Please Give Me an Experienced and Objective Risk Assessment

I'm prepping for my first grow, planning to grow just for personal use. I will never sell as I feel that is the best way to get caught, and I plan to tell no one, other than my wife, about what I am doing. I am also being careful about purchases, making sure to use cash for "suspicious items" when possible and not buying everything all at once and in one place.

What I'd really like from you experienced growers is a risk assessment for my basic growing plan. In your assessment, assume that I have common sense and won't do anything to draw suspicion to myself. Hell, I'm even being so careful that I don't want to mention my state on these boards in case any feds are lurking here looking for clues.

My plan is to grow 3-4 plants outside and a couple autoflowers in a small room inside. By next fall, I plan to establish a well-equipped growing room inside, but for now outside and a small inside room are my only options. It's the outside grow that gives me pause as common sense says growing outdoors includes at least a modicum of risk. Here are my deets:

I live in the country in a hilly, mid-southern state. I have several acres bordering national forest. I plan to grow on my own property in a spot where there is zero chance of anyone stumbling across my grow. My nearest neighbor is a good 900 yards away at least, and my property location is isolated from any outsiders. If somebody comes onto my property, they have to follow a long private drive that ends at my house. In the twelve years I have lived here, I don't any memory of ever seeing any helicopters, although sometimes we will have military carrier planes fly over fairly low on their way to a military base.

Smell I don't think will be an issue with the way my property is located. The only outside I can think of who might pose a smell problem is the meter reader, but even then he would be a good 100 yards at least from my grow spot with a shop and trees between.

So I think that's about it. What do you think? Should I feel pretty safe with this outdoor setup, or am I taking an unnecessary risk growing outdoors? If so, I can just grow a few autos indoors for now and wait until fall when I can get a full setup and start growing solely indoors then. Please help as I need to finalize my plan soon.

Pretty much only you know for sure whether it's going to be a safe spot. By what you described it sounds pretty good and similar to my place and I feel pretty safe growing outdoors.

What's with your inclination to only do auto-strains indoors? JC

Depending on where you live, watch out for those National Forest borders, agencies are notorious for green-gold digging in them.


So as far from any buildings, and as far from the border would be a good place to plan for an out door garden.

Or perhaps you can do as many others have and build a real garden around your cannabis. You could easily hide the plants themselves and any smell with the right foliage. If you're not already gardening outdoors(vegies,fruits, herbs, flowers etc), start, it's one of the most beautiful experiences you can completely control, not to mention your wife and children could really learn to enjoy it.

But as 420god mentioned, you're in the best position to say what is safe and not, just try to use your head and get a good understanding of the situations you'll be enabling.

minad: I've heard many saying here that autoflowers tend not to do very well outdoors. I've heard they are more susceptible to mold and bugs because they are so low-growing, and I have also heard that they won't flower quickly outdoors like they will indoors. Several people have said expect at least 3 months outdoors compared to 2 months or so indoors. I just figured indoors would be better for them, and it would also give me a chance to practice an indoor grow. On the other hand, I won't be well set-up for indoors for several months, so outdoors would be better for me. Any insight here?

I realize it's hard to do a proper risk assessment without knowing my spot personally. I guess I'm just trying to see if, based on my description, you guys would feel pretty safe growing outdoors if you were me. Growing in our established garden won't work because my in-laws could unexpectedly show up and my MIL is a big-time gardener, so she would be all over that garden. My wife has already conceded big-time by even agreeing to let me do this. My spot needs to be stealth. Garden not a possibility.

I've also worried about the national forest being a draw for "sky cops," but I've never seen them around, and the land here is so rocky and hilly that I can't imagine big crops that draw this type of scrutiny is much of a threat.

Really in truly, it's the smell and the "sky cops" that could be the only possible risk issues. With 4-5 plants (northern lights for now), do I have much to worry about with the smell? And how much do I need to worry about eyes in the sky based on the info you have here? How much do you worry about eyes in the sky in your area?

I guess what I am saying, in a nutshell, is that I "feel" like my situation is pretty low risk, but I want to make sure as much as possible that this is not a false feeling based upon lack of experience. I don't want to learn the hard way that my "feeling" was wrong. I know you can't tell me for sure, and doing anything illegal like this comes with a risk (so fucking stupid, but that's another thread), but is my risk as low as I "feel" it is based on your experience and understanding of my situation?