Outdoor grow planting advice

M

moonstar47

Active Member
I have a grow planned outdoors, I will be planting 4 autos, sweet tooth, northern lights, blue mystic and green o matic. The grow area I have found is in between two hills, with a valley that is not very wide.

I dug some holes about 12" deep and around 14-15" wide, giving me holes around 7-8 gallons.
Now the plan was to germ the seeds let them grow a bit then transplant directly into these holes.
The holes will be filled with a mix of:
10 litres john innes no. 2
10 litres perlite
20 litres multi purpose compost

Will this mix be suitable to take the autos from seedling to harvest? I will be adding flowering nutes only once the plant is old enough.
As they are auto I would transplant into the ground fairly quickly after seedlings sprout.

But I've been doing a lot of reading on soil types etc and I now realize the natural soil where I dug my holes has a high clay ratio, as it was sticky, wet, grey and hard to dig into. Once the holes were dug after 20 or so minutes I noticed the bottoms beginning to pool with water, 1 or 2 cm depth.

At the time I was well chuffed as I assumed this meant I would be watering a lot less because the plants could access the groundwater, however now I realize this is bad because the roots might get root rot and various other problems.

The drainage of the ground below is what is worrying me. To remedy this I could cover the inside of the whole with some sort of plastic, to stop the water getting in and the roots getting out, 7+ gallons is a pretty good size I think for a auto. This will effectively be like burying a pot inside the ground. however then there's the issue that water wont be able to drain into the ground at all.

Any opinions/ help greatly appreciated!
 
Last edited:
Kasuti

Kasuti

Well-Known Member
moonstar47 said:
I have a grow planned outdoors, I will be planting 4 autos, sweet tooth, northern lights, blue mystic and green o matic. The grow area I have found is in between two hills, with a valley that is not very wide.

I dug some holes about 12" deep and around 14-15" wide, giving me holes around 7-8 gallons.
Now the plan was to germ the seeds let them grow a bit then transplant directly into these holes.
The holes will be filled with a mix of:
10 litres john innes no. 2
10 litres perlite
20 litres multi purpose compost

Will this mix be suitable to take the autos from seedling to harvest? I will be adding flowering nutes only once the plant is old enough.
As they are auto I would transplant into the ground fairly quickly after seedlings sprout.

But I've been doing a lot of reading on soil types etc and I now realize the natural soil where I dug my holes has a high clay ratio, as it was sticky, wet, grey and hard to dig into. Once the holes were dug after 20 or so minutes I noticed the bottoms beginning to pool with water, 1 or 2 cm depth.

At the time I was well chuffed as I assumed this meant I would be watering a lot less because the plants could access the groundwater, however now I realize this is bad because the roots might get root rot and various other problems.

The drainage of the ground below is what is worrying me. To remedy this I could cover the inside of the whole with some sort of plastic, to stop the water getting in and the roots getting out, 7+ gallons is a pretty good size I think for a auto. This will effectively be like burying a pot inside the ground. however then there's the issue that water wont be able to drain into the ground at all.

Any opinions/ help greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Have you thought about using smartpots and cutting a hole in bottom to let taproot grow so they will have a water source?
 
ganga gurl420

ganga gurl420

Well-Known Member
moonstar47 said:
I have a grow planned outdoors, I will be planting 4 autos, sweet tooth, northern lights, blue mystic and green o matic. The grow area I have found is in between two hills, with a valley that is not very wide.

I dug some holes about 12" deep and around 14-15" wide, giving me holes around 7-8 gallons.
Now the plan was to germ the seeds let them grow a bit then transplant directly into these holes.
The holes will be filled with a mix of:
10 litres john innes no. 2
10 litres perlite
20 litres multi purpose compost

Will this mix be suitable to take the autos from seedling to harvest? I will be adding flowering nutes only once the plant is old enough.
As they are auto I would transplant into the ground fairly quickly after seedlings sprout.

But I've been doing a lot of reading on soil types etc and I now realize the natural soil where I dug my holes has a high clay ratio, as it was sticky, wet, grey and hard to dig into. Once the holes were dug after 20 or so minutes I noticed the bottoms beginning to pool with water, 1 or 2 cm depth.

At the time I was well chuffed as I assumed this meant I would be watering a lot less because the plants could access the groundwater, however now I realize this is bad because the roots might get root rot and various other problems.

The drainage of the ground below is what is worrying me. To remedy this I could cover the inside of the whole with some sort of plastic, to stop the water getting in and the roots getting out, 7+ gallons is a pretty good size I think for a auto. This will effectively be like burying a pot inside the ground. however then there's the issue that water wont be able to drain into the ground at all.

Any opinions/ help greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
I grow in clay....so this will be from experience. I use a raised bed. I fill my holes level with my soil (around 200 gallons. I then place my rootball on top of the level ground and continue to put soil around the root ball. This way by the time thr roots totally spread out and have gotten deep...the soil has dried up. I do suggest adding some polymer crystals though to help soak up the water now and release it later when the plant needs it.
Why did u choose an auto tho for outdoors? They do not produce much in that kind of set up.
 
M

moonstar47

Active Member
Because I cannot wait till september+ for harvest. And the spot is quite sunny gets about 10 hours sun a day, only one of the holes as far as I could tell has this drainage problem. As it will be filled with soil mix anyway, will it do any damage to the roots or anything or is it worth lining the hole with a fabric pot or plastic liner?
 
ganga gurl420

ganga gurl420

Well-Known Member
moonstar47 said:
Because I cannot wait till september+ for harvest. And the spot is quite sunny gets about 10 hours sun a day, only one of the holes as far as I could tell has this drainage problem. As it will be filled with soil mix anyway, will it do any damage to the roots or anything or is it worth lining the hole with a fabric pot or plastic liner?
Click to expand...
A fabric pot wont help in the hole...only outside of it. Also lining it wont help because you need to puncture holes in it for drainage and the water will just get in anyways. Fabric pots are for above ground. So really your only choices are to put it in a pot above ground or make a raised bed as suggested. Until the ground dries up if you just plant it in the hole as you were going to do...u will get root rot...trust me on this. I live In a clay hell.
 
M

moonstar47

Active Member
haha ok so today I'm going to go fill up the holes with the soil mix, the one thats getting filled with water I will raise the soil bed slightly as suggested and make some holes in the bottom of the clay with a fork, hopefully to increase drainage. Will that be sufficient to prevent root rot? I'm worried the soil mix I put in will absorb all the water and get waterlogged
 
ganga gurl420

ganga gurl420

Well-Known Member
moonstar47 said:
haha ok so today I'm going to go fill up the holes with the soil mix, the one thats getting filled with water I will raise the soil bed slightly as suggested and make some holes in the bottom of the clay with a fork, hopefully to increase drainage. Will that be sufficient to prevent root rot? I'm worried the soil mix I put in will absorb all the water and get waterlogged
Click to expand...
Take a cup with you and remove the water in the hole before you fill it with dirt.
 
M

moonstar47

Active Member
So I got both holes filled one of them was about an inch deep full of water after 24hrs, and the other was wet at the bottom however no pooling of water, so I removed all the water from the first one and mixed up 30litres of multi purpose compost (decided not to add any john innes no 2 as I was going to add liquid fertlizers anyway) with about 10 litres of compost, was just enough for both holes, going to top up some more also to achieve the raised bed.

Also I decided to go further up onto the hill and made 2 more holes, the dirt removed was much more loamy and had a much lower clay content, very crumbly the whole way to the bottom. these are about 9 gallons each.

I'm not too sure if I will get a good yield from the green o matic, however I need to keep smell as low as I can whilst balancing this with yield and potency. I am hoping for around 2oz each from the sweet tooth and northern lights, and around 1oz from the blue mystic.
(the northern lights and the sweet tooth will be in the 9gal holes that are on the hill)

Not too sure if I will be using the green o matic yet, however are my expectations for the 3 autos achievable?
Sunlight so far is good ,temperatures rising all the time and they will get around 10 hours of pure sunlight per day (unless it rains), and the holes are quite large, so I'm hoping I can get a good yield out of it.

Note: anyone know any good yielding autos that are suitable for outdoors and dont stink like hell?
 
jtp92

jtp92

Well-Known Member
My soil is clay also dig them a little bit deeper and wide so ur roots might not go as deep I do 50 gal holes it's around 3 feet deep and the rest is wide I haven't had a problem yet knock on wood happy growing notice my profile pic it's Angelica from bodhi and that is this years pic and the soil around it is clay all the way down
 
M

moonstar47

Active Member
2 holes have already been made and fillled in the valley with clay, the other 2 are on the hill. I will use a raised bed for the ones in the clay.
 
Lucky Luke

Lucky Luke

Well-Known Member
Be a bit careful out there to Moon (and all gorilla growers).

I was at the main patch ill use this year checking on my water collector tarp and 240L bin after some HUGE winds. Bin was full and tarp was fine.
So i grabbed the shovel i had up there and went and dug some holes (lots of rock so did a little exploring.).This is where things nearly went bad..I nearly put my leg down an old ventilation shaft of a mine that must be under my plot. I could of easily been stuck..in the middle of the frkn bush..in the rain...with no one knowing were the hell i was..lol.


so yea..just be careful when gorilla growing.
 
M

moonstar47

Active Member
Quick question should I go for the pyramid or nirvana northern auto? Need the one that has the lower smell, cant seem to find anything on this.
 
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