Proofread My Gameplan - First Grow - DIY Organic - Northern Climate - GC

Hey greenthumbs!
My friend and I are about to embark on our first grow. I know it's a bit late in the season but we're hoping for at least a decent yield between the two of us, if not some good experience for next year. I've tried to do all the requisite reading but maybe someone has some tips before we go plant.

We'll be growing outdoors, in a pretty remote forest. Located in eastern Canada region. Strain is Green Crack, although we got some bonus seeds with our order, 5 Ice Wreck. So 15 seeds in all, non-feminized. We got them for a really good price so can't complain. The 10 non-femmed turned out to be half the price of 5 femmed so the savings was worth the extra work of having to pull males. Plus there's always the chance of getting more than 50% females right?

We're on a fairly tight budget so we're hoping that mother nature helps us out as much as possible. We'll be growing mostly in whatever soil we find, although my buddy picked up a bag of ASB Greenworld Organic Flower & Vegetable Soil to hold the seedlings until we get them to the planting site. I'm really hoping someone can tell me if this soil is decent and if not, what we can add to make it suitable for our grow. I can't find much info on it online. Here's the most detailed page I can find selling it. As far as I understand, we want a pretty minimal soil to start the seedlings off in to prevent nute burn. We can always add ferts down the road if budget allows. The bag reads 0.12, 0.09, 0.06 so I'm assuming it should be alright for the seeds? It doesn't mention ph, although I think we'll have a ph meter.

We're going to head up probably tomorrow and scout spots, do the digging and prep work on Friday and either plant that evening or Saturday morning. I think the idea is to find southern facing hills for the best possible sunlight? We'll be on the lookout for hills covered in thorn bushes to keep animals and humans out. Like I said, we'll be working with whatever soil is available to us apart from the bag of soil we already have. 1 bag spread across 15 plants won't be all that much so hopefully the ground-soil is accommodating. I read that grassland topsoil is rich in nutrients so that's something I'll be on the lookout for. Is there any other DIY additives we could find out in the wild that would improve our soil? Would gravel over the top of the soil be a good idea to prevent it from drying out in the sun?

We'll be digging fairly big pits to give the plants lots of room for root development. Say 2-3 feet in diameter and depth? Churn and aerate the soil, filter out any junk, and put it back in the hole along with a portion of the bag soil and the seedling of course. Hopeully our soil has ample aeration but doesn't dry up too quickly. Any pointers on this would be welcome.

It's supposed to rain a couple days at the start of next week and be fairly sunny until then so I'm hoping the weather is ideal. They'll get watered Saturday which should hold them off till Tuesday when it rains. After that the forecast is saying another several days of sun followed by another day and a half's worth of rain. So hopefully the weather will give them a running start while they're just starting to develop.

By now I'm sure there's some obvious crucial part I've missed or mistake looming overhead, so feel free to chime in. Fervent reading can't take the place of solid advice from experienced growers, so I'm hoping to pick up some tips from the outdoor heads.

Cheers!

Seems like you have all your bases covered. I'd pay more attention to keeping deer and other animals way from the grow site. That would be my biggest concern.

Yeah I'm hoping for some dense thorn bushes to help out with that. I figured planting on a hill might be helpful as well since they might be less likely to walk straight through our plants. I'm hoping that a deer's smart enough to not waste energy walking diagonally up a hill instead of going straight up. Less angles of approach = less likely the plants will be harmed. I was thinking some chicken wire wouldn't hurt either. Maybe we can rig up a ghetto fence made of sticks or something.

I think you'll find out the hard way that dealing with reg seeds isn't worth the initial savings. Once you factor in soil/nutes/watering and time devoted you'll wish you'd bought all fems, but I could be wrong.

You seem to have done your homework on the basics, but the whole 1 bag of soil for 15 plants isn't the best. It can work if the native soil is good, but don't expect big yields. A 1 cubic ft bag of potting soil is about $6 and well worth the investment. Throw in some dolomite lime and some nutes down the road and you'll thank me.

Yeah, at least we're not going heavy on soil and nutes so it's not really any money wasted. We'll probably go fems next year once we've got some experience under our belts.

I'm hoping the soil is adequate, at least for the beginning few weeks. We're in a pretty rural area so I'd imagine the soil is a bit better than some roadside woods or a park in the middle of a city. Adding nutes once they're further into veg is definitely a possibility. Right now we're just trying to get them in the ground and on their way. I'll definitely be doing some more research on fertilizer in the weeks to come.

Try some manure to mix in with the native soil. Manure is a good long lasting natural fertilizer. Just make sure it's sterile. Oh, and it's cheap.

youve made a wise choice by keepimg it fairly small fir your first experience. one key thing to rember is water is very heavy. so if your planning a southfacing hillside i hope theres water from above so your not packing it uphill

Our planting is postponed till tomorrow. We both got paid though so there's a bit more budget for soil and anything else we need. That means I need to look more into soil additives it seems. What would be better, buying more bags of soil, or buying additives we can put in the existing soil? They're still going to be mostly in the native soil, but maybe there's something we can mix in that will improve soil conditions.


Something I thought of to keep the soil moisturized longer was sticking water reservoirs in the ground to collect rainwater:



Two bottles with the bottoms cut out, the top one with a big hole in the cap to let the water pass through quickly, and the bottom bottle with a very fine hole cut in the cap to drip feed the water over a longer period of time. The water in the lower bottle is trapped so it can't evaporate and it's underground so it's shielded from the sun. It should basically act as a buffer to prolong the effects of rainwater and keep the girls moisturized for longer periods of time.

As long as there's no drainage issues, the plants shouldn't drown, and assuming the bottom hole's tiny enough, it should just trickle out over a couple days. The downside of being in a remote location is it's a bit inconvenient and expensive to get out to water consistently. So hopefully that helps keep them from getting too thirsty if we haven't been out in a while. I've read you should water them if it hasn't rained in 1-2 weeks? Hopefully mother nature gives us consistent rain instead of week long storms followed by droughts.


One major concern I have is ph. Do I need to worry about that when putting the sprouted seeds in cups? Then when transplanting to the ground? What are the go-to cheap additives to skew the ph in either direction? Any special considerations for when the seedlings are just getting started versus when they're further into veg?

Any other tips, throw em at me!

Have you popped your beans yet to give them somewhat of a head start?

Oh.. Dig your holes while its raining or right after a storm. It makes things 100x easier.

wvblazin said:

Have you popped your beans yet to give them somewhat of a head start?

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Yes, the Ice Wrecks have all sprouted taproots. The GC are going a bit slower but should be ready in time. They've got all day tomorrow and probably overnight until Saturday morning.

Good call on digging after it rains. If we weren't on a time crunch we'd probably wait a bit. Hopefully it's not too backbreaking. We'll be trying to avoid super rocky dense soil anyway so if we pick our spots right it shouldn't be too hard.


Does anyone know how far apart they'd have to be to avoid pollination in case males pop up while we're not there? I know it depends on wind and other environmental factors. But are males usually squirting out tons of superfreak seed or are they a bit more tame than that. Ideally we'd identify them before they start pollinating right? We'll probably try to have them spread out decently for stealth anyway. We might make some clones once we sex them and drop them in the soil where the males were just so we don't waste that work and opportunity. Probably wouldn't be a sizable yield but 7-8 clones started late should work out to maybe a full plant or two?

Whats up brotha, im very into "diy" organics which i prefer to call ROLS or recycle organic living soil.
(Rols)
https://www.rollitup.org/t/recycled-organic-living-soil-rols-and-no-till-thread.636057/unread

look into Beneficial indigenous micro Organisms or BIM. This is a technique in which you capture micro organisms like fungi, microbes, sugars, enzymes etc in you area (indeginous)
(BIM)
https://www.rollitup.org/t/beneficial-indigenous-micro-organisms-or-bim.762400/

If your forest is healthy preferably broad leave trees, and aged, then all you really need for a extra push is your OWN home made compost and WORMcastings (cant stress enough of wormcastings.)

And of course you need a stable clean water source.

As for soil, look for what is referred to as silky soil. A nice 60% silky 30%loam and 10%clay soil is ideal for cannabis. Look into how to check your soil by hand(youtube). Its easy pick it up put some water on it, and keep smashing it with your fingers, your fingers/touch aand look will help you understand what is silky and how loaam and clay feel like.

All this i have mention can be next to free if sourced and done right. The only expensive thing would be to start up your worm bins. I pay about 30$ each bin including worms. I have 6 worm bins. This is my gold as it should be any other organic farmer.

And like others have mention, keep them animals/pest out!!!! Mini turrets, clay mores and land mines for the thieves.
Much love!

Thanks for the info and links man. We'll definitely be into that next year when we've got time to prepare.

Would store bought worm castings be a good idea for this year to start off with? Is there danger of nute burn when they're still young?

Good call on looking on youtube for stuff on soil analysis. Seeing video will be a lot more helpful than reading about the desired characteristics, dunno why I didn't think of that before.


I think I remember reading about someone growing certain plants nearby that kept away pests. Anyone have any tips about that? The bigger pests like deer and rodents will have to be kept out by physical barriers of some kind. I was thinking we could tie some string across at a few different heights to try to deter larger animals, and build small fences out of sticks and rocks to keep out the smaller critters. I thought setting up rabbit snares might be a good idea until I realized a dead rabbit would just attract larger predators.

Mobius-Loop said:

Thanks for the info and links man. We'll definitely be into that next year when we've got time to prepare.

Would store bought worm castings be a good idea for this year to start off with? Is there danger of nute burn when they're still young?

Good call on looking on youtube for stuff on soil analysis. Seeing video will be a lot more helpful than reading about the desired characteristics, dunno why I didn't think of that before.


I think I remember reading about someone growing certain plants nearby that kept away pests. Anyone have any tips about that? The bigger pests like deer and rodents will have to be kept out by physical barriers of some kind. I was thinking we could tie some string across at a few different heights to try to deter larger animals, and build small fences out of sticks and rocks to keep out the smaller critters. I thought setting up rabbit snares might be a good idea until I realized a dead rabbit would just attract larger predators.

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Worm csting from stores is good, local is better, but i cnt stress on not to put off the idea of starting your own worm compost bin. But yes for now store casssting is ok, but expensive.

In theory, if your soil is healthy, and good genetics, would equal helthy immune system, which fights off pest aand disease. But this does not mean you cant do preventive measures.
Integrated Pest Management or IPM, will help you keep all pest out. You sshould be spraying almost every other day.
Once agian the ROLS thread has all the info on IPMs (first page)
Some examples of IPMs would be garlic, cillantro, rosemary, stinging nettle, all of which can be souced next to free.

And as for the big animals, yes physical barriers work best, so does wolf/ human pee

So is worm castings my best bet for seedling nutrients? Or is there something else I should buy to add to the soil? Also what about ph treatment?

Mobius-Loop said:

So is worm castings my best bet for seedling nutrients? Or is there something else I should buy to add to the soil? Also what about ph treatment?

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Yes wormcsting is good for seedlings up to harvest. If u start a worm bin, u can make it rich in wtv npk u wish, for exaample, feed the worms more calcium like egg hell or crabmeal, oystershell, and the castings should hve higher ca then usual. In other words yes the casting will provide almost eveything u need.
As for ph, if your doing synthetics, then yes u need to ph, BUT if you are doing organics, then NO u do not need to ph. Anyone who tells u other wise is wrong. NO pHing in organics. PH does matter, however not in the traditional hydroponic ways/. Worm castings, compost, humus and other calcium rich ingrediants naturally do it over time gotta love motha nature