Blue Gelato 41 Grow Report: Late Start, Monster Bush at Harvest

Hi everybody! I want to share with you my Blue Gelato 41 grow that I did last summer outdoors. I’m very proud of it and really impressed with the genetics.

Blue Gelato 41 grow is a reliable way to get more than a pound of top-shelf bud from a wide but not very tall multi-branch plant by the end of October. Barneys Farm Blue Gelato 41 is one of those strains that can take a lot of abuse from bad weather and grower’s mistakes and not skip a beat.

At least this was my experience.

Blue Gelato 41 Seeds Germinated in Late May

When I prepare for an outdoor season, I prefer to start my plants indoors and give them enough time to grow big and strong. But this time, my veg LED light went out and the weather was too cold for a long time to start my Blue Gelato 41 grow outside.

So it was only at the end of May that I germinated all my seeds. Blue Gelato 41 was among the most vigorous and came up within 24 hours. In the second week, it was robust enough to be transplanted to its final sunny spot near a south-facing wall. I dug out a hole in the ground and filled it with 50 gallons of a good airy soil mix amended with compost and a lot of perlite.

By the way, I didn’t even acclimate the plant before I put it outside because I was in a hurry. The weather was great, too. And anyway, Blue Gelato 41 strain is very hardy.

I gave the seedling just a couple of days to get used to its new home and topped it above the second node. My plan was to keep this Blue Gelato 41 grow as inconspicuous as possible.

Heavy Training and Generous Feeding of Blue Gelato 41

Although I used A LOT of nutrient-rich medium for my Blue Gelato 41, I decided to start feeding her early. So, in week 4, I gave her the first ration of General Hydroponics FloraMicro (chelated micronutrients), FoxFarm Grow Big (with its extra large dose of nitrogen), and also some FoxFarm Big Bloom (to prepare the plant’s chemistry for the coming flowering period). I would continue with the same feeding schedule in weeks 5 through 9.

In week 10 (which was the beginning of August), I thought it was close enough to the start of the flowering period, so I added some General Hydroponics FloraNova Bloom to the mix. This nutrient contains high amounts of phosphorus and potassium which are essential for budding. It also has quite a lot of magnesium and calcium to make the plant structure stronger. Just in case, I started to add another source of Cal and Mag— General Hydroponics CALiMAGic.

All through the vegetative stage—it practically took all summer—I was training my Blue Gelato 41 strain every week. And by training I mean not only bending and tying down the branches but regular topping, too. At first, I did this because I like to grow compact round bushes. By week 10, I realized that the late season start wouldn’t prevent me from getting a MONSTER of a plant come harvest. So I had to go on training to keep the size of my Blue Gelato 41 in check.

Stretching and Stacking Up of Blue Gelato 41 Grow

By mid August, the plant had shot out a lot of pistils, and the preflowering stretch began. It was too close to the start of the flowering stage to continue with the topping. So now when I needed to control the growth of a branch, I supercropped it.

I also performed a heavy lollipopping in weeks 12 and 13. Meaning I removed all the leaves and bud sites in the bottom part of the bush. I also cut off every minor branch which wouldn’t reach the top of the canopy. In my original Blue Gelato 41 grow journal I explained why I always lollipop my plants: because this promotes the growth where it really matters—on tops.

I marked the 13th week from seed as the first week of flowering. From this point in time—which was the beginning of September—it would take 9 weeks till harvest, and the first flowers were already dime-sized.

My Blue Gelato 41 was stretching like crazy. She formed huge towering branches, all covered with flowers that began to bunch up 2-3 weeks into flowering.

My Attempt to Spoil This Amazing Blue Gelato 41 Grow

If you were there with me when I was working on this Blue Gelato 41 diary, you’d have seen how mad I was with myself for a stupid rookie mistake I made in week 16. I was trying to protect my plant from possible issues of powdery mildew in late season. So I sprayed her with a baking soda water mix and made the solution too rich.

I was quick to make amends though. The very next morning when I saw pistils on several colas turn brown, I washed the whole bush with lots of water. Thankfully, this helped, and in the coming weeks new white and vibrant pistils emerged on all affected colas.

Around this time, I also changed my nutrient solution. I included two flowering formulas by Fox Farm:

• Tiger Bloom with its high phosphorus concentration,
• Beastie Bloomz with even more phosphorus as well as potassium.

These raised levels of P and K were meant to make the colas huge and dense, but sadly I overdid it and had to reduce the dose because I noticed some nutrient burn. I even did some flushing although the issue was very mild.

Blue Gelato 41 Diary Coming to an End

In early October, we had a couple of huge storms with heavy rain. That was when I regretted not having built any chicken wire cage for my Blue Gelato 41. The wind and rain roughed her up pretty bad.

After the first storm, I only had to splinter a few broken branches, but the second storm broke several nice branches clean off. This would affect the yield, of course, but I already did review Blue Gelato 41 as the most generous strain in my growing career and for a reason. The final haul indeed promised to be amazing.

Nevertheless, I secured the branches with wire rope and sticks. The colas grew 2 feet long by this time and were rapidly filling out. Some of them were as thick as my arm and very dense at the same time. The terpene production also increased tenfold in the second half of October, and the plant smelled strongly of fermented fruit and fuel.

In the 9th week of flowering, I finally stopped feeding her any nutrients and flushed with Flawless Finish because most of the trichomes were cloudy. Strangely, the buds kept swelling even then and also changed color, getting a lot of beautiful purple hues.

When I chopped my Barneys Farm Blue Gelato 41, her stem was soda can thick at the base, and I harvested 628g (almost 1.4 lb) from her multiple branches. The dried and cured product smelled like fruit, gas, but also cat piss and a little pine and produced a strong evening type of high dominated by the sense of relaxed happiness. It also gave me creative impulses and some mild euphoria.

Here’s how I would summarize my review: Blue Gelato 41 by Barney’s Farm surpassed all my expectations. She was huge, resistant, and very easy to grow. I would recommend this strain to anyone. Happy growing, folks!

Herbies Head Shop expressly refuses to support the use, production, or supply of illegal substances. For more details read our Legal Disclaimer.