Into The Mist An Oregon Medical Garden

Since moving west I have really come to respect outdoor growers and I am amazed by the amount of work it takes to pull off a successful harvest. Growing indoors is certainly not for the lazy but those that grow under the sun are truly farmers in every since of the word.
Getting up before sunrise and working late into the evening is a daily routine here and everyone does their fair share. This garden provides yearly meds for 16 people so there is a lot riding on their efforts and they take it very seriously.
Dioxide a TGA crew member introduced me to Pat last year and I was impressed immediately by his knowledge and attitude about growing. At the time he was working for Advanced Nutrients and listening to him give advice I could tell he was very passionate about Cannabis. As I got to know him better I started to think of him as the Bill Nye of grow rooms and nutrients seemed he had a detailed answer for any question asked of him.
As he got to know me better and study TGA his curiosity about Super Soil grew and this year he decided to use it in his outdoor medical grow. Drew a friend of Pat's who is also a Photographer, was nice enough to document the progress in the garden before I arrived and the first part of this story will feature his photographs. I am very impressed with this young mans skill with the camera and hope you enjoy his work as much as I do. Long before I even knew of this gardens existence and crew of dedicated care givers did the hard work of prepping the holes.
Two pallets of soil, a ton of worm castings and boxes and boxes of dry amendments were mixed together to create the mother load of all Super Soil batches. Heavy machinery like a hole boring rig and a back hoe were used to help dig the holes and so much work and care was put into each area that would hold a plant. Once all that work was completed it was time to transplant the clones that had been growing indoors under artificial lights. Pat seems to be a master at soil biology and his soil web created by the mycrohase was amazing, in Drew's pictures you can see the amazing root growth as the plants were removed from their containers and placed into the ground. Like you guys I am lucky that before I got involved such good documentation was done so we can all see the evolution of this medical garden from the start. I will always be amazed at how fast cannabis grows outdoors under good conditions. From my experience with the Garden of Weeden I had seen the phenomenal growth that can occur when cannabis is planted directly into the ground.


Pictures by Drew

I was even more excited to see how the garden would perform using my soil recipe and asked Dioxide to ask Pat if I could visit and take some pictures to document everything and do a story on it once the harvest was successfully completed and Pat happily agreed.
Dioxide picked me up early one morning and we made a drive up into the hills of Oregon. It was a foggy morning and it got worse as we drove up. My first look at the property was shrouded in a dense fog I called Mist and this became the un-official nick name, The Mist.
The Mist is a long narrow property that slants uphill and the garden is located on the back of the lot nestled up against some trees. From a distance the green house looks like any of the hundred you see driving through Oregon but once inside that all changes. Planted directly into the ground are ten plants, one TGA Bloodwreck, one Jack Herer, two Snocaps, two Orange Velvet, three Hawaiian Hindu Kush X Heavy Duty Fruity and one Sage X Afghani. Situated in between are rows of Jack Herer planted into smart pots, these will be moved into a second tent as the main plants get bigger and take up the full greenhouse. It was August 10th the first time I saw the plants and already they were taller than me. Just like with Weeden seeing plants so large made me feel very small. The beauty of this magnificent species in its natural setting is truly awe inspiring. When cannabis plants are grown to this size and in groups like this they seem to create their own climate. In between the rows the temps can be as much as 15 degrees cooler than on the sunshine side. One thing that stands out fast as you walk through this garden is how neat and tidy everything is kept. Drew not only took the amazing shots featured in this story but did a good share of the work as well. The first day I visited there was work going on everywhere and they only took a break so I could shoot video. The plants were trimmed and trained properly and discussions were taking place on the best way to support the side branches once the bud weight started piling up. Pat was actually meeting that day with a building inspector to have an electrical upgrade installed to provide power to the commercial de-humidifiers he had ordered. It was still kind of weird when a county worker came out to inspect while we were filming 10 foot reefer plants but that's Oregon for you.
So there you have it the first look at the start of an amazing season and some of the behind the scenes work that goes into a medical garden. Early mornings and late nights sounds like any other farming to me and you will see more hard work and dedication in part 2 of this story of the Garden in the Mist.

Subcool
www.tgagenetics.com
Pictures by Drew


http://www.youtube.com/user/subcool420 Key Word "Mist"

This is a feature article that will appear soon in a major mag but you guys get a preview here first as well as additional harvest shots from Drew

Sub

Thanks for the perspective Sub. The transplants to the Mist are bigger than many indoor gardeners will ever see from their plants. If only we all could grow outdoors, as nature intended, the price of cannabis would be within reach of the most "indigent" patients. Hats off to the dedicated folks that are risking so much to bring relief to (unfortunately only a few) patients in their area!!

I always seem to be blessed with some great meds of TGA genetics when these articles come up on RIU, and the Jillybean I am smoking right now complimented this great read beautifully. Thanks for documenting "The Mist"!

Very cool. I take it the mag this will appear in is High Times?

Auzzie07 said:

Very cool. I take it the mag this will appear in is High Times?

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I have really grown tired of the way HT treats writers so it will most likely appear in some other weed mag like Treating Yourself.

I love the HT crew and there super good to TGA but they have a way of treating submissions that can drive a guy nuts and I am kinda tired of it to be frank.



Sub

subcool said:

I have really grown tired of the way HT treats writers so it will most likely appear in some other weed mag like Treating Yourself.

I love the HT crew and there super good to TGA but they have a way of treating submissions that can drive a guy nuts and I am kinda tired of it to be frank.


Sub

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I haven't heard of Treating Yourself. I may have to go pick up a copy. Nice work subcool, you've created some of my favorite flavors.

That is quite the garden.Look more like trees than plants

Ocan.

that is beautiful! man, i hope to see/have a garden like that before i die. just pure natural beauty

Auzzie07 said:

I haven't heard of Treating Yourself. I may have to go pick up a copy. Nice work subcool, you've created some of my favorite flavors.

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treating yourself is a fantastic magazine which is based out of canada and is geared more towards patients and mmj providers... instead of all the focus on amsterdam, they are more geared towards spreading info to the patient... it is really well put together... however, like ht, cannabis culture, and others they could use a good spell checker... just sayin... i'm not a hater, my ocd is doing the talking here...

sub: you think of taking your message to other magazines like in britain, australia, germany, spain? there are a lot of people out there who would love to hear and see what you have to say... or you could always start your own magazine!