Site Preparation

[krazay]

Ok I've been looking for the perfect spot for a lonnng time now and this is what I came up with! theres PLENTY of room i have as much room as I'll ever need. The soil is practically pure sand with maybe 1 rock every square foot. I'm going to pack in like 3-4 small bales of sunshine #2 or #4 mix and add some kind of nutes maybe those miracle grow sticks i don't know what works good? also the plot get DIRECT sunlight ALL day long!

I know sandy soil supposedly lacks Nitrogen but i found lots of little animal turds here so i know there is lots of nitrogren aka piss here already.

I plant on digging either 1x1ft or 2x2ft holes fillin them with soil, maybe some blood meal, lime and polymer crystals. Anywhere from 25-100 holes depending on how much work i feel like doing. Also I'll put plastic lining or mulch around the top of the plant to hold even more water in.

The strain i chose is reef's hashplant because they are almost purely 100% indica, they can get HUGE, are very potent, low maintnance and reef recomends them for hydroponics, well sandy soil is the closest you can get to hydro in the great outdoors!

Since bringing large amounts of water here twice a week is not an option for me, i'm going to dig a small trench line it with plastic and use that for irrigation.

Question i got: is there anything besides chicken wire i can use to keep kritters like coyotes and snails away? i heard panther piss is sold at garden stores and works good for animals..
Theres a lot of helicopters that fly around here too, think i should plant in a certain way to make it less obvious? I'm not too worried about them i live in canada but shit i want to keep what i grow!

K so heres the pics. deal is help me out give me advice especially if you have experience with sandy soil and i'll return the favor by posting pics in May!!







see how much room there is? its surrounded by thick prickly blackberry bushes and the ground floor is covered in very green short mossy looking things!


mushrooms seem to like to grow here with the moss


heres a sample of the sandy soil about 6inches deep


this was already here when i got here, the coyotes did this i'm sure.. do coyotes eat pot?

anyways i know your all very busy growing bud right now but thanks!

 

[krazay]

chicken wire seems like the best thing yeah.. purpose of the trench is to line it with plastic and hold rainwater that i can use to water.. any suggestions on how i can improve the sandy soil?

 

[motaco]

if I were you I'd bring in all new soil. I've seen some 2ft schwag plants that stayed alive in sand because they were literally right next to a river but other than that nobody I've ever seen grows in sand.

I'm no botanist or something though, it could be possible without me knowing about it, but I've never seen it done successfully.

 

[krazay]

k i'll consider it.. seems so hard to find a spot with good soil or by a water source that gets direct sunlight all day.. i thought sand was possible i got this out of cervantes book.. anyway i'm still going to try something here.. theres lots of mountains areas around here maybe ill take a look up there too.

"Sandy soils can be prepared for cultivation without much trouble.
They must be cleared of ground cover and treated with humus, manure,
or other N-containing fertilisers. In dry areas, or areas with a low water
table, organic matter may be worked into the soil to increase water-holding
capacity as well as fertility. Sandy soil does not usually have to be turned
or tilled. Roots can penetrate it easily, and only the planting row need be
hoed immediately before planting. Growers can fertilise with water-soluble mixes
and treat sandy soil almost like a hydroponic medium."

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

Enriching the sand with some compost should make it usable. Judging by the moss, you may have a fairly low PH(acidic) at this site, if so the use of some Dolomite lime should help that. I'd advise you to dig your holes and enrich them now, so that they are nice and aclimated when planting season comes

Chicken wire is your best bet for total protection from deer.

Coyotes do not eat pot.

That sure looks like my back yard.......

 

[krazay]

lol maybe it is your back yard... if i do choose this spot yes i'm planning on digging the holes and working in the soil this week.. JJ has me skeptical now about how often i'm going to need to water them though.. lime, soil, and blood meal. can i replace compost with a soil mix and blood meal? polymer crystals might be useful for me. you guys have some nice looking gallerys lol thanks for the help.

 

[sm0kateer4204]

fish emulsion's and cheap ass dirt. work's wonderfully. or blood and bone meal.

 

[Fast Pine]

Where are ya gonna hide tha plants?. You said you want big ones?..Well thats not the spot. You need alot more vegitation to hide behind. Why dont you go up in those mountains in tha background...The soil structure is sure to change.


How far is that, from the dirt road?


Get your self in tha treeeeeeeeees!

 

[krazay]

oh trust me there is A LOT of vegetation surrounding it.. tall thick layers of blackberry bushes i'm not worried about height at all trust me! But your absolutely right i actually went up a mountain like the one you see its well known around BC for pot lol the dude who owns advanced nutrients used to live there, mike straumietess or w/e. anyway on google satellite you can see some incredible fields up there so if i wanna grow huge trees i think i better find a nice field like that one Fast Pine ^

fish emulsions? won't that bring in more animals sniffin around sm0kateer

 

[sm0kateer4204]

i dont think it would anymore than blood meal would. animals love both of them.

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

I would use a mixture of composted steer manure(or horse) and inexpensive potting soil to make the sand more usable. The manure will enrich the soil with nutes, and the potting soil will help it retain moisture/nutes.
You are right to want to stay away from blood meal/fish emulshion, composted animal manure is much safer for growing in wild places.
Toss in some water crystals, to help retain water.

Does it rain much in the summer where you are at? Is there much for ground water?

 

[Stoner133]

.. seems so hard to find a spot with good soil or by a water source that gets direct sunlight all day..

That is the truth. If the land is anything like flat, you can be sure somebody has already staked it out for traditional crops or ranching.

That leaves us with the least desirable sites. Sites that are impractical to use for conventional agriculture are all this is left.

Cannabis, like all plants has three critical requirements outdoors.

First is adequate Sunlight. Cannabis thrives in open locations where it can get a minimum of 6 hours of direct Sunlight. Your site is fine that way.

Second is moisture. Cannabis needs a lot of water when the conditions are near optimum (25-35C day time, 15C night time). If you are able to collect water when it is plentiful, Winter snow melt and Spring run off for example, you can irrigate through the season. BACKCOUNTRY has posted some excellent examples of guerrilla reservoirs and bush irrigation. Failing that, you will have to haul water, no way around it.

Third is temperature. Cannabis need warmth to germinate, anything less the 20C will result in poor germinating. Even worse, Cannabis needs acceptable weather late into the Fall season. Low daytime tempetures, in the range of 0C-10C are too cold for flowering to continue.

Freezing tempetures overnight will further set them back. They can tolerate a light frost as long as they have a chance to warm up during the days. Heavy frost, -5C is the limit.

Unfortunately, your foothills site, like mine, suffers two out of three less then optimum conditions. Finishing high potency strains is difficult, at best your likely to end up with light and airy buds.

Your best bet may be an auto-flowering strain like Early Girl or an early flowering strain like C-99. They don't rock the planet when it comes to potency, but they can finish well in our climate.

I would advise using the first season to test out the conditions and security. Start small, a couple of well established seedling plants will teach you all you need to know and still provide enough to make the effort worth while, if they survive.

 

[sm0kateer4204]

if it were my spot i wouldnt mix the sand wth anything. i would just remove and replace. but this mainly depends on your ultimate plot size and how much dirt you may be removing.

 

[B.C.]

If it was me...

If it was me...

I'd dig my holes and replace the soil with mushroom compost (and a lil sunshine mix#4,ta keep the compost from compacting) as soon as the ground thaws next spring.I would put a healthy amount of bonemeal in the bottom of the holes first though.The bonemeal being buried a foot or two will help hide it's smell from the critters that eat it.If ya do this early in the spring by the time it's warm enough to plant your ph will be stable (from adding the bone meal) and a the microherd will be kickin.I really like the m.compost because plants thrive in it,plus it's cheap to buy and has a microherd built right in and also it's a big buffer against ph influxtions,nute.problems,lack of water stresses ect...The bonemeal has plenty of N.and P.but lacks K.so a lil woodash (or kelp if it's available) might not hurt,I think you'd get by without it though if ya had to, due to the compost.Well lol that's what I'd do,good luck...Take care, BC

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

Actually, sand is not a bad ingredient in a good soil, once mixed with other soil components that will stratify it. Sand is commonly used to loosen clay soils to produce loamy soils in vegtable gardens. Basicly, sand is only bad in its pure form, where it can actually compact and sufficate the soil, once mixed with enogh organic matter it could even be choice.

 

[krazay]

Thanks guys i like the "If it were me" thing goin on.. backcountry we get about 80 inches a year. but right now? there is tons!! of groundwater its been raining 3 inches each day for the last 3 days straight.. but the summers are a lot hotter in between 20-35 celsius. I took a drive up the mountain today and found a lot of good ideas.

I'm gonna strap one some boots and find somewhere nice. If you guys aren't tired of this thread i can show you more pics and you can tell me what you would do to the site if it were you!

stoner133 that was pretty helpful I'm planning on growing from clone though, use the 12 seeds i get this month and veg them for 4 months to clone and plant.
B.C., mushroom compost sounds like a real good idea i think people around here sell it cheap, maybe from where you are too if you really are in bc.

sm0kateer sounds good i can handle a lot of digging but theres still the issue with water.. will the soil i put in there get dry because all the sand around it is dry?

i got another question too.. what is the most effective soil i can look for? somewhere like a field where alot of tall grass grows in the middle of a forest clearing where it gets light all day?



reeferman's hp, grown by someone on reefs forum

budshot i took for fun

view from the mountain i am going to hike around to find a good site this weekend!

Thanks Y'ALL

 

[Stoner133]

A thought occurred to me later in the day.

Is there a chance your sandy site is an old mine tailing's pond? That would be bad news because of the presence of heavy metals and residual chemicals used in concentration of the minerals extracted. There are a lot of them scattered around the Province.

When your in the mountains, avoid sites above 1000m/3400'. I tried that one season and knew I was in trouble when they were covered in frost one early August morning. by mid September, they were frozen and finished.

 

[krazay]

K 1000m. not a mine.. near a old gravel pit they dig out all the gravel.i might try a few here but i really think i need to find a low maintnance spot that already has good soil that i can just enrich