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[MEGA]Growing advice, tips, tricks and experience: Mark 3

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^ I live in a rural part of kent, near Paddock Wood though, so if I had a car or some other form of transport to stake out the area then I'm sure I'd have better luck. If you'd have said that whilst I was living in Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells I'd have wholeheartedly agreed with you. Around where I live there are far more fields than houses though.

Over on that main british cannabis site they seem to have quite a lot of success in my area, it seems. However, it's not like I can ask the people living in my area where to go.

I think if I can somehow get around easier it would be better. However, at the moment in the woods where I've selected I think I'll get awa with it, if I put up being scratched by brambles as I look where people would not usually go. I mean, I have grown there before and haven't got caught - it's just that I want to minimise risks as far as possible. It's just a case of setting out a whole weekend dedicated to finding a spot. There is one area near Pembury which is sectioned off by a tall fence, and if I can get over it I think I might have success.

Here's a photo of a village a couple of miles away from where I live (I'm not giving my exact location for obvious reasons). The whole of the area where I live looks similar, so it gives some idea of what sort of area I live in.

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^Yeah, I live in the Westcountry, real agricultural here, but I still think it would be difficult to find a place where I could be confident no-one would go for 4 months.
 
^ Difficult, yes (as I have found out), but I find it hard to believe that there's no where in all the thousands of square miles that I can find which would be perfect. I mean, there has to be somewhere, right?

I'm not ready to give up just yet. Where there's a will there's a way, as they say. Even if I have to resort to climbing trees and hanging buckets, I'll do it.
 
Hey AE im guerilla growing just up the road. Luckily enough, the place im living in backs onto thousands of acres of land, bush and gulleys so finding a spot, or multiple spots isnt never hard :)

Nice pic BTW. It's nice seeing other parts of the world.

You just need to keep looking. There will definatly be spots. Try using google maps/earth if you havnt already and sus out a spot of bush from the air. If your finding walking tracks can you cut off one and walk deep into the bush?
 
I tried Google Earth and to be honest it wasn't as useful as I wanted it to be in my case. However, I think I'll just have to keep walking down the stream in the woods and walking through the bush as you say.
 
Yeah close to a stream sounds good. Maybe try crossing the stream if it takes you further away from the main track you cut in from?
 
I was actually thinking of putting my wellies on and walking down the stream itself. A good thing about the stream is that it's got beautifully clear spring water that's good enough for me to drink (and therefore my plants!!) and has sand I can use for my potting mixes at home instead of having to pay for it. Gardeners always used to collect sand like this for their potting composts so I'll do the same.
 
Nice one AE. Are you adding anything else to the mix to help retain water. The soil my girl is in atm has about 30% sand in the mix with soil and dosent retain water at all. Im watering nearly everyday atm :X
 
Leaf mould all the way, especially after the favourable research I read about with respect to how it can improve water retention by about 50%. I plan to shred the leaves and add diluted urine to help accelerate the process.

If I can't make any in time for the first cannabis crop I'm definitely going to dig coir in. The reason for this is because it's easy to transport, not because it's ideal to use. I'll also possibly transport a big back pack full of farmyard manure filled in a bin bag.

I might be bold and just use containers, starting them on a small portable cheap greenhouse that I'll transport to the site (see the photo)!
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If I use containers I'll use a Fertile Fibre compost since it's 100% organic.

I'm going to experiment with my own compost mixes in the greenhouse at home, which I'll hopefully construct today (Saturday). I'm doubling up my methadone dose so i can try and get it all done (don't ask!).

If I were you, I would just cultivate the soil with a fork and add as much manure or garden compost as you can (when you next grow, I mean). I think the problem with potting compost mixes is that they don't always perform well in the ground. A lot of people do that when growing weed but I like to go with the way a commercial organic farmer would grow a crop in the ground, as a rule. I know there's more than one way to skin a cat, but it's just the way I've had success in the past.

Your plant does look good though. One thing you might want to try is adding seaweed to the soil, as it breaks down so quickly, improving the very structure of the soil itself (including water retaining qualities) and is cheap and easy to obtain. Kelp meal can be used in small quantities and trasported to the site easily and can be purchased online. The main reason I love seaweed meal is that it makes the soil biology go absolutely nuts and does it's stuff very quickly, breaking down completely within a couple/a few weeks. If you don't want to transport loads of compost, a little bit of kelp meal after you've added some dolomite lime to get the pH of the soil right would probably be the easiest and most convenient way to do it.

Here's a article I found you might want to read:

Benefits of Kelp Meal:
• Source of essential plant growth hormones
• The immediate benefit obtained from kelp can be attributed to the release of auxins, cytokinins and gibberellins. These plant growth hormones, required in small quantities, are essential for cell division and cell elongation, basic functions of plant growth. Enhanced seed germination, early emergence, stimulated root and shoot growth, increased fruit set and decreased fruit (drop)are some of the benefits derived from increased levels of plant hormones.
•
• Source of minerals and nutrients
• When used as a fertilizer supplement, kelp is an excellent source of chelated minerals necessary for proper plant growth. Kelp meal acts as a slow release fertilizer, slowly breaking down and releasing its nutrients, (including nitrogen, potash, and a variety of other trace elements essential for plant growth.) Mannitol and alginic acid, major components of kelp, act as chelating agents helping in the formation of humus. The potential benefit of a kelp fertilizer supplement increases each year as it contributes to the soil organic matter.
•
• Soil conditioner
• Kelp meal is an excellent source of organic matter due to its rapid rate of decomposition. The application of kelp acts as a soil conditioner by stimulating microbial activity. The carbohydrates and acids released during decomposition of the kelp results in the aggregation of soil particles and the chelating of nutrients which might otherwise be leached from the soil. Good soil structure improves aeration, available moisture, and makes the soil more workable. The repeated use of kelp helps maintain soil fertility and soil structure.
Click to expand...
 
I've been thinking, Wise. Next time if you don't want to grow in the earth when your guerilla growing outside and don't want to have to water it too frequently, why not use an upside down tomato planter with a reservoir? You could literally hang it from a tree branch and it would take care of itself, pretty much, for a while. You can buy ones without the reservoirs which also work pretty well, and there are some advantages to growing upside down like this, such as having to weed, deal with pests, having to dig holes in the ground, have flimsy stakes and cages, or bend over to water, tend and harvest. They also look cool!

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The tomato planter in the third image is usually the cheapest kind, available in most places since is mass produced in high numbers. They don't have a reservoir afaik. They're available where I live for the cost of a pint of beer from the pub, so cost pretty much the same as a normal garden centre planting container. Because of their size you can grow huge plants in them - definitely as big as you would ever need, so you'll only need about 4-5 of them IMO. The fourth diagram shows an interesting idea for an indoor grow that even has me scratching my head and wondering whether I should try that. I'm going to do it in my greenhouse anyhow, also using hanging baskets to make as good use of all the available space as possible.

But yeah, if you're having to water a plant that's in the earth outside every day, then I think something's gone wrong somewhere. I could just be partly the soil type itself. The fact that you say the planting mix is very sandy makes me wonder whether the soil drainage is too good, meaning that all the water runs straight through without being retained. Really, the best way to deal with that is to dig organic matter in.
 
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ahhhh i've always wanted to use one of them to grow with....If you put a mully in there wouldent it just strech and turn around to the sun (like when you tie down stems)
 
If it's above the lamp then it will in fact grow downwards towards the light. Plants always grow towards the light to get energy for photosynthesis to occur.

The advantage of this growing technique is that you can effectively double you grow space and do away with a reflector. It might be slightly awkward to set up but I still think it would be quite easy. I'm going to give it a go next winter when I can't grow outsid!
 
Autos are good because you can set them up in a veg room that would other wise have just vegging plants so it's handy for that and some of us northeners for instancehave pretty shitty growing seasons so to just get a fully ripened outdo plant can be great.
Any one know a big yielding auto or light sensitive plant? I'm looking around and wondered if someone knew one
 
5 ozs off 3 plants is damn good for autoflowering....but nothing special for normal plants, you woulda yielded more (cant comment on quality but you know what you had and what you can get) with your skills and setup using a good indica strain.
 
^ ageeed. I have yielded way over a kg per plant with a non-autoflowering strain.

I just don't see a need to use them indoor is the first place. The place they really perform is, as I said, outdoors.

Because the plant's psychoactivity is strongly correlated to the intensity of UVB levels hitting the plant during the flowering period, harvesting outdoors during the warmer months is advantageous, since UVB levels during this time go through the roof. Hence, finishing early without having to force flower using a blackout tent is a bonus and autoflowering plants make this possible.
 
AE, with that leaf mold did you collect the leaves yourself or buy them from somewhere? Im looking online at a gardening store and cant seem to find any mention on the stuff.

We actually have 2 of those topsy turvy(i think there called) planters here. They look a bit small to use though IMO and i'd much prefer to just prep a grow site and stick the plants in the ground. Watering wont be a problem next season once I add a few different goodies to the soil. :) And yeah the soil my girl is in atm definatly is no good, but she'll be done within 7 weeks or so, so I dont have any problems with continuing to water most days if its needed.

It would be pretty intresting watching a plant grow out of one those turvy planters though, especially if it's grown over the top of a lamp.
 
Thanks for that kelp meal post too. One problem I will have is getting soils and composts down to my site next season(to get to the spot I have to walk down steep, rocky/bushy slopes) so the kelp sounds good to limit me doing trips.

I may have missed a post, but have you got anything growing in your scrog/hydro set-up atm? How's the smoke from your harvest too, it looked like some nice buds :)
 
Informative books on cultivating marijuana?

Because I'm posting this from my phone, it's rather a pain in the ass to look through all the threads that came up in the search, but the first bit of pages yielded nothing, so here we go!

The title sums up everything nicely. I'm interested in purchasing well written books on marijuana cultivation or cannabis in general. I was told by an experienced fellow with a green thumb to acquire some books by Ed Rosenthol, but I thought I'd ask you guys if you have any other recommendations.
 
Jorge Cervantes's Bible. All you need to know really. I'm going to merge this into the mega grow thread.
 
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