Critique guerilla plan - Appalachia

bohuntynzr

New Member
Hey all, an introduction, I'm in the Northern Appalachians, nice to meet ya. This will be my first go-round outdoors and looking for some critique of my gameplan. Did an ok indoor in college so that's my only experience. But I'm a country boy and been gardening since I was a kid. Not shooting for the moon here, just wanting enough to get me through the year. Going to plant 12 seeds at 4 different sites. If I can nurse 2 or 3 of those to maturity I'll be happy.

April - Careful site selection and site prep

I am an extremely avid hunter so I already have several places in mind. Going to scout and fine tune, clear some brush, neutralize the soil, amend sandy soil for nutrients and water retention. Don't want to carry a ton of stuff into the woods, so looking to maximize efficiency for amendments. Working with a primarily sandy soil (mason jar test from a couple samples I grabbed this weekend all looking 60%ish sand with the rest good looking dark organic matter, almost no clay)

May - First frost free forecast in earlyish-mid-May, plant seeds, carefully in some starter soil. Probably in decomposable starter cups. Cover with netting. I know I am trading risk minimization for yield, not starting indoors.

Depending on rain, visit site to water my babies early on. Keep netting up until they are at least a couple feet high and I feel they are semi safe from deer which may be all season. I realize with a 100% outdoor plan at this latitude I'm not going to be looking a giant plants.

June - Planning to train/prune to encourage multiple colas. Aesthetically I just prefer the bushier plants.

Try to nail down a window when they will start to flower and remove males. This is one area I am really unsure about and seeking advice. I thought about fem seeds but ended up choosing another path. Are there any reliable ways to predict? How long do I have to spot the nuts before they start to pollinate my ladies? We get a lot of rain so other than this phase my visits should be every few weeks or so unless we get a random drought. I just want to nail down when this window is.

Really hoping to harvest in mid-September before archery season starts and hunters start hitting the woods again. As a hunter I can offer this advice to my fellow small scale growers.... we are 110% your biggest threat. We spend the most time in the woods and there are very few places we won't go. Places that laypeople and granola hikers think are rugged/thick are a walk in the park to us. I've found probably a dozen grows over the years while hunting and some were in laughable sites.

Seeking advice on ferts/soil amendments and that sexing question mostly.

I guess my intuition/research says to hit them with the N during veg then transition to P-K during flower, are there good low maintenance products recommended? Should I look toward time-release since my visits will be infrequent? Organic is great but I'm ok with some synthetics within reason. Preferably something I can buy locally.

Also should all this go as planned, are there some ways to dry while minimizing stink? This is right now one of my bigger concerns. I have nosy neighbors and in-laws that are over a lot. I have a crawl space above my garage that I can utilize no problem, but just how awful will that stink be and for how long? I can't have it permeating my whole neighborhood. And what if humidity is 60-80% or higher? I would think I can I just kind of break buds up finer to get them to dry faster? Am I totally screwed then if it gets that humid? Should I look into partnering in someone who can help me dry at a better location?

So how's my plan?
 
Whats up Brother how goes it? I have a few suggestions for you to help you along.
Go with feminized seeds find the strain you want and source it in feminized version if there is one.
Put a Walmart LED shop light a 4 footer up in that loft space and start them there, a small 6" fan too for air flow and to strengthen the stems up. you hunt so you have duffles and backpacks take them out early morning and play johnny apple seed with the teenage plants. Take your amendments out one day and set the spaces up so you break up the loads of gear. Also try placing them on natural flow through sites for rain water but off the path of it a foot or two you get me lol.
Before flower your going to stake and or tie them off, netting them might be a bit obvious by then especially overhead.
Break the sites up with less plants per - lots of hunters around spread the plants around more. Dont clear to much brush it can be noticeably like clearing out a shooting lane is to the animals in the area.
I like Jacks Classic 20-20-20 for veg its water soluble and for me never burns my plants indoors, I would plan on adding some slow release fertilizer in the holes with the plants, before you put them in just amend the soil with it and it will slow release for you.
Yes in flower you reduce the N and keep up the P and K I use MaxSea 3-20-20 and a cal mag additive cause my strain loves it and has to have it lol.
Indoors in that space in the summer hell yeah too much humidity to deal with, smell can be taken care of with a carbon filter later when you want to grow in the winter lol, you will its addictive to grow.
Same rule as hunting leave nothing behind but your footsteps and make those go another direction LOL. Good Luck I hear its beautiful there.
MD
 
Also no worries on the nutrient they can be ordered online and shipped to your door in brown boxes. MD
 
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