Equitorial Swamp Jungle Float-Garden

[Swamp Thang]

Thanks for the kind words, GanjaGardener. I did a lot of hauling of heavy bags of soil by canoe, to fill those 12 swamp tubes, and then I settled in and spent a good while using water weeds to methodically camo the whole setup.

I have started to harvest a few of the plants, and when dry these buds have a warm, appetizing aroma that is identical to that of freshly ground coffee beans.

The quality of the high is superb as well. I get a really uplifting buzz from these buds, where I often find myself chuckling over long-forgotten jokes between friends. Often too while high of this stash, I get inspired to pick up my Fender Strat and play it for nice long stretches with the volume down low, savoring the notes of every chord.

Now that my harvest time paranoia has subsided a bit, I will try and post some closing photographs here, before I pull all the plants over the next couple of weeks.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Oh well, my unlucky '13 harvest wound up with a whimper rather than a bang, because I made the blunder of spraying the buds with an overly concentrated aspirin solution to combat what really was a tiny amount of mold, and then I got worried that I might be poisoning myself by smoking my harvest.

Cut a long story short, I reluctantly threw out the entire harvest, and immediately
planted a new crop whose seedlings are just starting to poke out of the soil. Ya live and learn, and I just figured it is better to be safe than sorry, since I grow stricktly for personal consumption. Good thing about growing so near the equator is that it is growing season pretty much year-round.

From here on out, I will never consider spraying anything on my plants, and will just cut off any buds that show sighns of mold, so as to avoid becoming a casualty of my own chemical warfare. Thanks for stopping by, and for the new '14 crop, I will just revive this thread and post more shots as things start to get interesting.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Well another year has rolled around, and as you folks in the northern hemisphere are busy harvesting the fruits of your season's labor, I decided to throw a bunch of seeds into my swamp tubes her close to the 12/12 Equator, to see which ones Charles Darwin allows to survive the last of the tropical storms pummeling the area as the rains give way to the annual dry season that runs from November until the following month of May.

Decided to revive my old thread, since nothing much has changed other than the passage of time, and, as always, I am planting random bag-seeds to see which ones do the job then the buds mature. Got about 4 plants per pot, for each of a dozen planters, and amazingly most of them survived last week's epic storm here.

Will post more shots as the plants fill out and grow. Good to be back in the saddle again, and I hope to learn from my mistakes of the past.

 

[D. B. Doober]

looking awesome Swamp thang!

 

[stoned-trout]

very nice..i did a few years worth of swamp growing...a bit back...worked great for me ...

 

[Swamp Thang]

I sure appreciate you fellas taking a look in at my new effort here.

D.B Doober I gotta tell ya, I might wind up using your handle somewhere on the net, being the D.B Cooper mystery fan that I am, but I promise to send you royalties if I do adopt that name ha ha.

 

[Mikell]

I just made this....

my new background picture

Epic set up, sub'd for the show. There are more than a few swamps in the PNW and I hope to catch the fever from great swampers like yourself!

 

[Swamp Thang]

I am glad to see that the river scene meets with your approval, Mikell.

One thing that we outdoor weed farmers have in common, in addition to our interest in the discipline of growing our own primo bud under the sun, is our appreciation for the great outdoors, where the hustle and bustle of city life is replaced by the soothing chorus of the wind in the trees, and the calls of wildlife.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Gardeners further north of the Equator are most likely getting ready to plant the year's outdoor crop of bud over the next few weeks, but here on the Equator, grow season is all year round, although trial and error has taught me to time the grow so as to ripen the crop when the weather is relatively dry, to avoid mold.

So here, once again, from deep in the tropical swamp where monkey and bird calls echo through the treetops by misty dawn, and in the same grow spot as before, is a partial harvest of my Sativa bagseed grow, most of which still has quite a ways to go before the chop.

I figured I might as well revive my old thread, rather than start a new one, since the only thing that has changed is the calendar date, as time marches inexorably forward, waiting for no man.

Had a bit of a scare today when I saw what first looked like a watery path where some brave soul had waded through the marsh and mud right up to my grow spot, but closer examination of the flattened vegetation told me it as just my good buddy the swamp antelope, wading and grazing on water weeds, to within a couple of feet of my weed grow, which I can now assume is not to his taste.

 

[Kygiacomo!!!]

great grow swamp thang! im pulling up a chair to watch this spectacular grow unfold

 

[jay-toker]

.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Thanks for stopping by fellas. My grows are generally quite small and in just this one location, since I abandoned the other four grow sites I created on small islands in the swamp forest, due to the amount of time it takes to keep so many grows going in a flooded jungle where canoe paths are covered and closed up with new growth very quickly.

Quite a bit of work went into setting up those planters, Jay Toker, but the heart of it is large plastic pails with the floors cut out to allow for water uptake. Hidden from view beneath the water are logs of wood lashed together in pairs, on which are placed pairs of old car tires that are stuffed with coconut husk to absorb water. On top each pair of tires are the plastic bins filled with a mixture of fermented cow dung and dark soil collected where there are lots of worm casts.

Done this way, the swamp tubes won't tilt and topple over in the soft marsh, due to the large stabilizing footprint of the logs of wood on which the planters sit, and best of all, the setup lasts for years and years, since termites can't get at the logs to weaken them. I have been using this particular site for over 7 years, and each season I only need to go in with a machete to clear the undergrowth and add new soil.

 

[mendo-local]

This is one of the coolest grows I've seen! Good work man

 

[Xorc420]

Amazing pictures, extreme conditions for you man! I'll follow your grow in the swamp, good luck outdoor colleague!

 

[woolybear]

Oh my this is pretty awesome. Thanks for the update, subbed

 

[McKush]

Respect for all the work it took to build those sites. Your photos remind me of fishing on the river Chagres in Panama.

 

[Swamp Thang]

The rains have been relentless and brutal this year. My imported Zamal, Golden Tiger and Malawi seeds never made it past the seedling stage due to the downpours that seemed to intensify the day after I planted the seeds out, so it was back to local Sativa bag-seed as usual.

Of the literally thousands of bag seeds I sowed in my 14 planters, the ones pictured here are the only survivors, and I went in as usual and transplanted a few to spread them out evenly among the planters.

The good news is that the dry season is drawing near, meaning that by the time buds start to show and I have weeded out the males, the weather will be nice and dry, minimizing the chances of mold.

A storm was brewing so I had to be fast taking these pictures, before hurriedly paddling back to shore under darkening skies, hence the poor quality of the pictures. Hope to get some better shots to show here when the plants go to bloom.

Greetings and hallucinations from the swamp

 

[Buddle]

LOVE this thread SwampThang.. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us..

 

[tech1234]

swamp thang- I think if you use 50% or more perlite or similar in your mix you would see better growth during your wet season... I haven't actually done it but in theory...

 

[Swamp Thang]

Hey Buddle your kind words are much appreciated. These swamp grows can be hit and miss due to occasional flooding, and my not visiting the site often enough to catch all the males before they shed pollen, but every once in a while I get it right and pull down a decent harvest that enables me to stock up on some nice fragrant buds.

Tech1234 I was thinking along the same lines regarding the soil that I use. If perlite is added to muddy soil to increase aeration, then your idea of including some here might indeed improve the yield in this spot, so this is one easy fix I intend to try out next.

I found that the planters whose soil was obviously too muddy tended to produce stunted plants, and I was already considering mixing in some coarse-grained river bed sand to the planters before the next grow, to reduce that caked and muddy appearance in the planters where the crop didn't do so well.

Even after all these years, there is still an element of trial and error in my gardening endeavors ha ha.