Outdoor Strategies

[Mr Piggy]

Yup. It's important to find a spot where you don't have to come back often to water, if water at all (see: swamp tubes) Even if you only go back every two weeks to water, you leave a very visible trail to anyone who spends time in the woods. I can follow my trails back even after one or two months. Keep that in mind when you want to do a grow. I'd get a kick out of doing a tree grow in the yard sometime, but it's just too much damn work for guerrilla growing. That's a lot of labor investment for not much guaranteed outcome. Putting a few patches in the ground next to a creek deep in the woods might seem like more work, but once you're set up it's really not. People have an aversion to burrowing deep into thorn patches, so that's where I go :thumbs:

 

[Shadowbuck]

Yup. It's important to find a spot where you don't have to come back often to water, if water at all (see: swamp tubes) Even if you only go back every two weeks to water, you leave a very visible trail to anyone who spends time in the woods. I can follow my trails back even after one or two months. Keep that in mind when you want to do a grow. I'd get a kick out of doing a tree grow in the yard sometime, but it's just too much damn work for guerrilla growing. That's a lot of labor investment for not much guaranteed outcome. Putting a few patches in the ground next to a creek deep in the woods might seem like more work, but once you're set up it's really not. People have an aversion to burrowing deep into thorn patches, so that's where I go :thumbs:

Ah yes. Very true. I've come to the point that I've started fertilizing not just the plants...but the surrounding area where I've been walking as well. Seems to have worked somewhat to get some new growth to come up. Don't really want dark green healthy pot plants to stand out against lime green, struggling to survive, natural vegetation. This is what I look forward to when I return from the site...
picking ticks off of myself for the next 3 hours.

 

[stonemaster]

Shadowbuck is right. Always spread ferts to your cover area. If you grew up in the country and know wooded areas, it is so easy to find paths. I could go the the river, find a bottom, and simply walk along it paralel to the river. Paths are so easy to see. Simply follow them a short way and see if they go under low lying limbs. If so, it is an animal path, if not then human. I was riding down the river one day and to my suprise I saw a bucket in a tree. I went to see, they were in my general area, and there was also a small patch in the brush. I spelled out stupid in the dirt with small rocks and left. Last year, as I make the long walk to my spot, I found two different patches. To me it is like when you are driving down a highway and a fool passes you going very fast. I let him get a little ahead then I fell safe speeding up. The first car is going to draw the attention of the pigs, kind of like a guinny pig. I feel the same about those amiture patchs. The pigs will find them then stop looking for mine. I still rite stupid in their patch, but they are too stupid to take a warning.I found these patchs by their trails.I put seven dust, an insectiside, in my pants cuff, then simply smack it once in a while to make a cloud of dust on my pants. Works well for ticks. Lost a freind to rocky mt. spotted fever, carried by ticks.

 

[Mr Piggy]

Reading all of your stories really reminds me how awesome of a guerrilla growing area I live in. Lots of water all the time and fertile soil so I don't have to fert the whole area or water often and ticks are incredibly rare here. Skunks and poison oak are a whole nother story though. That and the areas I go to have clouds of mosquitoes that will carry a man off.

That reminds me, time for a warning. Never, ever plant in a poison oak/ ivy / sumac patch. It might seem like a good idea but those plants fling their oil all over and if you smoke some bud with that stuff on it, especially poison oak (know what i'm sayin PNWers?) you're going to be taking a quick trip to the hospital. Stick to nettles and thorn patches :thumbs:

 

[stonemaster]

Damn mr. piggy, you are right! Sence poisen oak does not bother me I was thinking of planting it around my spot. Never thought about not only me smoking poisen oak, but what about people who are allergic! I will not be doing that. Great tip!

 

[Mr Piggy]

I haven't gotten it yet either, even though I've accidentally waded through patches of it all growing up. I'm not sure if I'm lucky or just don't get it, but I try to be careful not to bring any with me. Besides, I spend enough time pulling burrs and goatheads out of my everything when I get home anyway. I used to have a huge head of dreads and would spend a week pulling shit out of my hair after going out, thank god that's over!

 

[Amendment64]

As someone who spends a lot of time out in the forest of Colorado for camping, hiking, dirt bike riding, and hunting, let me remind all of you guerilla growing outdoors that TRAILS ARE EVERYTHING. The average person couldn't follow a trail of bread crumbs but the impact of almost everything is visible to the trained eye. You can follow the foot steps of a mouse if you get on your hands and knees...so don't doubt that someone could follow your trail NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO if they are skilled enough and the terrain gives them enough to work with. Hiding your trail is art in itself but it's not that hard to figure out just make it look like it was disturbed (since you generally can't make terrain look completely untouched once it's been stepped on) but not disturbed by people. Never entering from the same route is a start, trying to walk like you're hunting (read: step lightly and walk rather slowly) will go far because your impact will be less and you can note what impact you're having and correct it on the go (preferred) or on your way out (but then you're exiting how you entered, doubling your impact on the same general trail, therefore harder to cover).

Probably even more important is SMELL! I don't smoke cigarettes so it's easy to get a whiff of tobacco smoke, campfire, weed (including the smoke), exhaust fumes even from considerable distances. And smells come to you, you don't have to be looking for them whereas at least most tracks on dry terrain aren't immediately obvious to most people. Your average idiot could find a grow by following his nose if he was given the opportunity. And directed winds can easily carry what you'd think would be "little" smells a mile or more.

Sorry if I'm making any one paranoid but believe me it's warranted. I've never personally grow at all, period, much less outdoors (starting first outdoor grow soon)...but I have spent a lot of time finding myself curious enough to follow human activity in the middle of nowhere when I was originally there for something else. I never go looking for oddities like plane crashes, abandoned moonshine operations, abandoned marijuana grows, abandoned hobo (bigfoot?) bunkers, abandoned rock mines, frontier (abandoned) cabins, abandoned hunting blinds, etc...but it all starts with a trail. Except that one time I smelled something good then found like 3 pounds of ripe raspberries growing in a gully. That was great

 

[Mr Piggy]

Good advice :thumbs:

Awesome find on the raspberries!

 

[Shadowbuck]

I put seven dust, an insectiside, in my pants cuff, then simply smack it once in a while to make a cloud of dust on my pants. Works well for ticks. Lost a freind to rocky mt. spotted fever, carried by ticks.

Good idea. Never thought about trying something like that. The ticks are horrible around here. Even worse out in the wilderness near the grow. I pick on average about 4-7 ticks off of myself over about 3-4 hours time everytime I visit the grow. Part of that is because I tend to try and take "the path less traveled" everytime I go...but still, in general, they are everywhere out there. And I have some seven dust on hand too. May try that next time I visit the grow to fert. Which may be today...or not. Rain possible later today. Grow journal in my sig.

Peace
-Shadowbuck

 

[arboles]

I would be one bad mother %ucker if I lived in the mountains. I'm down here in the south, and chiggers are much worse than ticks, you gotta dress for the operation to keep those little bastards off you. The heat & humidity down here will kick a guys ass that's not used to it. Old cemeterys are awesome, but again, the vibe just isn't right. I know where a super old one is; it's so old, large trees have grown up and hidden the place from view on the highway. Maybe the land in the surrounding area would work.