Starting An Outdoor Grow

Hi Everyone,
I plan to start an outdoor grow in the spring, I am in southern Indiana which I hear has good soil for cannabis plants, it gets very hot in the summer, 80-90 F and extremely humid. My previous outdoor grow failed badly, the plant got about a half a foot tall with few leaves and was ate up with bugs or an animal of some kind, it hung on for a few weeks and then finally died after a long stretch of rain. This is when I turned to indoor growing which isnt working for me either, but this spring im set on having a succesful outdoor grow. Heres my questions: Do i need to grow the plant to a certain point indoors before taking it outside? After i take it outside do I plant it directly into outdoor soil or should I keep them in potting mix in pots? In my previous grow I had it in a 2 gal. bucket and cut the bottom out for roots to grow through into outdoor soil, was this a good idea? I grew the plant next to a patch of woods in a commercial soybean field, Is this why it got ate up? Im also using bagseeds for all my attempted grows but I am fine with that quality, I just want to grow some damn bud!

Someone point me in the right direction for this spring, and give me additional info I may need to know, it would be much appreciated.

I have always used 5 gallon buckets out side, with gravel in the bottom. One the gravel help weigh it down, so it wont fall over, and holds water with out keeping the soil soaked. Also, I always wait until they are a couple feet tall before i take them out where animals can get them. My experience animals dont eat them once they have grown. Last I never use organic nuts., worm castings, guano etc outdoors, the raccoons and opossums will dig them up or out of the bucket to get into the dirt. Hope it helps some.

Do you know which time of the year to plant? It has a lot to do with how your plant will grow.
I live in the southern hemisphere, so I plant just when October starts (some people think this is a little early, but around that time of the year is good for me. The opposite goes for the northern hemisphere as well).
The temperatures sound fine to me, but as for keeping animals out. The best I could recommend is to put a mini fence of sorts around your plants, I usually do this by getting some mesh (the smaller sized holes, the less things will be able to get at your plants), and some stakes and wrapping the mesh in a circle (with about a foot of space in between the plant and the mesh) to protect the plant from animals (this will not work for insects however).

For the soil, you might want to check out the PH before you decide to dedicate to planting your seeds. Get a tester kit (they're usually pretty cheap, I'm sure you could find them at Home Depot in the gardening section or something), marijuana prefers a neutral PH. This means that it grows best at a PH of about 5-7 (6 being perfect).

You could also buy your own soil, a lot of growers I know of use a mixture of Fox Farm's Ocean Forest and Fox Farm's Light Warrior for the main stages of growth (seedling, vegetative).
Growing straight into soil can work out well, you can end up with towering tree's (if you have the right strain) as your plant has a lot of room to grow in.

All in all, I wish you a happy growing journey. Peace out.

Ok, thanks for the help, but u dont plant it in the actual ground just let it be in potting mix? Yea i will plant in late april and harvest by september or october, and i will try to get cages/fences to protect it in early growth, what is your experience with bugs outside? Have u had many bug problems?

dont plant in container unless you can water everyday without fear of being seen. fertilize the ground now, you shouldn't need any more till in flower(maybe).

If you start the plant indoors running your lights 18/6, as soon as you move them outside they will start flowering. This bothers some people but it is what I prefer. I veg my plants 2 months indoors in 1 gallon pots and then transplant to 3 gallon before I put them out. Everyone has their own opinions on soil. I use FFOF. Works great for me. I'm growing Strawberry Diesel. 8 - 10 weeks they are done. I try to put 3 plants outside every 30 days. Tough to keep them indoors til I have space outside. I start the 1st of March (Southern Cali). So from May through October I harvest every month. One of the main reasons I like this is that trimming a very large plant is really a drag. Also, the smell during flower will make my whole house reek !!! My plants are about 2 feet when I stick them outside. When I harvest they are between 3 and 4 feet. Takes 2 people 3 - 4 hours to trim all 3. I use to have problems with worms eating up my buds. I now use a product called BAYER Advanced for veggies that takes care of the bugs. As far as animals eating my crop the only worry I have is my cat that loves to eat a few leaves !!


Best of luck to you !!!

MegaBudz97 said:

Hi Everyone,
I plan to start an outdoor grow in the spring, I am in southern Indiana which I hear has good soil for cannabis plants, it gets very hot in the summer, 80-90 F and extremely humid. My previous outdoor grow failed badly, the plant got about a half a foot tall with few leaves and was ate up with bugs or an animal of some kind, it hung on for a few weeks and then finally died after a long stretch of rain. This is when I turned to indoor growing which isnt working for me either, but this spring im set on having a succesful outdoor grow. Heres my questions: Do i need to grow the plant to a certain point indoors before taking it outside? After i take it outside do I plant it directly into outdoor soil or should I keep them in potting mix in pots? In my previous grow I had it in a 2 gal. bucket and cut the bottom out for roots to grow through into outdoor soil, was this a good idea? I grew the plant next to a patch of woods in a commercial soybean field, Is this why it got ate up? Im also using bagseeds for all my attempted grows but I am fine with that quality, I just want to grow some damn bud!

Someone point me in the right direction for this spring, and give me additional info I may need to know, it would be much appreciated.

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I'm familiar w/your conditions, that area is where I learned horticulture many many years ago. You're going to be most likely disappointed when you harvest those bagseeds. That's how I started, and no matter what I tried(indoors and in-ground)the final product lacked the potency of the hermaphrodite. That's the he/she plant you got those beans from...yes?.

I highly recommend spending a few bucks to up your genetics.

I want to avoid indoor growing completely because I have been caught with my last two grows indoors, as far as my seeds go I DO have 2 legit fem. sour diesel seeds ive been saving for a well planned outdoor grow and the rest are just bagseeds from some average indica i had last year. I want to germinate the seed inside and plant it in a hole filled with potting mix outside, but am really worried it wont make it once it sprouts because of bugs and animals, last year there were bites taken out of the edges of leaves along with a nute deficiency, like i said i grew it next to a soybean field, I figured hell if soybeans grow good here so can weed. Not the case....... Any advice of how to grow the plant from seed to bud outside only, and what a good guerilla grow spot would be?