Outdoor FAQ

Ever wanted to do a crop under that great big grow light in the sky? Growing your favourite plant just as nature intended? Doing an outdoor crop in the UK is a great way of getting yourself some extra bud, without the hassle of electricity bills, filtering stale air out of your house or taking up space in the spare bedroom. If you've always fancied trying your hand at an outdoor crop here's all your questions answered.

Ever wanted to do a crop under that great big grow light in the sky? Growing your favourite plant just as nature intended? Doing an outdoor crop in the UK is a great way of getting yourself some extra bud, without the hassle of electricity bills, filtering stale air out of your house or taking up space in the spare bedroom. If you’ve always fancied trying your hand at an outdoor crop here’s all your questions answered.

When should I start?

Seeds should be sown in early April, so that they are ready for moving outdoors from mid-May to early June. You can start them indoors under a regular propagation light, CFL lamp or even on the window sill or greenhouse. If you’re happy take some larger plants to the grow spot, you could veg them for 3 weeks under a metal halide lamp. As you get closer to planting out, harden them off outdoors; just a few hours a day at first to acclimatise them to the outside temperatures.

The plants will vegetate through the months of May and June and will be triggered into the flowering photo period after the summer solstice – the longest day of the year – after which the daylight hours gets progressively shorter.

Most strains will take between 8 and 12 weeks to finish flowering, meaning that crops will be ready to harvest between the end of September to the start of November.

Where shall I do it?

Unless you’re lucky (or rich) enough to own a nice bit of land or live in a rural area with no neighbours around you, chances are you won’t be growing in the back garden. This means you’ll be growing guerrilla style in a cheeky secret spot.

Treat your outdoor spot with as much secrecy as you would an indoor grow. In fact, it should really be treated with extra secrecy as anyone could steal your precious crop from an outdoor spot, at least when you grow indoors it’s behind lock and key! It’s a good idea to start looking for potential grow spots the year before you want to do the actual grow. Visit the spot a couple of times in each month that your intended grow will be there – May to October – and see how the landscape and foliage changes throughout the growing season. An area that may look well protected in the middle of summer could look very open at a different time of the year and could leave your crop exposed.

Wasteland, scrubland and woodland can all provide excellent spots. Use the landscape to your advantage, a tall hedgerow will hide your crop nicely, swathes of nettles will do the same, natural clearings within heavily wooded areas also provide perfect grow spots. Preferably, you’ll want a spot that is difficult to access. If it’s difficult for you to access, then it’s very unlikely that it’ll be discovered by an athletic dog walker or hiker. Thorn bushes are a superb natural barrier that will deter any random person that stumbles into an area. Find an area of thorn bushes with an open piece of ground in the middle and you’ve hit the outdoor jackpot! Alternatively, get the tools out and make yourself a nice open spot in the middle of the thorns.

When you are visiting the spot and surrounding area, take a look for any signs that other people have been around; fresh litter, dog shit, hedges with straight edges, are all giveaways that other people are visiting the site. Remember that telegraph poles and electricity pylons are usually maintained once or twice a year, so avoid planting out close to these.

How much sun do I need?

You can also use mapping tools on the web to try and determine if your plot receives a decent amount of sun. A program like google earth is great as it allows you to check out satellite imagery of your plot. If your plot faces towards the bottom of the web page, then it’s facing south. If it faces more towards the top of the web page then it’s north facing and won’t receive a decent amount of sun.

A spot that receives direct sunlight from early on in the day is best as morning dew will tend to get trapped in buds and may form mould over time. Early sunlight will dry out the moisture trapped in your outdoor buds and will reduce the risk of bud rot.

What shall I grow?

The agony of choice! There really is no shortage of seedbanks to choose from, each one of them will have a strain (or several) that they recommend for outdoor growing and the well informed seedbanks will even provide a latitude range in which to grow each strain. A good strategy when you are embarking on your first outdoor grow is to sow a few different strains and see which one performs best. Just make sure you spread the strains across your various grow spots to minimise the risk of losing a few plants.

Durban Poison, Passion No.1 and Northern Lights have a proven track record in the UK for outdoor growing. 

Loads of UK outdoor growers are now into their auto-flowering strains. These non-photoperiod sensitive plants will flower under any lighting conditions and do not require a specific light cycle. So you don’t have to rely on the days getting shorter in order to get them to flower. This makes them a safe bet for pulling some decent outdoor weed, because you can basically plant them out when the weather is already nice and warm, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be ready to harvest within 60 to 90 days.

There are a huge amount of regular and auto strains available. Check the forums for feedback and try them out for yourself to see which works best in your spot.

How do I cover up the smell?

Put simply, you don’t! When you’re growing in the great outdoors it’s very unlikely - unless you’re doing a very large number of plants - that the smell will carry to the extent that it gets you into trouble. Having said that, there are a few tactics you can employ that will ensure that your precious plants don’t get rumbled. Don’t plant out close to public roads, footpaths or bridleways; this one is pretty much common sense, the smell of your plants will travel a short distance before it disperses. Also, if you’re very concerned, you may want to try to find a spot near to an area that would mask the smell; farmyards or sewage works are a good cover; just make sure your site is hidden.

How do I get my plants to the grow spot?

Keeping your grow spot a secret means being discrete during your visits, that may prove difficult when you’re trying to transport your plants there. Buts that’s not to say it’s impossible to keep your girls hidden when you’re planting out. Taking them to your spot in a cardboard box or a plastic storage container will keep them safe, but could look suspect if you get spotted. A great way of moving plants around when they’re in a small pot is to wrap them in cylinders of newspaper and fold down the ends with duct tape. These cylinders can then be easily stored in a backpack or, if your spot is near to a river or pool, a fishing rod bag. Plastic drink bottles cut in half also make good carriers; simply place the plant inside and tape the two halves back together. This should make the plants discrete to move around whilst keeping them safe and secure.

How do I prevent attacks from pests?

Large foliage camouflages this outdoor spot

When you’re growing outdoors, you’re never going to eradicate insects. There’s very little point in spraying for pests as you’re not going to visit the spot often enough to maintain treatments. However, two pests that you will need to protect against are rabbits and slugs. The latter can be sorted out with simple pellets, reapplied to your spot during each visit. 

Rabbits need to be kept away from your plants using a physical barrier; the best method is to make a ‘tube’ of chicken wire – around a foot in diameter – that can be placed around each plant. This will be enough to keep the pesky bunnies at bay whilst the plants are small and vulnerable.

In certain areas of the country you’ll also need to protect against deer, who’ll love to munch on tasty new leaves and shoots. Building a deer fence around your guerrilla grow site isn’t usually an option, so you’ll need to look at other protective measures. Some growers believe that urinating around the site will put the deer off visiting… plus it feels good to mark out your territory. Others believe that hanging bars of heavily fragranced soap around the edges of the site will deter the deer. Soap will also last longer, meaning you’ll need to visit the site less frequently than if you were using the ‘pissing method’!

How do I make sure the soil is ok for growing?

Unless you’re adamant on using containers, you’ll be planting into the ground and letting good old Mother Nature do her work. Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with giving nature a helping hand and you’ll undoubtedly get better results if you add some additional feed to the soil. The first thing to do is get yourself a soil test kit from your local garden centre or grow shop and check the pH of the soil. The ideal pH is roughly 6-7, if the pH of your spot is not within this range then you can treat it in the 3 months prior to setting up your grow; add lime to raise the pH or sulphur to lower it.

When you’re planting out, you can mix multi-purpose compost or All Mix into the soil if you wish. It’s also a good idea to use slow release organic fertilisers like worm castings, bat guano, bone meal and feather meal. These can be added to the top soil over the roots of plants transplanted directly into the ground and will break down over a few months and release feed to the plants. Speak to your local grow shop and they should be able to recommend some suitable feeding products.

How often do I feed and water my plants?

After they’ve been planted out, you’ll only need to physically water your plants if the UK is experiencing a severe drought, i.e. no rain for 3-4 weeks. If you’ve picked a spot that has sandy soil that is very fast draining, it may be worth paying a few extra visits to you spot and check that your girls aren’t looking too dry.

There is no point investing in mineral feeds and additives as they will quickly leach into the soil after it has rained. If you don’t mind visiting the plants often, you could hand feed them with an organic bloom feed once every other week during flowering. If you don’t want to visit the plants that often, just add some bat guano to the top soil – although you will still need to water this in once a week, unless it rains… which is likely!

Happy growing!