managainstcloud
Member
Hey Everybody,
I wanted to share my basic plans for an organic outdoor grow. This is my first real grow. I attempted an indoor a few years back and even made a cool stealth box but had to abandon just when they were going into flower.
This is going to be a very modest 4-plant garden, purely for personal use, and I hope to grow four different strains. The strains I already have seeds for are: Cocoa Kush, Whitaker Blues, and The Truth (Maui x Amherst Skunk x Chem Dawg). I'm still deciding on a fourth, but I'm leaning toward C99, which you good ICMAG folks have been educating me on over in this thread.
My hope is just to end up with some good herb for myself and my friends. I'm not super worried about potency, flavor, or even yield. Those are all awesome things, but my primary concern is always the effect. I mentioned this in the other thread, but I was recently in Costa Rica and I bought a bag of dry, brown weed that tasted like dirt, but it ended up being one of the best highs I've ever had - way, way better than the vast majority of the top-grade medicinal herb I've been plunking down $50-$60 for in LA. (Even $70 once. What an idiot.) This is what got me thinking something was wrong with this picture and maybe I should try to become self-sufficient cannabis farmer/consumer.
So, anyway, here's a mockup of the layout:
The space is pretty much exactly 4m across by almost 2m deep, so this works out well to allow 1 square meter per plant. As you can see, I intend to hide my plants with a few other plants. I'm a bit of a salsa fiend, so I'm going to try to grow as many ingredients as I can for super fresh homemade salsa - primarily tomatoes, of course, but also cilantro, serrano chiles, maybe even onions though I've never attempted them before.
The back of the garden is actually up against a fairly high/steep hill, so while that's also good for camoflauge, one foreseeable problem is that these plants may only get about 6+ hours of direct sunlight everyday, from high noonish until sundown. That said, there is a lot of indirect sunlight and it's a pretty damn hot Southern California sun. Last year I grew tomatoes in an even shadier spot and it was so hot I barely kept them alive.
Because I have 10 of each seed, my plan is to grow 3 of each plant in hopes of landing at least one mother of each. My plan is to grow them in pots until I can determine sex, keep the best looking mothers of each and plant them in the ground per my layout above.
I've already germinated several seeds and have some babies going. I started by germinating 3 beans each - CK, WB and Truth.
All three of the CK seeds popped and I planted each of them in a small pot - so far they seem like pretty healthy babies! One of them is inexplicably growing much faster than the others.
One WB seed didn't pop, but I planted the other two. Unfortunately, I came home and found one of the WB sprouts laying on top of the soil in the pot. My only assumption is that a bird might have seen it popping out of the soil, thought it was a worm and yanked it out. Stupid bird. So, for WB I've got one baby and I'm currently germinating two more seeds.
All 3 Truth seeds germinated as well, but i let them grow a little too long in the paper towel and i broke one of them when I planted it. Shit. I've already germinated another seed which I found popped a few hours ago, so I'll most likely plant that tomorrow. The two babies I did plant seem to be doing well.
Insects are definitely going to be an issue. I've already found small green aphids and something took a nice bite out of one of my CK leaves. Not sure what to do about this, if anything. Seems like it's going to be pretty unavoidable outdoors, especially if I grow tomatoes, but maybe there is some way to keep them at bay?
I'm making my own simple soil mix based on a bunch of reading I've done in these forums, as well as some impulse buys. Here's what I have so far. I was considering adding another bag of sphagnum moss. Any other recommendations? I haven't mixed it together yet, so if you see any red flags please let me know!
2 x Fox Farm Organic Planting Mix (1 cubic foot each)
1 x Royal Gold Tupur (2 Cubic feet)
1 x Black Gold Perlite - 8 qts
Plus, I think I'll mix in a cubic foot of the existing natural soil.
As for Nutrients, as I mentioned I want to be completely organic if at all possible and keep fertilizers and nutrients to a minimum. For now my plan is to use only these:
- Happy Frog All Purpose (add to initial soil mix and add according to schedule thereafter.)
- Humbolt Grow Natural (got this when I found out through these forums that Fox Farms Grow Big was not Organic. This was surprising to me. Obviously it's possible to make organic grow nutrients, why aren't they doing it?)
- Fox Farms Big Bloom (since I switched to the Humboldt Grow, I'm now wondering if I should also switch to Humboldt Bloom Natural for consistency? I have no idea.)
Although these are organic nutes I still plan to use them sparingly. I read a DJ Short article where he said he uses half of the suggested amount. Since two of my strains come from his world, I figured I'd follow his lead on this.
So that's where I'm at! Still at least a month until I plant in the ground most likely, I'll just be letting them grow in the meantime. I think I messed up and put the seeds in too small of starter pots, so I will probably end up transplanting into larger pots in a few weeks. Hate to do the double transplant, I just wasn't thinking. Should be okay though, I hope.
Alright, thanks a lot for reading and please let me know if you have any suggestions!
I realize this is a very minor garden so it might not be worthy of a ton of attention, but even though it's small I'm super motivated to do as good a job as I possibly can and grow as high quality of herb as in these circumstances. That's why I ended up here! And all of your help is already super appreciated.
Thanks again!
I wanted to share my basic plans for an organic outdoor grow. This is my first real grow. I attempted an indoor a few years back and even made a cool stealth box but had to abandon just when they were going into flower.
This is going to be a very modest 4-plant garden, purely for personal use, and I hope to grow four different strains. The strains I already have seeds for are: Cocoa Kush, Whitaker Blues, and The Truth (Maui x Amherst Skunk x Chem Dawg). I'm still deciding on a fourth, but I'm leaning toward C99, which you good ICMAG folks have been educating me on over in this thread.
My hope is just to end up with some good herb for myself and my friends. I'm not super worried about potency, flavor, or even yield. Those are all awesome things, but my primary concern is always the effect. I mentioned this in the other thread, but I was recently in Costa Rica and I bought a bag of dry, brown weed that tasted like dirt, but it ended up being one of the best highs I've ever had - way, way better than the vast majority of the top-grade medicinal herb I've been plunking down $50-$60 for in LA. (Even $70 once. What an idiot.) This is what got me thinking something was wrong with this picture and maybe I should try to become self-sufficient cannabis farmer/consumer.
So, anyway, here's a mockup of the layout:
The space is pretty much exactly 4m across by almost 2m deep, so this works out well to allow 1 square meter per plant. As you can see, I intend to hide my plants with a few other plants. I'm a bit of a salsa fiend, so I'm going to try to grow as many ingredients as I can for super fresh homemade salsa - primarily tomatoes, of course, but also cilantro, serrano chiles, maybe even onions though I've never attempted them before.
The back of the garden is actually up against a fairly high/steep hill, so while that's also good for camoflauge, one foreseeable problem is that these plants may only get about 6+ hours of direct sunlight everyday, from high noonish until sundown. That said, there is a lot of indirect sunlight and it's a pretty damn hot Southern California sun. Last year I grew tomatoes in an even shadier spot and it was so hot I barely kept them alive.
Because I have 10 of each seed, my plan is to grow 3 of each plant in hopes of landing at least one mother of each. My plan is to grow them in pots until I can determine sex, keep the best looking mothers of each and plant them in the ground per my layout above.
I've already germinated several seeds and have some babies going. I started by germinating 3 beans each - CK, WB and Truth.
All three of the CK seeds popped and I planted each of them in a small pot - so far they seem like pretty healthy babies! One of them is inexplicably growing much faster than the others.
One WB seed didn't pop, but I planted the other two. Unfortunately, I came home and found one of the WB sprouts laying on top of the soil in the pot. My only assumption is that a bird might have seen it popping out of the soil, thought it was a worm and yanked it out. Stupid bird. So, for WB I've got one baby and I'm currently germinating two more seeds.
All 3 Truth seeds germinated as well, but i let them grow a little too long in the paper towel and i broke one of them when I planted it. Shit. I've already germinated another seed which I found popped a few hours ago, so I'll most likely plant that tomorrow. The two babies I did plant seem to be doing well.
Insects are definitely going to be an issue. I've already found small green aphids and something took a nice bite out of one of my CK leaves. Not sure what to do about this, if anything. Seems like it's going to be pretty unavoidable outdoors, especially if I grow tomatoes, but maybe there is some way to keep them at bay?
I'm making my own simple soil mix based on a bunch of reading I've done in these forums, as well as some impulse buys. Here's what I have so far. I was considering adding another bag of sphagnum moss. Any other recommendations? I haven't mixed it together yet, so if you see any red flags please let me know!
2 x Fox Farm Organic Planting Mix (1 cubic foot each)
1 x Royal Gold Tupur (2 Cubic feet)
1 x Black Gold Perlite - 8 qts
Plus, I think I'll mix in a cubic foot of the existing natural soil.
As for Nutrients, as I mentioned I want to be completely organic if at all possible and keep fertilizers and nutrients to a minimum. For now my plan is to use only these:
- Happy Frog All Purpose (add to initial soil mix and add according to schedule thereafter.)
- Humbolt Grow Natural (got this when I found out through these forums that Fox Farms Grow Big was not Organic. This was surprising to me. Obviously it's possible to make organic grow nutrients, why aren't they doing it?)
- Fox Farms Big Bloom (since I switched to the Humboldt Grow, I'm now wondering if I should also switch to Humboldt Bloom Natural for consistency? I have no idea.)
Although these are organic nutes I still plan to use them sparingly. I read a DJ Short article where he said he uses half of the suggested amount. Since two of my strains come from his world, I figured I'd follow his lead on this.
So that's where I'm at! Still at least a month until I plant in the ground most likely, I'll just be letting them grow in the meantime. I think I messed up and put the seeds in too small of starter pots, so I will probably end up transplanting into larger pots in a few weeks. Hate to do the double transplant, I just wasn't thinking. Should be okay though, I hope.
Alright, thanks a lot for reading and please let me know if you have any suggestions!
I realize this is a very minor garden so it might not be worthy of a ton of attention, but even though it's small I'm super motivated to do as good a job as I possibly can and grow as high quality of herb as in these circumstances. That's why I ended up here! And all of your help is already super appreciated.
Thanks again!
