beaner is at it again!

Beaner

Well-Known Member
for those of you who remember me i'll be starting a new outdoor grow this season, my last attempt involved cops/geocachers finding some of my plants, many many being lost due to my spreading them out individually in an effort to hide them from said cops, then a serious drought hit, surely killing any that i couldn't find and drying up my only water supply for miles. in an effort to save my remaining plants i transplanted them from grow bags to the dried up creak bed that was watering my plants in the early season, of course after less than a month the drought ended and the creak flooded again, killing off nearly all of my remaining plants, it was a terrible year, followed by myself being raped of my freedom for another matter, so i wasn't able to finish them anyways, though i did let a friend know where they were, and he was lucky enough to find a few of the plants that i had lost and had miraculously survived a drought in grow bags. they were of a strain called roadtrip or something i believe from fd2blk's own garden...sadly i never got a chance to try the resulting bud though i heard good reports.

that was several years ago and since then i have never grown indoors or out, though i have been keeping an eye on the scene through a few fellow indoor growers, my father and my neighbor, so i'm not a complete newbe again lol. i intend to learn from my mistakes and come up with a decent harvest this year.

as i can see it my main issue was that my eyes were bigger than my stomach, trying to grow 200 plants on a 4X4 mile plot isn't easy, and the hundreds of hours i spent hauling hundreds of pounds of fencing and soil was all wasted in the end, this year i went back to my swamp to check on my stashes of equiptment, all my extra fencing, growbags, lime, weed block tarps, guano, pearlite and big gulps(seedling pots) were gone, a few big gaping holes were all that remained. i intend to fix these issues by only growing a few plants, i have 8 hardening off right now, that have been vegging for a month, and about 20 more germinating right now, depending on the germ rates i may end up planting more but i am paying quite a bit for these seeds, as they are grapefruit, semi acclimated to the area...if i can get away with 20-30 seedlings and 10 to 15 female plants i will be more than happy.

my second problem was counting on the creek for water, i have been morel hunting in the area the past 2 springs and it's become quite obvious that the water dries up every summer and floods again every fall, as even though it is spring now and the creak is full of water, i can see the dead stalks of last years summer plants that were growing in the dry riverbed. this year with only 1 or 2 plots i will not be relying on water brought from the creek, any water i feed them will be hauled in on my back. i will also be planting directly into the soil, after a month or so the plants tap root will have reached a point that watering in this semi dry swamp will not be necessary.

another problem i had was geocachers, i should have known better than to overlook them, they have found crops in the past, i'll be finding their stupid coffee can this year and possibly taking a number 2 in it, but i'll definitely be reporting it vandalized on the website either way, to keep them out of my swamp. personally i believe in letting people do what makes them happy but i draw the line when they snoop around my plants and report them to the police or steal them, as both have happens to me in the past, as far as i'm concerned geocachers and woodchucks are my enemy #1.im also growing on the north half of the swamp this year, as the geocache, as well as atv punks only seem to stay on the south half.(it's separated by the creek)

i am gearing up to go out to my swamp in search of morels as i type, i'll use this as an opportunity to scout out good growing areas, while maintaining the veneer of a person who has a legitimate reason to be sneaking around the bush...since i have lost a substantial amount of my grow equipment that i had buried and covered in sticks and bark i'll be looking for areas with good natural soil so i can keep the amending to a minimum, i have bought a minimal amount of dolomite lime, Mexican bat guano, and vermiculite.

i'll be planting 1-3 plots on the south facing sides of the interspersed bunches of common willow, the south side of a bush receives the most sunlight in this hemisphere, and the bushes will help break up the shape of the plants, so they wont be visible overhead by passing planes(near a small airport for private planes and crop dusters)or by passing people.(though there shouldn't be any of those, it's ROUGH country!)

pictures will come, though not as often as my last grow log, as a full-time parent, college student, and carpenter i don't have a whole lot of time to devote to growing and documentation, hence the low workload grow. i will take a few pictures while i am out today however to give you an idea of the area i'll be growing in.
 

Beaner

Well-Known Member
well i didn't get much done in the swamp today, upon ariving i found that i didn't bring enough bags for all the morels i was finding, after about half an hour i had 130 black morels, all from my one 10 by 20 foot honey hole, the yellows haven't popped yet, i'll have to come again this next weekend to look for more and possibly do a better job of scouting for grow sites, but i must say it's looking good, the soil is dark black and rich everywhere i checked, and a tornado hit the area last year, tearing down thousands of trees, leaving many more clearings and lots of fallen logs to hide gardens and paths...

i am having trouble uploading the files so i will have to get back to you with those
 

Beaner

Well-Known Member
got my pics to upload! nice to see ya fd2blk! still got the same avatar after 2/3 years lol

aaanyways i am taking the plants out to harden off dayly, so far they can only handle a few hours of direct noon sun, so i'm patiently waiting for them to be ready, i'm thinking this weekend i'll bring a shovel out to my swamp, and pick a few spots, split these 8 into two plots of 4, to make them harder to find and to spread my eggs among multiple baskets, the soil looks incredible, yet i'm still tempted to use some of the lime and guano that i bought, lol would you guys amend rich dark soil?at the very least i'm going to have to cut down all the grass, and dig/fluff the soil a few feet deep, to help the roots grow faster, the soil is already so fluffy it really doesn't even need vermiculite, and i bought a bag of it the size of my 6 year old niece so this stuff might all go to waste, lol if i can be smart and safe these guys should grow like mad and require very little water and ferts, which is a good thing, the less times i have to visit them the better, for their safety and mine...
 

Beaner

Well-Known Member
well little update, i have about half a dozen hardened off, and getting a little lst from an indoor fan, the weather has been kinda off and on stormy and windy so i want to make sure my little seedlings will be able to handle it when they go outside later this week, i have found some tentative bushes to plant next too and purchased a smallish shovel for digging holes, bigger than those dumb fold up ones but small enough to carry on my back without being entirely obvious, now i'm just deciding if i want to put them in plots of 4 with a fence around the whole crop, or to fence each individual plant with a cone of chicken wire, i could also use 2 liter bottles to fence each individual plant or leave them unfenced.

last time i left many unfenced after about the midpoint in the season and didn't have any issues, but it's a huge risk, on one hand it will look more natural but on the other hand it would only take one stupid ass woodchuck to ruin my season...a full fence is safest but most visible, and i am not quite sure whether a cone of chicken wire over the plant or a 2 liter bottle with the top and bottom cut off would be most effective and blend in the most...

i'm going to try to upload a pic of a few of my seedlings, chillen by the fan to strengthen their stems(not a ton of circulation in my c13)with my 250 watt cfl i dont' need much wind to keep it cool but it tends to make pussy spindly plants if i don't stick them by a fan every few days...
 

Unwanted

Well-Known Member
dude i thought about the 2liter idea.... it seems feasible.... i mean they do it trees?

someone has had to try it and will chime in... nice read
 
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