Preparing for my first outdoor grow and need some advice. Can any experienced growers help?

That all depends where you are typing from. Do you still have enough season to finish plants outdoors?

There are tons of threads. Read, read, read, Find a grow you like that is successful and try to mirror what they did. There's too much info to say "Do it like this"....and everybody approaches thing differently.

The info is here you just need to take the time to read it.

 

In ground and pots both have their own pros and cons. For example in ground is more consistent than pots for root zone temps. Pots can provide better drainage than soil if you have a clay based native soil in ground. There is no limit to root growth in ground pots are limited to the size of the pot. In ground you are stuck dealing with the elements, in pots you can move them indoors if need be. As for pest control I use neem oil only and it's safe to use on the plant all the way up to the final week or so of flowering.

 

It should be noted that most outdoors in the northern hemisphere are in flower right now and many are already finished for this season outdoors.

 

Gotta say...being in the US...all of our products are different....so it's damn hard to tell you to do what I do or someone else does when you can't mirror it. I'd find someone on the Australian forum/etc. and see f you can replicate what they do. Then you can possibly source the same ingredients/soils/etc.

I wish you luck in your endeavors......

 

Dig a 3’x3’ wide and 3’ deep hole. Mix in quality soil (I make my own with 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost/humus, 1/3 Perlite, and various amendments. Look up recipes for Supersoil or You can buy bagged roots organic soils and just mix in Perlite.

If you make your own soil, put that in the bottom half and in the top half a lighter mix so it doesn’t hurt the young clone. You will only need to feed with plain water this way all through veg, and you can either top-dress additional amendments as needed for flower or use an actual pk boost if not trying to stay organic.

That’s how I used to get 6’ bushes in my short northern growing season

 

Digging out a big ass hole is really too much work.
Build a raised bed and fill it with quality soil.
48"x48"x12" is a little over 100 gallons.
Plenty of room to get plants that deliver 2 or more pounds.
Raised beds give you unlimited root potential and the same benefits from growing in containers.
Keep your plants indoors and healthy until they're in 1 gallon pots then transplant to final outdoor location.
You'll probably need to arrange some kind of supplemental lighting because once you put them outside they will want to go straight to flower.
Provide them with extra light for a couple hours from sundown to about 9 or 10 o'clock reducing the time as you get closer to summer solstice. You shouldn't need it past summer solstice.
I grow this way every year and have decent yeilds. I only have to do one crop a year unless my kids move back in but that's a whole different subject.

 

I’m in a not so legal state, that’s why I dig holes. I got pretty ballsy growing those monsters in my garden last year. If I was legal, my whole backyard would be a raised bed, lol

 

Best organic nutes are in the soil. If made right, you don’t use nutrients.

 

An alternative to buying expensive ingredients for making super soil is to grow using no till. What that means in its truest sense is never tilling or turning over the soil. You add nutrients by planting cover crops in the fall. Something like a mixture of crimson and white clover, tillage radish, alfalfa.... the idea is that the cover crop loosens the soil so water percolates better and some crops sequester nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots.

Then in spring you bend over the tops of the cover crop and top dress with straw. Disturb the bare minimum amount to plant your seedling and then do nothing but water all season long.

For this year since you have no cover crop make a 70-80 cm water well around your plants that is deep enoug that you can top dress with 2-3 cm of good organic compost and 2-3 cm of mulch. Then when you water just slowly fill up the well and you will be watering with a very week compost tea with no effort.



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You mound up the dirt to make a earthen dam around the plant so that when you water the plant it will fill up. This allows for a deep root watering.

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What are the best types of plant food besides bone meal and manure?

Comfrey, Kelp, Vermicompost and a compost pile. Cheap and effective.

 

Have you tried using kelp(seaweed) before

I use everything that I listed. Most are in my soil when I mixed it up originally. Sometimes during the growing season I top dress with kelp and water it in. I also feed it to my worms then just top dress with vermicompost and water that in also it just depend.
Between Kelp, Comfrey and vermicompost it gives my plants everything they need or want. Its a cheap easy way to grow IMO.