Oregon on a budget 2016. #s for Pennies

Welcome everyone to my adventures through the 2016 outdoor season. I'll start with a little about my situation; I have 2 cards in our outdoor patch this year allowing us 12 flowering plants. A couple different things led us to throwing it all together a little late and a little underfunded. But don't despair, it's my intention to scavenge, barter and buy when necessary everything it takes to pull in awesome yields of 100% organic top shelf meds for minimal cash out of pocket. I'll post details on everything from strains to soil and everything in between with a running total on my costs. I've got pictures going back to the start that I will throw up tonight. It's my intention for this to be an open thread for anyone growing in Oregon to share their experience as well as a place where anyone who can conduct themselves like an adult is welcome to chime in. More to follow shortly but for now I'll leave you with some pics I snapped tonight of a few of the girls. Happy farming friends.

Alright. My base soil recipe was as followss this year. I started out with 2 yards of garden compost from NW Redworms. Instead of pure EWC like I've used in the past this is a mixture of EWC, leaf mold and manure from different farm animals all composted for 2 years and screened to 1/4" it's Also less than 1/4 of the price @-$100

I traded a buddy a 1/2 oz and 4 teens for 9 bales of sungro promix that contains 75-80% peat with the balance being a blend of perlite and pumice and 8 50# bags of Turface ( approx 1.5 cu ft each), which is calcined clay that helps both with water retention as well as drainage. It resembles little chunks of hydroton

To add to the base I have
40# Concentrates NW Organic 5-5-5 with mycorrhizae -$35 (contains fish bone meal, feather meal, kelp meal, flax seed meal, greensand, glacial rock dust and mycorrhizae)
20# Neem Cake-$32
50# Gaia green glacial rock dust -$18
25# Azomite- already had lying around
50# Oyster Shell flour. $11

When mixing I did 1 bale pro mix to 6 cu ft compost and 1 50# bag of Turface, roughly 1.5 cu ft. With the promix expanding it was about 15 -16 cubic feet. This got 7 cups oyster flower, 10 cups 5-5-5, 6 cups each of azomite and glacial rock dust. Plus 3 cups neem.

Each batch filled 2 holes that were roughly 28" in diameter and 28" deep. My guess is they each have between 60-70 gallons of soil, but my native soil is very fertile even though it is pretty rocky.

I have left over enough ingredients to make 45 cu ft of base mix and will be able to amend it all as well. This will be used indoors, used as topdressing or traded and bartered to other local farmers. I'd mentioned in another thread I was $50 in a plant but I was confusing numbers with my last batch of soil where I'd bought individual amendments and pure EWC. My cost for soil is $196 or about $16 a plant. These will be water only with the exception of an occasional Malted barley tea or coconut water and some topdressing during flowering.

Pic of the holes in my yard progressing and my giant pile of goodies.

Amshif87 said:

Alright. My base soil recipe was as follows this year. 6 bales Sungro Promix. It's an organic blend of 75-80% peat with the balance being split between horticultural pumice and perlite. Each bale expanded to about 7.5cu ft. To this I added 1 1/3 yard of compost from NW redworms that is a mix of EWC, leaf mold, fruitand vegetable matter composted with all the animal shitand 6, 50# bags of Turface, which is a calcined clay product that helps with both moisture retention and drainage. It looks like little chunks of hydroton. The reaso

Click to expand...

subbed for sure

Looking forward to following your grow. Question: what part of Oregon is your garden located?

in for the ride.

Fogdog said:

subbed for sure

Looking forward to following your grow. Question: what part of Oregon is your garden located?

Click to expand...

I'm between Salem and Portland.

So as of now the plan is to build a 12x30 hoop house around the girls and force flower in mid July. As soon as the plants come down I intend to throw a 50 gallon smart pot with a well vegged plant right on top. The roster for round 1 is as follows:
2x Black Lime Reserve
2x Blue City Diesel
1x Skywalker OG
1x Sour Urkel
1x Dr Funkenstein
1x pineapple Kush
1x Devils cut Kush
1x Purple Pineapple
1x Lucy's Lion
1x Rainbow kush. (I was told this was 2 people removed from the breeder, it changed all sorts of colors on my buddy and smelled and tasted like fruity pebbles) attached is a few pics of the girls before they hit the holes.

On May 11th I had plants in the ground. I am about a week behind where I wanted to be but I'm feeling good. Plants hit the holes between 1 and 3 ft tall. All have been topped and the bigger plants have cages on them. Here are some pics of them between then and now

So as long as nothing catastrophic happens I already have the 12 to take the previous plants places linesmen up. I will be running 2 each of Sour Urkel, Purple pineapple and Blue city diesel. They are my favorite to grow or smoke and all 3 yield very well. Here is some pics of the purple pineapple I just took down indoor and a jar of some cured flower from the run before when my night time temps were much cooler.

The last 6 spots on round 2 will be to re-examine possible keepers or just to run the keepers from the current seed selection I'm doing. I had someone trade me 2, 5 packs of TGA seeds for a RTF plant in a 7 gallon pot. I got Mothertongue and Killer Grape. I had 100% germ on both and now have 10 plants in 3 gallons that have all been topped once. Within the next 4-7 days I will clone them all and flip the seed plants to sex. Here are pics of them from the get go. And lastly a weird leaf mutation on a killer grape plant. I hope it sticks around. If those 10 seeds don't yield anything worth running again I've got a bunch of clones that were topped today and will be veging under the 1k until I know about those last 6 for sure.

Here is the Black Lime I'm working with. It smells like burning rubber, rotten garlic funk and astringent floral perfume in flower and cures out to a distinctly floral smell with a healthy dose of funk and slight coffe/hash undertones that almost remind me of a mint flavored bubba kush. Definitely 1 of the most unique tasting and smelling plants I've tried.

I'm subbed. Impressive start - you've obviously been around the track a few times.

Lucky Luke said:

in for the ride.

Click to expand...

Glad to have you along

WV: Jetson said:

I'm subbed. Impressive start - you've obviously been around the track a few times.

Click to expand...

I believe the term they use over here is, "this ain't my first rodeo." Lol
But on a more serious note. This is my first above ground outdoor season. I've spent the last 6 years in NJ where everything was very hush hush and before I left Oregon in 2010 everything I'd done outside was also a guerrila operation. It's nice to have nothing to hide, and a neighbor asking for advice with his rec grow over the fence. It also helps to not have to schlep sacks of dirt through the forest. Lol. Glad you're here for the ride.

Off to work a quick lunch shift. I'll try and get a good pic of each plant when I get home and I should have some pics from previous runs. But for now I'm going to rip this Black Lime live resin and get to it. Happy farming fam

Alright the first plant in the ground is skywalker og. I haven't grown this out personally but was given the cut by a friend who said it was a dream to grow. I believe it. She is thriving more than any other plant in the ground. The flower I sampled was great. Kind of fuely kush strain. Definitely on the Sativa side of the OGs.

Next hole is sour Urkel. I love this plant. In veg a stem rub releases a wave of roadkill skunk. Smells like AJs cut in the beginning of flower but over the rest of her life and into cure she develops a hashberry kind of smell and taste. Still has that skunky diesel smell up front but all dark berries and hashy goodness on the exhale. Pretty good yielder. A little less racy than the ECSD I smoke it in the evening, but my wife who is sensitive to Sativa highs feels like it puts her on edge.

Moving along is my purple pineapple. I got this cut from a friend of a friend when I moved back to Oregon last year. I have no idea what the purple nor the pineapple parts of this equation come from but I can tell you she is a fast finishing Sativa dominant hybrid. Colors up great with lower night temps. Grows into a perfect bush if topped once and left untrained. She smells kind of like rotten pineapples at first but by the end it has just a little bit of the pineapple up front but finishes like welchs grape juice concentrate. Awesome yielder of big colas.

Moving along to Rainbow kush. This was supposedly gifted to my buddy's mom by the breeder. My understanding is that it was redeye who did this cross. He gave me his mother plant because the Borg had taken over his flower room and he didn't want to lose it. The mom was pretty rough too but I stripped her down sprayed and quarantined her and she bounced back. My first time flowering her but his smelled like fruity pebbles and it took almost 14 weeks. It looked done at 10 but it was still mostly green. She just continued to change colors and fatten up. The only pictures I have are of his mite infested flowering plant at 10.5 weeks.

These 2 are my black lime reserve. I was getting some herb back east from a hydro grower in Rhode Island. He was growing this Black lime reserve that was a super potent fuely indica. In the q.p. we got from him we found 1 seed. I brought it out west and low and behold it was a keeper. She smells like burning rubber, perfume and that garlicky Chemdawg funk in flower and when she cures out she is super perfumy with a layer of chemy funk and a finish that has a likeness to bubba or master kush. Super potent indica that yields medium but is gorgeous to watch grow. 1 went out as a clone and one had a few weeks veg.
( I know you can see mite webs in the last 2 pictures, it was a year ago and I now religiously follow an IPM routine)

Next is pineapple kush. I am currently rocking a light of this inside. Smells like straight lemon candy with the faintest dry pineapple notes. Reminds me of some Alaskan ice my buddy had back east. I've got 6 in 7 gallon pots under 1k and they look like they will pull between 3-3.5 each and that works fine for me.