Hands Free outdoor grows!

Well its the Holidaze again and in the sprit, I thought about giving some info on basically hands free outdoor techniques. Assuming you have a secure location, you won't want to compromise it by making multiple trails over and over. But outdoors you need to water as the summer Sun is seriously hot!
1. Use a container large enough! The general rule is one gallon of container for each foot of growth. I like 10-20 gallon trash bags, as they are easy to carry, cheap, and conform to any ground surface easily. Poke some holes for drainage and they're set to go.
2. Soil mixes vary widely and I won't add them in here for brevity. But do include a water polymer to conserve usage and watering frequency. I like a ratio of 1/4-1/3rd polymer to the mix.
3.Nelson Easy Set timers will save your azz on hot days as they will water any cycle you set; days from 1,2,3,4,7 or daily, the length or duration of each, from 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 1hr,1.5, 2, 2.5, or 3 and at the time of day to boot!
3 Reservoirs; these can be anything that will hold a substantial enough water to lessen the trips and re-fills necessry during the season. I have found that a 32 gallon trash will supply a dozen medium sized plants for 10-14 days depending on temperature. I will use 10-32 gallon cans per site to lessen trips and re-filling freq. this is for 20 plants from May til Oct with two re-fills.
4. Check your waters ph/ppm as the season progresses as the levels change in it you will need to adjust accordingly.
5. You have a choice of going with organic or chems as nutes go. If you use organics remember to change the veg to bloom at the right time as they need time to break down, chems will need a flush to clear veg out too.
6. If you don't have a water source nearby you may wish to reconsider the site or plan ahead and put tarps out to channel water into your rez. Water weighs in at aprox. 9.5 lbs per gallonI use a Honda WX10 gas pump to go 120'uphillper loc. The pump is noisy so you must consider this in your situation. RV pumps are electric and are very quiet too. but won't pump as quickly.
7. This system uses 1/2 line for delivery and 1/8-1/4" spaghetti line two to each plant in case of a clogged one. There are flow controls from adjustable drippers to equal the line pressures. These come in handy as some strains will require more or less water.
8. Adding a ball joint in the start can be helpful if any cleaning or battery changes require it. The timers use two "c" battaries and last just about a full season but changing sooner is rec :friends: recommened! :friends:
You will need to have a control plant which can be a different one say a tomatoe plant to determine the flow adjustment times. As the plants grow and use more water you will need to add time to the duration and with heat the frequency too! Put this in the same Sun hours as your remote location so your "home " tester will aide in adjustments.
9. A good thing to remember is bring in some gloves and an apron to prevent odors from giving others clues to your real intentions! Plan for emergency exits and have a drying area or garage set up for the years end.
10. Critters will love your plants too, so buy Liquid Fence it will keep deer & rabbits at bay. I use fishing line strung to tin cans to scare em too. Human hair, urination, Irish Spring soap will work too but not as effectively.For pest control neem oil and other Safers products are adequite.
10 I can go for 5 weeks without a visit and then only to adjust the flow controls. If you need to "see" them sooner try finding an opposing hill and use binoculars instead of actually going in.
11. Camoflage is a required addition to prevent choppers and ground rippers from spotting them easily. Check the surrounding vegetation for purchasing simular berries to disguise your plants, also training them to grow vertically will help keep their profile down.I use hollowed out "holes " I cut into surounding vegetation and tie the branches to them.These berries can be had from craft stores and the like.
12. Try to plant different strains so harvesting isn't a bigger job, this way they all won't finish at the same time.
13. When the end of the season approaches you will be astonished at the size and potency of your minimal labor crop! Pounds not ounces!:jawdrop: so I'll be seeing ya for now! Happy New Year!!! Badmf!

nice post badmf

Very cool post bro. Thanks for the info.

Pictures? Can you tell us more about the setup, and locations. where is water pumped from? how long does it take you to fill all the res?

No pix please! Just kiddin' I lost the camera in the wild, hope I'll stumble up on it again but until then just descriptions. I locate the rezs uphill a few feet from the first plant and camoed them over, the line continues downhill slightly from there. Each plant has two spaghetti lines going to it and plants are 12 feet apart. This is a hill facing Southwest to get the best Sunlight. This is in SoCal, so no rain is expected after Springtime. There is a seasonal stream which is supplemented from lawn runoff several miles away. The small trickle adds up to a really nice reservoir of water. Some pools are 5 feet deep and in SoCal thats a miracle! The Honda pump sounds like a grass blower and since there are gardeners in the distance (2-3 miles it blends in) The pump will fill a 32 gallon can in less than 5 minutes 120 feet uphill. I interconnect ten 32 g. cans with grommets and 1/2" line pvc glued to prevent leaks. Also the cans handles help with securing rope to stakes to prevent tipping. The total 10 cans take 50 + minutes to fill and I have calculated the average use for the season based on last years temps. If one were to start in March the need to re-fill is estimated at late June to early July, since growth and heat has increased, the next is September, dates are flexible . The need to visit and train the branches and camo are included in the resetting of the timers flow and frequency. The real issue was how many plants can a 320 gallon rez system support full season, this is still unknown. But if an extra 5-10 plants were added it will increase the re-filling and increase the risk.

great, thanks. what strains you growing? how are the yields? are you in buckets or in the ground? what prep do you do for the plants before they arrive?

Strains are many, but I have WW, Shish, Sensi Star always. Yeilds were satisfactory but the ones in this location were only there from July til Oct. With some thick strains mold can be a problem so use Serenade to prevent its growth when the seasons end comes. I was using 3 gallon and 5 gallon pots, now it will be 15 and 20 gallon trash bags. A lot more work but worth it in the end. I have some decent soils nearby and incorperate them into the mix with vermiculite/perlite, compost, worm castings, lime, green sand and polymers. the ratios are not fixed as the soils composition changes in each location. In some I will add organics and the others chemos. With grow bags the only prep necessary is to camo the rez, lines and support tools and start a compost pile, which I did October 12th,04 I looked at using the ground but two reasons stopped me, the soil is hard as stone on the hillside and large plants competiting for water nutes etc. Also if necessary I can move them. I start the clones and once rooted transfer to soil 3 gallon pots under 1000mh/hps lights, they root well and then when the time comes have a good root system established, they are then removed and loose soil shaken off and wrapped in newspaper cones and transported to the wet grow bags and Watch out Jack more Beanstalks are comin'! Proposed strains ; Chronic, Sweet-tooth, BB xWRhino, BGum, Mr Nice, the Hog, Durban Poison, Romulan x ubc Chemo, Uno, Bluebird and my own strains and crosses. so obviously something will stand out and dominate, we'll see which ones by spring!

Since Santas bringin' me a new digi-cam! I will update this with pix! A pix worth a 1000 words after all!

some great info there badmf , thanks mate ... oh have you tried 12 volt pumps , i use one where i go , solar panel and battery and bobs your uncle .. i cant believe how good those little things are .. nice and quite too , cant hear it once your a few metres away ...

reminds me when I first started growing outdoors. I was about 14 and would just dig a hole fill w/ soil and let the plant grow never adding any nutes or anything.My success rate was not good but Sometimes I would get a nice suprise when I went back around harvest time

Nice Post BMF

Well now I have waited for the deluge of rain to subside and put out 30 shish that were in bloom on the balcony for two + weeks. The stream was still goin' strong even though it hasn't rained in a several days! These plants are 2 1/2 feet tall and should finish in Feb. some time late. There is polymer in the pots and some bloom nutes at 1300ppm so its due to rain agin in a week or so we'll see if i need to water in between time!

hey badmf u prob. start ur grow earlier than on the east coast but do u or anybody else know when a good time to start outdoors over here is.

Get a Farmers Almanac for your frost dates. Also check out growers in your area as it can differ greatly with different latitudes.

Crazy stuff Badmf. I gotta see a pic of your od setup. I just bucket the water from a stream or a lake usually never hauled out resevoirs with pumps before. Let me know what honda pump your using. Using a rope to pull the plant to a perticular side helps open up light and makes them very big aswell. Eddy Lepp tip. Good Luck and don't get ripped Jubei

The only thing I do Is stick the seeds in the floor. And water every other day. Maybe add plant food every other week

Perhaps you are trying to be funny, well you aren't! And you wouldn't be dropping some meaningless posts to up your total now would you? This is a community of caring individuals with common interests, sharing knowledge and experiences, offering advice where needed and getting some when asked. Do yourself a favor and consider visiting a different site.

Great info brother.............Be on the lookout for my upcomming So Cal 2005 outdoor festivities

Good info badmf. I like the idea of haveing a water reservoir, but in my area it would stick out like a sore thumb. So i just try to plant as near a water source as possible. I've always panted my plants straight in the ground. Do you think useing pots works better? I've yet to use pots, or bags outside, because it's harder for me to blend/hide every thing.

Romulan x ubc Chemo sounds interesting. Where did you get it?

vs_cliqua_x3: If you don't like long posts don't read them, kinda simple. Don't post about it.

Pots will use water up much quicker, so soil is the better option there. When you are in a relatively flat area concealment is difficult. Some growers have resorted to diguising the cans as tree stumps with thorn bushes surrounding them. I don't know if this will help you but there it is. The Rom x UBC chemo is from Canada through Emery years ago, origin from Federation Seeds.

Sharp_Pain said:

Great info brother.............Be on the lookout for my upcomming So Cal 2005 outdoor festivities

Click to expand...

They're gonna be a ton of fun!!

no pun intended....okay well i lied.

We'll mix up this thread with our own and make the comprehensive outdoor growers bible from how to mix your soil to how to prep transfer and maintain your plants...