up water, but they also need oxygen. If you give so much water, that the soil can’t drain it, the water ends up filling air pockets for too long. This means oxygen won’t be renewed in the ground for too long and your plants will suffer.
Overfertilization. As your plant matures during flowering, parts of it will change colour. This yellowing is not necessarily due to nutrient deficiencies. Adding more nutrients will only overfertilize the plant.
Irregular light. Once your plants are flowering, it’s important to maintain a rhythm of light. This is true for growers who black their plants out and for those who use the natural day-night cycle.
When you’re blacking out, you decide the rhythm. To simulate nature, you increase the dark hours until you don’t need to black out the plants anymore. It’s important to maintain the rhythm. Don’t cover your plants an hour later compared to previous nights and don't interrupt the blackout during the night.
If you’re growing on the natural day-night cycle without blacking out, you need to prevent your plants from getting too much atmospheric light. Things like bright lights in your neighbour’s yard or the lights in your own home shining into your garden. Atmospheric light can interrupt the flowering rhythm and will have a bad effect on your harvest.