2010 South Carolina Outdoor Grow Show

[northeastern lights]

Because that's what Fox Farm's feeding schedule recommends.

Seems to be working just fine so far, and honestly, with the simple mix that I have for soil, the plants can use as many nutes as I can give them.

Good to hear the Sour Diesel is high yielding. Says these seeds are supposed to harvest around mid-October.

I base my ratio from the FF scheduele but a word of advice, if you follow it to a "T" you will burn them. Just from my expierence. I have never needed to use more than 2 tsp of the GB per gallon. I just finally hit mine with full strength yesterday for the first time this season. As for the TG I can go up to 3 tsp.




I'm really digging the videos bro! Word of advice, I set all my videos to "unlisted" so that you can't search or find them without the link.

 

[someone else]

Hey thanks NEL, again.

Your grows give a lotta people on these forums motivation to do better.

I hear you about the Fox Farm nutes man, I think I will step them back down, from 3 tsp to 2.

What kind of ratio do you use for Big Bloom though? If I were to follow what the bottle recommends, they say use 2-3 Tablespoons/gallon. Last feeding, I used 2 Tablespoons/gallon.

Man I saw the size of those huge containers of Fox Farm nutes you buy, and I was really floored. That brought a tear to my eye it was so cool...haha.

Yeah I didn't think I was gonna post those videos when I shot them, but on a whim I did. I usually take videos, then use some image sequencing software to capture the best frames of the plants.

I really don't have much to show now, as my plants are so far behind yours and most other growers due to a hellish dogshit May (torrential rains everyday, no draining of the native soil as it's pure, hard clay).

Oh yea, I already put them as unlisted. Sound advice though.

I'm hoping I can squeeze a few ounces off the females I get. A pound would do me and my friends right this year.

Thanks again for the inspiration brotha, you're killin' it with your grow!

 

[TCurtiss]

Hey thanks for the link and stopping by!

I actually put up deer netting that's 7' high around the perimeter of my plot. It's really working well, as I haven't had a single animal (knock on wood) penetrate it.

I'm lucky that the 5-gallon containers of water I hump in are on the downward portion of the valley I grow in. So I have gravity on my side, which is a huge bonus. I have access to a lake 2 football field-lengths away, but I have to go through a forest of hell and risk being possibly seen when I fill up the containers.




As of right now, I have 8 G13/Haze, 7 Sour Diesels (plants), and then I have 7 Sour Diesel seedlings that are making great progress.

I'll be happy as hell if I can pull 10 female from all of them, and a few ounces from each female.

So away around carrying is to run a hose from close to your patch - you can plug in a hose to complete the chain when you show up and out the other end close to the water source. Carry a cord less drill & water pump from marine store to flow the water from A to B

Just make sure to hide the hose the best you can since if someone finds it they may follow where it leads to

Something I have also done in the past

 

[TCurtiss]

Or if you can find one up hill you just need some screens to filter the water and an end to connect when you show up

 

[someone else]

So away around carrying is to run a hose from close to your patch - you can plug in a hose to complete the chain when you show up and out the other end close to the water source. Carry a cord less drill & water pump from marine store to flow the water from A to B

Just make sure to hide the hose the best you can since if someone finds it they may follow where it leads to

Something I have also done in the past

GOSH T, that's exactly what I wanna do. The thing is, the nearest water source is 187 yards away. I could conceivably do it though. Are you saying to use the cordless drill as the engine that drives a manual pump? I'll have to search the threads and see if others have tried that...I think I remember seeing that somewhere.

I most likely will just continue humping in water from home though. I'm pretty strong and it's a good workout anyway, although I probably won't be singing that tune later this year when I need to bring out 20 gallons a time....haha.

I will very likely do that next year, when I move back to the midwest.

I appreciate the recommendation...it gives me some food for thought.

 

[TCurtiss]

The drill will flow enough water for you even at that distance, just make sure you set it up and you are going to need a bunch of hose

Hiding it and running will take time, maybe chip off a little at a time and test

My group started using a 4x4 type radio flyer made to pull large amount of items through rugged terrain, I think he got it at the depot

We used to work at night and I certainly do not miss the bugs and sweating your ass off but if yuo make it to harvest it is all worth it

And don't put all your eggs in one basket meaning plant in a few spots so if one is found you have a back up

This has also worked in the past for me, one night we went out and found a log moved on the way to the patch only to find our entire 25 plants destroyed

We got the F out of there

So just plan ahead

 

[someone else]

The drill will flow enough water for you even at that distance, just make sure you set it up and you are going to need a bunch of hose

Hiding it and running will take time, maybe chip off a little at a time and test

My group started using a 4x4 type radio flyer made to pull large amount of items through rugged terrain, I think he got it at the depot

We used to work at night and I certainly do not miss the bugs and sweating your ass off but if yuo make it to harvest it is all worth it

And don't put all your eggs in one basket meaning plant in a few spots so if one is found you have a back up

This has also worked in the past for me, one night we went out and found a log moved on the way to the patch only to find our entire 25 plants destroyed

We got the F out of there

So just plan ahead

Yea, this year I'm shaking the dice and putting all the plants in one location. It's in the best of places though; I have a lotta confidence that it won't be discovered. Knock on wood.

I'm kinda new to the area, and won't be here beyond this year anyway, so this year is just gonna be a smaller grow. I already have plans for next years grow, which should be 100 plants. I'll most likely incorporate a feeder system like you're recommending as it'll be impossible to water the plants like I am this year with 5-gallon containers.

I've experienced loss from hunters in the past, and there's few worse feelings then to come back to your plots and see everything destroyed.

Thanks again for the inspiration; you've got the wheels in my mind spinning with ideas.

 

[whiteflour]

Well the soil is clay. Clay pure and simple. It's so hard to dig into...it took me an hour to dig a decent 3X3 hole earlier in the year when I was planting in the ground. Just merciless digging. I'm originally from the midwest, and I can't even begin to describe how hard the clay is here, compared to there.

So in bitching about that like I have...I gave up and decided to use buckets. The soil I put down in my original holes was fine, but because the clay under it had ZERO ability to drain, my plants would often sit in a watery-mud stew for days and days after a rain. Basically the entire month of May was just one big rain storm here, so my plants were constantly fighting for air, surrounded by water.

I humped in soil and peat moss, and reused what I could from what I put in the holes originally....and just started over with 5-gallon buckets.

It's disheartening to have to start over in the middle of the season like I did, but I was left with little choice considering the circumstances of the holes I dug.

I'm only here for this year, then I'm moving back to the midwest, where I'm more familiar with the soils and weather patterns.

I'm enjoying the longer summer here though. I couldn't grow Sour Diesel where I'm from, nor G13/Haze probably either, without succumbing to an early frost.

Thank you for stopping by!

Ahh midwesterner. Yea it is clay but that clay is special. It doesn't appear to be the typical red clay of the region but more so the kaolinite clay you'll find closer to the coasts. I'm not real familar with SC geology (from GA) but that I'm guessing that's going to be a problem anywhere south of about Columbia. That whole area used to be an old coastline so it's very mineral rich and in some regions lots of fossils as well.

What I used to do down in Geogia is lop the bottom off the buckets and recess it about 2" in the clay. You need to break it up good with a pick first and you'll probably have to add some sulfur. There's a ton of water held in that clay it just gets too compact to grow in. You really need a plow or a reverse tine tiller. The tillers that spin fowards will never dig into that clay.

 

[someone else]

Yea, I'm telling you man, it's nothing like that. It's the hard red clay. I mean, in the beginning of the year, I dug holes that took hours to dig because the soil is so hard, and put in soil mix. The new soil was fine, but when it rained, there was absolutely no drainage whatsoever underneath the planted soil. It was literally a holding tank of water, and the plants would just sit in a completely saturated watery soil for weeks on end, even after the rain stopped.

Honestly, at this point, I can't wait to move back north. It's a shorter growing season and filled with its own challenges up there, but you just can't grow in the ground in this area. The only vegetation grows in the first 4 inches of the soil. Any further down, and there is nothing. No moles, bugs, nothing, its just solid hard red clay.

It's cool though, I sucked it up, switched up my whole grow in early June by moving to 5-gallon buckets. I'm not gonna get huge results in harvest, but I'll be happy with what I get. These plants have done well since I transplanted into the buckets.

The plants are gonna enjoy the long summer down here compared to the midwest, which at this point is the only advantage to growing down here that I can find.

Btw, I'm looking forward to moving out to Cali and growing in the mountains out there someday. I know there is CAMP out there, but I've always envied the growing conditions out there.

Keep rockin' in Cali whiteflour!

 

[someone else]

Finally some rain....won't have to water tomorrow thankfully.

Hope the plants survived the storm.

 

[whiteflour]

Yea, the soil is really hard to work to out there. Like you were saying there's not much topsoil anywhere so you've to get used to amending it for your needs.

I atually think the conditions are better back east though. I believe the humidity adds a lot to the growth rate, but that creates it's own world of problems. Any late activity in hurricane season can be problematic for the indicas.

I'll probably be headed back east soon myself. The job market is about dead out here and my biz is following it. Actually looking forward to the grow season, just hate the humidity, and the laws!

 

[city limit warrior]

First of all, I'm quite envious of you! You sound like you have quite a healthy collection of plants.

To answer your question, I think it depends on what you add to your soil to start with, for instance composts, manures, bone/blood meal, etc.

I just started with a top soil/peat moss mix....and that was it. That doesn't give the plants much to work with on the nutrient side, so supplementing my mix with Fox Farm really makes a difference, especially in the nitrogen department.

After transplanting my wimpy plants into the buckets, from a month of being in ground soil, letting them adjust, and adding Fox Farm nutes, I've seen a strong turn around in the overall vitality of the plants. They seem stronger, and are making good progress.

So I would say do what you're doing brother, especially if you're using great organic nutes in the ground when you start out your plants.

But if you would like to boost your plants just that little bit more, I'd wholeheartedly recommend Fox Farms nutes. The Grow Big nutes are 100% organic, and the Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom nutes are made from natural ingredients.

For the 3 pack, it's around $50, but worth it in the long run. My 2 cents.

Good luck and thanks for stopping by!

I used my own blend of compost mixed with native soil and 11hrs of direct sun light made a great combo. I dnt have alot of funds to sink into this grow but i bought sum flowering nutes and th npk is 0-10-10 do i need somthing that has a little bit of nitrogen in it?

 

[someone else]

I used my own blend of compost mixed with native soil and 11hrs of direct sun light made a great combo. I dnt have alot of funds to sink into this grow but i bought sum flowering nutes and th npk is 0-10-10 do i need somthing that has a little bit of nitrogen in it?

Yes, I would definitely look into adding some nitrogen. In the vegetative stage, nitrogen is important for new branching and that lush green growth that gets the plant some size.

 

[ColaFarmer]

Your soil looks like the dirt in the Johnston/Edgefield area. Seems to have a bit more sand on top then most of SC. Could be wrong, Haven't been everywhere in that state.

 

[someone else]

A lot of what you see in the video and pics is soil that I put in piles after digging the several holes that I had planned on growing in this year. Trust me when I say it, the soil is compacted red clay past the first few inches of sandy clay.

They actually just dug up some soil recently near my house to put in some new buildings, and all you see is pure red clay. It's really quite striking how red it is...it looks like Mars. They had to truck in real soil in dump-trucks just so they could do landscaping around the buildings.

This is all moot though as I'm not using the surrounding soil to try and pull a crop this year. I'm moving back to the midwest next spring, and this hell that is known as the south will be a distant memory. Although the growing season is shorter up north, the soil is 10x better.

 

[ColaFarmer]

Oh no doubt here that it is rock hard red clay. You could dig it up and make clay pots out of it, at least it seems like you could. Just wondering if I had the area close, I drive over to Johnston all the time to get peaches.

All good. Good call planting in buckets. The only other way involves a bunch of tractor work. Sub-soiling and tilling, over and over. South Carolina does suck all around though.

 

[city limit warrior]

Yes, I would definitely look into adding some nitrogen. In the vegetative stage, nitrogen is important for new branching and that lush green growth that gets the plant some size.

Ive got really good nitrogen and most of my plants are finishing the veg stage and startn to flower my question was does my flowering nutes need a lil nitrogen.

 

[tomalock]

South Carolina does suck all around though.

Big time shithole of the south...

 

[tomalock]

my question was does my flowering nutes need a lil nitrogen.

yes, but not as much, say a ballpark figure to start with would be around 05-??-?? for the nitrogen, you may need a little more but start with that and see. But yes when it is flowering it still needs nitrogen for new growth and flowers are new growth.

 

[someone else]

I used my own blend of compost mixed with native soil and 11hrs of direct sun light made a great combo. I dnt have alot of funds to sink into this grow but i bought sum flowering nutes and th npk is 0-10-10 do i need somthing that has a little bit of nitrogen in it?

Ah ok man, didn't realize you were talking about flowering in late June...you didn't make that very clear in your post.
Take Tomalock's good advice and add some nitrogen nutes to your flowering mix.

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Well I'm gonna go out and feed my plants in a few hours with some Fox Farm nutes. Per NEL's recommendation, I'm gonna step the Grow Big down from 3 teaspoons to 2 teaspoons/gallon. I'll probably go 1 Tablespoon of Big Bloom/gallon too.

Be back in a few hours with a pic/video update.