Gr0wers, in depth, How to grow outdoors

After completing my first season I've learned allot about growing outdoors. And would like o share my knowledge and experience.

Plot security:

The beauty of outdoor growing is all you need is some woods or forest and a nice sunny, secure spot. The more sun the more buds you will get minimum of 3-4 hours of direct light. Being secure doesn’t need to be a 20-mile hike through thorn bushes. I have securely grown about 50yards form a main paved bike trail being only 20 yards from a chill spot for some local kids. They never even knew about it. As long as the plant looks like it belongs there you should be fine but keep it out of normal view from a path.

Try not to make a path to your spot and don’t break any vegetation. This way you know if someone or a big animal has gone through your area. Also so no one wanders around in the woods and follows your path to your plot.

If you have more then 2 plants its worth it to invest yourself a scouting camera to make sure you don’t have any visitors.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/prod...4125&path=0:4125:4128:4143:5178&xsell=2221659

I don’t have one yet but will be ordering 3 for my next seasons grow, I will have a few more plants then my previous 2 to say the least . I will be modifying the cameras with a delay on the rewind so it doesn’t rewind will about 5 min after it goes off. This will stop from the loud rewind from going off while a person is near and give it away. They will be positioned at the entrances of the plots to try and capture the face (hope there never is a face to capture though). I am considering having the flash turned on but have the flash bulb remotely mounted like way up in a tree or in a different tree with a buried wire that goes into the water so you cant trace it back to the camera if you see the bulb.

Watering:

I find watering a bitch and that’s only for 2 plants. First off don’t use 5 gal buckets for pots unless if you want to water every week witch can quickly destroy the no-path treading idea. If you just going the hard way with containers try to get large containers with a comfortable grip, an dnot to heavy when full. You may even want to put some thick grip tape on the grip like on a hockey stick because you will be lugging this thing allot. Buy some paint and paint it camo keep it simple and just do stripes of different wood colors and greens make sure is flat or satin paint. Hide the water containers well and close to your water source or on the way to the source.

If you don’t want to lug containers you can go the more expensive way like what I will do and buy spools of 1/2" tube and some drip lines from home depot then buy a 6v water pump and some 6v rechargeable batts. They are about 2"3"6" and can fit in your pocket. Run the 1/2 tube to the nearest water source with some filter material wrapped around the end to stop clogs and a weight on the end to hold in under the water.


Plants get thirsty and usually about 2/3 of the bucket is water after being dry enough to water so a 5 gal bucket will need about 3-3.5 gallons. The more vermiculite you have in the mix the more water you will need per gallon of mix.

Don’t underwater your pots just because you used up all the water and don’t want to make another water run. Haste makes waste.

In ground or pots:

Planting in pots will limit the root space so if you do plan to plant in pots take into account how big the plants will grow. Also take into account that the faster the pots dry out the more O2 gets to the roots the faster the plants grow so there is a benefit of small pots. I feel having the plants in pots for the first few weeks is good to get the plants to grow fast then transplant into the ground when watering becomes too frequent for safety (4-5 days).

Plant in the ground to lengthen times between watering and if you can’t because it in a wet soil area with a low water table either find another spot or use Rubbermaid’s above the soil. One of the best methods I’ve heard for growing in the ground is take Rubbermaid's and burry them with a good soil mix in them. Put about 2" of mulch on top to hold in moisture on the top layer. Leaves and transplanted moss work well and look natural. This setup gives you more control over the plants root conditions and doesn’t allow the roots to grow into plain native soil its always in your supersoil. Also you can dig up the plants and transport them with a friend if needed even if there 7’ monsters.

Properly done you will only have to feed the plants and mabey water if it hasnt rained. this can mean you may only haev to dennt teo the plants onec a month while in veg.
Composting outdoors:

Im not sure if im the first to think of this but im going to be building an outdoor compost near my plots using nearby leaves and vegetation cleared for my plots. This will supply me with a few trips worth of rich soil after some turning in fall and in the spring. The basics of composting is have about a 50/50 mix of green/brown material and try to have as many different types of plants to balance the nutes. The pile should be 3x3x3 minimum to keep up the heat witch speeds up the process. Layer it in alternating green brown layers at first to regulate the ratios. Turn the pile as often as possible. Keep the pile moist by watering it one a month or so. Once most of the pile is soil sift the material using 2x6s nailed in a square with ½” spacing steel screen nailed to the bottom.


Training, ScrOG, SOG, guerilla ect.. Grow methods

Training outdoors gives increased yields by evening out the growth across the plant and evening light distribution. Also by having more mid sized colas rather then one main and small lowers you decrease the chance of bud mold and decrease the loss if you have to pull a cola because of mold.

The basing principal of training is auxins or growth hormones go to the highest point, by making one part of the plant higher you increase the auxins that will go to it making it grow more.


Growing sideways:

So far the easiest method for me was growing a plant to 4’ in a pot then transplant at a 45 angle pointing north. This gave me no risk of breaking the stem and minimal training time all I did was tie 6 of the largest branches to grow out to fill out the sides.

LowSressTraining:

This has to be one of the easiest methods of increasing bud sites without hurting the plant in any way and your guaranteed extra bud sites. Also by doing this the overall plant height is significantly lowered witch increases safety. Growing many plants in a small plot planted close together could pull some amazing yields!

SOG:

Simple, put a bunch of indicia plants about 3-4 feet apart and grow a sea of big ass colas. You can either use it to do a short veg to increase safety and only grow 3’ plants about 2 feet apart or grow 6’ monsters and have cornfield of colas.

Same can be done with sativa strains but expect something more like a jungle of green.

Guerilla:

I consider guerilla growing making it look like the plant belongs there. You can still do training and it is recommended because it will break up the Christmas tree shape and lower height. While still increasing yields.

Training:

I trained one of my plants when it was 3’ and it was a bitch. I had to slowly step it down to a 90* angle then tied each branch to grow outwards because they were all growing straight up and crowding up.

Snapping the stem:

I accidentally did this it grew a nicely trained plant but it turned out male, my guess is it was because of the stress because my veg setup was almost optimal for females. Even if that stress didn’t turn it male and it was male to begin with I still don’t like damaging the plant like that. Threat them good and they will treat you good.

Toping, Fim:

Topping stresses the plant and fim doesn’t always work for the beginner. Also why get rid of a grow tip that you already have when there are 2 more grow tips waiting to go at each node.

ScrOG:

ScrOG outdoors has been done. It’s just as intensive as indoors but it pays off in yield/area just as much. ScrOG outdoors shouldn’t be done the same though your better off with a large screen like 4x6” squares with thick wires rather then chicken wire with small holes. The reason for this is you can have easy access to train the plant from the top. Also it allows you more time between training because once a shoot gets taller then the length of the box it gets harder and harder to get it back under the screen and you risk snapping the shoot. If your goring in Rubbermaid’s making a modular setup would be nice because you can tilt the setup after the flower stretch to be at more of a 90* angle with the sun increasing the effective area. But if you do this before the stretch the buds at the top will be longer, you will still benefit if you set the screen up at an angle over no screen. This is by far the easiest method of training if you’re going to spend your time and do the training because there are no strings to play with.

Veging indoors

Optimal veg conditions,

(Borrowed from an overgrow post)
The quantity of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed.
Humidity and moistness of the seedbed.
Level of temperatures.
Colour of the light used.
Length of daylight.
Stress, any form of stress, makes that more male individuals will originate from seed. Even the taking of cuttings from female plants may produce male or hermaphrodite cuttings.
To optimise the result, changes in one or more of the above-mentioned environmental factors for a certain period during growth, may be applied. During this time these environmental factors will deviate from the standard growing system for maximum harvest and quality, as described in nursery literature. The desired change(s) in the environmental factor(s) are started from the moment that the seedling has three pairs of real leaves (not counting the seed-lobes). This is the moment that male and/or female predisposition in florescence is being formed. After approximately two weeks the standard growing system can be reconverted to.
Of the 5 above-mentioned environmental factors the first three are the most practical:

1. Level of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed: A heightening of the standard level of nitrogen makes for more female plants originating from the seeds. A lowering of the nitrogen level shows more male plants. A heightening of the level of potassium tends to show more male plants, while a lowering of the potassium level shows more female plants. A combination of a higher nitrogen level for the period of a week or two and a lowering of the potassium level is recommended.
2. Humidity and moistness of the seedbed: a higher humidity makes for an increase in the number of female plants from seed, a lowering for an increase in male plants. The same is valid for the moistness of the seedbed.
3. Level of temperatures: lower temperatures make for a larger number of female plants, higher temperatures for more male plants.
4. Colour of light: more blue light makes for female plants from seed, more red light makes for more male plants.
5. Hours of daylight: few hours of daylight (e.g. 14 hours) makes for more female individuals, a long day (e.g. 18 hours) makes for more male plants.

All this can be done going as simple as a using daylight compact floros for veg (extremely blue) a cardboard box, small carbon filter, a fan, some seeds, soil, and pots.

I plan on using 2x20w compact floros in a 27”x14”x15” (hwl) filing cabinet with a carbon filter and a fan to blow on the plants to strengthen the stems and increase Co2. Also the same setup with 4 lights in a Rubbermaid and put 6 moms in it, but this will be used for holding the moms only. The smaller box will be used to veg 4 moms and then used to root 16 clones in solo cups. Then I will tape another cup on top to protect the plant while being transported in a backpack. Same will be done with moms only using pots larger. I did this last year and they were perfect when I pulled them out of the pack.

Growing from clone from known females is much more efficient in that you don’t have males that just waste a spot for a female to grow, risk getting seeds, waste water, and waste your time.

Bug control:

To stop invasion of thrisps and many other paricitic bugs buy ladybugs and mantis eggs. http://www.planetnatural.com/beneficialinsects1.html
The ladybugs are the only other insect that can live with the mantis because it emmits a smelly residue when attacked and the mantis gets turned off by that. They are cheap insurance (22.50 minimum for both) to stop an invasion that can wipe out your crop and you dont need to use any harmfull chemicals.

That’s all I can think of at the moment about Outdoor growing… LOL

Pace,
Gr0wer