If you live in the flat area of the country, one that doesn’t have any mountains or thick forests you may still be in luck. This is because if there’s a swamp that you have access to you may be sitting on a gold mine for growing weed out doors.

They’re bright green, lush with growth, and full of water so that covers all the basics for guerrilla gardening. It’s just a matter of knowing what you need to do to get your plan going and then once your plants are in you’ll be surprised at how big and healthy they can get in a swamp.

Once you learn how to grow weed out doors this way though, you’ll find out that there’s just two glaring downside. One is that it’s expensive because everything has to be purchased package and carried in.

Then the second downside to swap growing is that it’s a lot of hard work, and the fact that you have to do all that work slogging around in mud doesn’t make it any easier.

Loading Your Basic Gardening Supplies

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you need flat ground grow weed in a swamp because you don’t. You grow all your plants in big pots so I’ve even sat them down on milk crates in water that was up to my knees.

You see, it’s just like you’ve seen before with houseplants, the exact same principle. A plant in a pot that’s sitting in a dish of water only this time the dish of water is the swamp.

So the first thing you need to do is find a way in that won’t leave a trail because all you have to do is pass through the cattails walking in mud just once you’ll have a trail.

Look for a fallen log or tree hanging tree limb that you can climb on and walk down into the cattails and shrubs or better yet a body of water that you can walk through.

Water is perfect because you could slash through it all you want all summer long and leave no indication you’ve ever been there.

You’re going to haul in large bags of premium grade potting soil like super soil or miracle grow potted soil, large bags of vermiculite, and large bags of perlite. That’s what you’ll mix your growing medium from.

Then you’re also going to need some basic tools and perhaps some milk crates if you plan on setting your pots up in water. You’ll also need to take in a couple of 5 gallon buckets that you painted flat black or primer Brown.

Now the best time to get you materials in is the wintertime when the swamp growth has all died back. The reason here is that when springtime arrives all the new growth will come back to cover up the mess you made. Then lastly if at all possible find a place where you can throw everything you need to go in your garden up over the bushes so you have a nice clean entrance area that isn’t all torn up from your back and forth traffic.

Peat Pots Worked Best for Me

I’ve tried a few different types of containers over the years and in the end what ended up working out the best was giant peat pots.

They’re planting pots that are made out of peat moss that you can at your local nursery, and make sure you buy the large ones. They’re dull brown so the blend in perfectly against the brown mud.

Large means that they’re about 20 gallons. Now get ready though because they are expensive and I don’t how much they cost now but back when I was doing it the really big pots were about $15 each.

“The other proposal that I find very interesting is the fertilpot. These pots made ​​from plant fibers that can be used for both horticulture and ornamental nursery. They come in many shapes and sizes and have the distinction of being very flexible.”

I tried grow bags that I made out of green plastic garden fabric that I stitched together with fishing line but they were difficult to move around after they were full.

They’re too hard to pull up if they settled too deep in the mud or to shove around to a lower area when the water receded during the summer, and it usually will. You also can’t stand grow bags up on milk crates.

Plastic pots are also non-biodegradable and it’s not that I’m some type of naturalist here either.

You see, after the summer is done and your plants are picked last thing you want to leave is a big mess of plastic pots sticking out like a sore thumb.

Also keep in mind here that you can’t re-use the soil the next summer because it will be crammed full roots and completely waterlogged.

I’ve tried it. With peat pots, after you pick and you’re done you can just stomp them into the mud or shove them into the water.

So take a screwdriver and stab about 20 holes in the bottom of each peat pot so you up plenty of access holes for the water to get in. Now don’t think that the water will soak through the pot cause they’re made with peat and some type of waterproof binder so it won’t. Also the four or five little square holes around the bottom edge just aren’t enough.

Next start looking around for places to arrange them and you’ll probably have a tendency here to scatter them far apart so they’ll blend in better. The problem here though is that you’ll be stuck having to tend and water them and the more you walk in the mud the deeper the channel gets, and it gets tough.

So try to keep them close together in groups and don’t worry because I’ve flown over a swamp garden an airplane and the plants blend in perfectly. They’re the exact same color as cattails in the type of trees and foilage it grows around marshes.

They even lean over a little bit like marsh foliage tends to, so it’s only towards the end of the season when the cattails start to die back that they’ll be visible from the air.

Final Set Up and Away You Go

So if you’ve done everything according to plan springtime will roll around and you’ll have all your material tucked away in your swamp, up on dry ground or sitting on a wooden pallet that you carried in to store things on.

You’ll also have a nice supply of healthy female starts all ready to plug in. Young plants that are about a month or so old, about a foot or so tall with nice healthy stalks.

So pour about a half a bag of potting soil into a pot, add in a good dose of perlite and then mix well. The perlite holds air so it will make sure that the soggy area towards the bottom that will contain plenty of air for the roots during the summer.

Add some more soil, along with the a little more perlite but this time start mixing in Some vermiculite because vermiculite works like little sponges to suck water up and store it.

Now I have tried using straight potting soil without doing this vermiculite perlite, mix and the differences are glaring. The plants don’t turn out as well and the top end of the pot that’s exposed to the air will be noticeably dry.

Mix in the vermiculite and perlite though and you’ll have nice moist soil at the top of the pot, healthier plants. Then after you pick them you can hack into the soil and see that towards the bottom the roots really like the air that the perlite provides.

So fill your pots up this way making sure that you don’t compact the soil, plug a nice healthy female start in each one and give it a good dose of water. Don’t flood them when you water them though because when you do that it will force all the air and nutrients out of the soil.

Carry a bucket of water over and use a dipper to dose the water on gradually. Or if you’re lucky you can set up some type of hose system so you aren’t stuck carrying heavy buckets of water.

Now the beauty of learning how to grow weed outdoors in swamps is that your plants won’t need regular watering, and in fact you can go as long as three weeks without seeing them, what a surprise you’ll get too.

You can get phenomenal growth in the full sunlight of a swamp so three weeks can mean 3 feet of growth, and even more. Believe me, it can be quite a shock to come back to six-foot tall trees when the last time you saw them they were little 3 foot tall bushes.

They will need to be fertilized though, and also you’re going to find that you”ll be pretty busy each visit cutting back the swamp growth.

It grows lush too end the bigger your plants get the more room there going to need so make sure that you have a long bladed razor knife or some other type of sharp knife that you can use to cut back cattails and foliage.

Rodents are also huge problem in swamps and even if they don’t bother you in the beginning, they’re still there waiting and watching.

Just as soon as late summer arrives their natural food source of tender shoots will be gone, and that’s when they’ll turn on your plants to start chewing on the stocks. So be generous with blocks of rat poison that you break up spread around. You could buy at your local ranch supply store.

Then your last bit of advice here is to carry all of your trash out after you finish setting up, all the empty potting soil bags. Now it can be real tempting in a swamp to just stomp them down into the mud, but don’t.

Pack them up and carry them out because they don’t break down, and all it takes for an animal to carry a piece of plastic from potting soil bag out of your grow area, and for someone to find it and your cover will be blown.

How to Improve Your Grow Skills

If you thought this blog post was informative wait till you check out all the golden nuggets I put into my latest book. "How to Grow Marijuana Outdoors: The Ultimate Guerilla Growers Guide" is chock full of my tips and tricks from over 20 years of outdoor grow experience all boiled down into an easy to read grow guide.

Click the link below and it will take you to the page where you can get a free sneak peek via Amazon.

If you have as of yet not had the opportunity to sample cannabis grown in the higher altitudes of an alpine forest you really have been missing out on a special treat. The thin cool mountain air and less atmosphere to filter the sunlight combine for some unique effects on the finished buds.

Delectable bright purple hairs are pretty much the norm with the occasional plant that buds up with pink hairs and even sparkly pink toned sparkly resin dust. It’s the intoxicating effects that really make this unique perfumy and difficult to acquire type of bud so special though, a stimulating uplifting experience with colorful mild and audio visual effects.

So then why haven’t folks from all parts buckled on their hiking boots to climb up to the highest peak to find a place to plant? The answer is simple, and that is that learning how to grow cannabis in high altitudes isn’t easy because the high alpine forest environment presents a whole list of unique challenges.

Growing Cannabis Plants in a Short Growing Season

Once you get up above 5000 feet in the mountainsthe growing season becomes shortened by roughly a month at each end.

It takes longer for the frost to break in the springtime and then freezing temperatures set in quicker in the fall to cut off flowering.

“Whether you are interested in car camping, RV camping or tent camping in America, you will find the type of information you need to have when planning a camping trip”.

Also up in the high-altitude where you plant can also factor into how short the season will be.

Grow them on an exposed ridge-top for instance and they’ll be hit with the higher wind-chill factor that comes with the stronger winds when fall sets in. That versus growing in the bottom of a sheltered valley where they’re less exposed.

Also keep in mind that the higher the altitude, the thinner the air, the slower the growth and what I’ve found is that seven thousand feet seems to be the limit.

Cannabis Seeds for Mountain Growing

You’d be hard-pressed to find an area where the seed strain that you choose to grow with is more critical.

For instance sativas are pretty much out of the question because of the length of time they take to bud up.

So you’ll be looking for cannabis seeds of indica strains that are specifically acclimated for a higher altitudes, Afghani and hash-bud strains.

Hash buds in particular produce squat hardy fast budding plants that in my experience do particularly well up high, even if they tend to not be heavy producers.

“This is the strain for hashish lovers.It produces large amounts of high quality resin, ideal for hashish making. Its pure indica genetics make it highly suitable for indoor growing where you can maximise the excellent resin production. Alternatively you can grow it outdoors with excellent results.”

Even so if it’s grown in a properly prepared grow-bed and fertilized cared for well including foliar feeding hash bud plants can produce up to a pound. Plus about 30% of the time they’ll finish out a bright “grape juice” purple.

Get your starts growing early in the season in larger than usual cups or pots to account for the longer delay in getting them in the ground. Also before you take all your starts up to plant make sure that the temperature stays above freezing all night long or you’ll be stuck with dead plants on your hands the first night.

How to Grow Cannabis in Mountain Soil

Now a lower altitude coastal mountain range is one thing, it tends to have reasonably decent soil.

However, once you make your way up to the higher altitudes of a steeper interior mountain range like the Sierra Nevada’s on the West Coast of the United States for instance you run into some pretty crappy soil.

“Garden dirt or soil is one of those things that can be discussed and detailed to death. The dirt discussion can be so overwhelming, it turns off potential new gardeners. Do we call it dirt or soil?”

It’s geologically new, after having only recently been exposed to the surface, so what you’ll find in most cases is that you get a few inches of topsoil before you hit rock, packed clay, sand, and decomposed granite.

So what’s the solution? The solution here is that you need to carry in soil conditioners like pete moss, redwood mulch, vermiculite, and perlite to mix with (raked up) topsoil in your grow-beds or containers.

Now another thing worth noting here is that because mountain soil tends to be geologically new it lacks the natural occurring calcium carbonate that older lowland soils tend to have in them. So part of learning how to grow cannabis in the mountains is learning how to use lime to balance out the pH to the more neutral level that cannabis prefers.

Beware of Easy Water Sources

Take a drive up into the mountains in the springtime and there’s water virtually everywhere.

Every bend in the road it seems brings one more valley with a small stream flowing in the bottom of it.

So the first impression you may get is that it’s pick and choose when it comes to finding lush overgrown areas to hide a garden in.

In reality though, the higher the altitude and the steeper the terrain, the faster these types of water sources are going to dry up as a summer moves on.

“Your drip system needs to run longer compared to your sprinkler system because it offer slow water delivery that will naturally take longer time. See the flow of your water coming out from your drip emitters, and estimate how much time it will take to soak all your plants.”

So the time to search out a secluded water source to supply your garden in a hidden area is in the late summer and early fall before your growing season to ensure that you have reliable water to last through the entire season.

Make the Effort to Hide Your Plants Well

Now if you’re flatlander who has already done some backyard or grow room gardening then you’ve never had to deal with serious aerial surveillance issues like you will in a mountainous region of the US in particular. Come mid-to-late summer, just about the time that you start to think that you’ve made it through scot-free you get your rude awakening.

Now if the picture in your head is of a couple of cops in an airplane flying around with a pair of binoculars looking down from 2000 feet in the air you are wrong. The real picture is a glass bottomed helicopter hovering just above treetop level methodically sweeping back and forth across the canyon sides, in fact so low that you could see their faces and even make eye contact.

So you need to make an extra effort to conceal your plants well in with the natural foliage and also make sure that you leave no trash in your garden. Then make a point of taking a can of flat black or primer brown spray paint in to cover anything like buckets hand tools, garden sprayer, etc, that you must leave there.

Cannabis can be a deceptively easy plant to grow, and in fact just like roses and grapes it can actually be found growing wild in many countries around the globe.

But just like roses it’s important to keep in mind that in the end what you’re really growing is flowers. Then just like grapes to be made into wine there’s aesthetic, flavor, and aroma issues that need to be considered as well.

So for the backyard gardener whose operating without the benefit of a cannabis growing guide the prospect can be as easy as sprinkling some seeds around on the bare ground. They’ll get plants too, and just like a healthy well fed tomato plant the rate of growth can be surprising. Two and 3 inches per day is not uncommon.

When it comes time to producing flowers however, which is what the buds are comprised of, the final harvest can fall well short of what they may have estimated judging on the rate of plant growth. Then to top that off, the quality of the limited amount of bud they’ll end up with can also be sorely lacking. This in spite of a successful summer growing season.

Cannabis Growing Guide to Outdoor Seeds

So it all begins with the seeds and the last thing you should do is plant seeds that you’ve picked out of a bag of cannabis that you bought, regardless of the quality.

The reason here is that over the course of the last few decades plant geneticists in places like Amsterdam have managed to successfully isolate a large variety of cannabis strains.

So that bag you have may in fact be grown from a specialized “indoor” hybrid.

“Hybrid is really a expression used to explain marijuana plant offspring created by crossbreeding two different ‘true-breeding’ parents. True-breeding marijuana plants will produce in keeping with type if produced using their own seed products, so different decades will share similar qualities.”

So the problem now is that just like any type of hybrid strain of plant or animal, along with the positives that were targeted or sought after during the hybridization or genetic isolation process come some negatives.

Things that were perhaps lost in exchange for perhaps better flavor and aroma. Genetic traits like a plants natural resistance to insects and root fungus.

Not to worry though because strains that grow better and produce a higher quality product “outdoors” have also been isolated and the good news is that they’re now easier than ever to buy online. So not only can you buy the outdoors seeds you need but you also have a very broad selection that allows you to pick out the size and the shape of the plants as well, along with the color and flavor of the finished buds.

Start Out With a Flat of Plant Starts

Then even though it’s now possible to order up a specific strain of outdoor seeds online, just like a litter of, say puppies from a specific breed, in spite of their shared genetics each one of those seeds can produce plants with their own unique subtle characteristics.

Little differences that slightly separate each one from the others.

Little things like flavor, color and general health that make some more preferable than the rest.

So this is why you don’t want to just stick your seeds in the ground and go “with whatever” pops up. Instead what you’re going to do is plant about three times as many seeds in cups of potting soil than the number of plants that you intend on growing.

“Chrystal limit is a stable indica/sativa hybrid of two potential marijuana strains, Crystal and K.C. 606, and one of those cannabis which has no limits. Her highest qualities have been noticed – she won the first place at the HighLife Cup 2002.”

About a third of them will end up becoming males which will leave about twice as many young plants for you to select the best out of.

A Few Tips on Soil Mulching and Conditioning

Cannabis plants grow best in a well conditioned soil for deep rooting.

Then given the value of the crop that you’re going to harvest you may want to invest a little more money in higher priced soil conditioners.

Conditioners like Canadian sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite and perlite. Cannabis also does better in a pH balanced soil, so if you’re going to use the peat moss which tends to be a bit acidic you’ll also want to add some lime to the mix.

“Some garden experts suggest that lime is a soil amendment. Others claim that it is a soil conditioner.
These are both rather vague terms.”

Common lawn lime is also marketed as dolomite and it works just fine for sweetening soil. Or if you’re gardening in a mountainous region were soil tends to be naturally slightly acidic you’ll want to add some lime into the growing mix even if you’re not mulching in any peat moss in.

Also keep in mind as you’re preparing your grow bed that the volume of it will work to determine the size of the plant that grows in it.

Tips and Pointers for The Final Budding Stage

Then at the end of the summer growing season when early fall begins setting in, the initial budding stage becomes evident by small white hairs that start sprouting on the tips of the branches.

A time when the nutrient intake of the cannabis plant also begins to change with nitrogen intake going down while potassium and phosphorous consumption goes up to produce the flowers that will make up the buds.

So adjust your fertilizer blend accordingly and there’s also one other thing to keep in mind here.

That is that the large swollen heavy seedless buds that you’re cannabis plants will produce is an “unnatural process” because under normal circumstances the plant would be pollinated.

“If you’re growing outdoors during the summer, you can cover your greenhouse with a blanket during the appropriate times, so that the plants get about 12 hours of light and 12 of dark.”

So it in turn causes an unnatural level of stress on the joints of the branches where they meet the stock, that can result in them snapping off. So as the branches become weighted down by growth you’ll want to use tie wire to keep them from snapping off, particularly in a rainstorm.

Attach a piece of tie-wire about a foot or so out on each branch from where it joins to the stock. Then take the other end of that section of tie wire and run it back to the main stock about a foot or so up from the joint into the stock. When you’re done each branch on your plant will have its own supporting wire holding it in place in the same fashion as cables are used a suspension bridge to hold the road up.

Harvesting and Drying Your Final Product

Now the longer you leave the flower buds out on the plant to accumulate and get heavier, the more potent they’ll become, up to a certain point.

That is that you don’t want to leave them out too long at the end of the fall season if you live in an area that’s prone to wet weather because they are susceptible to mold if they stay wet too long .

Then another thing to keep in mind here is that once the buds stop producing white hairs at the tips, and the existing hairs begin to dry and turn brown, the flowered process has completed.

“Having spent time, money and effort growing your marijuana, it is a shame to let it all down by not drying and curing the harvest properly. Luckily it’s not a difficult thing to transform the sticky flowers into a good smoke, but there are a few rules.”

To harvest them simply cut the entire branches away from the stock and hang them upside-down from a string or wire strung across a cool dark room in much the same way as you would hang laundry.

A dark room so the chlorophyll in the buds will be dissipated is much as possible and also a cool room so the finished product will remain fresh smelling and flavorful. Then on a final note: finished cannabis buds keep best in a sealed plastic bag in a freezer.

Growing weed outdoors is one thing but being the person who gets to pick it is what really matters. So the bottom line here is that if you don’t understand the basics of concealment techniques when you’re growing weed outdoors you may as well just not even waste your time, let alone take the risks spend the money it takes.

Now on the positive front the plant itself has a lot going for it in this area, in that it’s a green plant so it blends in quite well with surrounding foliage. So then your job is to take care of everything above and beyond that. To patch up all the loose ends so to speak to make sure that your hidden crop is a “hard target” for the cops and the ripoffs.

Don’t Make a Trail to Your Crop

The last thing you need is a trail heading straight to your plants because once you get that in you may as well set up a little snack station on the side of it for visitors to stop and take breaks at.

“Prices do vary because of the type of fabric the waders are made of. Less costly waders are made up of rubber or neoprene while better waders are made from breathable material like GORE-TEX. Each type of material has its own benefits and drawbacks.”

The problem you face though it is that if you’re growing weed outdoors it has to be tended and unless you can fly in you have to walk on the ground to do it.

So look for places where you can walk in water. It’s a mess and a hassle but it works great.

You can walk up and down a little creek for instance all day if you want for days on end and never leave a mark if you just make sure that every step you take is in the water. Now you need water if you’re growing weed out doors, so when you’re out looking for a place to hide a patch keep an eye out for a water source that gives you walking access into some thick foliage you can tuck your plants in.

Then another big tip here is to haul in your bags of planting mix, soil conditioners and “anything else” that you need to get your patch going during the winter months.

Also if at all possible do all the work you can setting up your grow beds, water line, etc. before spring sets in. Then when springtime does roll around all the fresh new growth around your patch will be just that, “fresh and new”.

Use an Irrigation System

It’s a shame that beginners have to learn so many of the lessons the hard way when they start out growing weed outdoors, and setting up and using an irrigation system is all too often one of them.

They start out toting water around with a bucket or container and by the time the summer is out they’ve many huge mess of things. There’s trails everywhere and the ground they continually walked on around the plants has been scoured.

“Gardens are precious to their gardeners and one of the main things that the plants need is water. Implementing a watering system is directly correlated to the success that your plants will experience.”

So always use some type of irrigation system and it vary from simple to sophisticated. Just a single water line that you that you rig together from hoses to water a few plants, all the way to a complete system with filters, a battery powered timer, and water drippers.

With an irrigation system your plants will grow so much better, and then as far as concealment goes, it really does make for far cleaner job of it.

Now if you live in a rural area where there’s farming and ranching going on, keep your eye out for old forgotten water faucets out in abandoned overgrown orchards or “wherever”. They’re out there, and also don’t forget that it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to dig down a few feet to tap into an existing water line to hook up an irrigation system to.

Learn to Use Basic Camo Techniques

At the very minimum you’re going to need to keep a container of fertilizer, a bucket to mix it in, and if you’re taking it a step further a garden sprayer for foliar feeding.

All of them are made of plastic too that sticks out like a sore thumb against the natural foliage you’re trying to hide your plants in when you’re growing weed outdoors.

So flat black or primer brown spray paint is what all successful growers use for painting anything like this that they have to leave in their garden.

“Burlap is cheap, permeable, and biodegradable, giving it utility in multiple organic gardening projects. Organic gardeners should always choose natural burlap made from jute, a plant fiber that exhibits superior strength, yet decomposes easily in outdoor settings.”

Then if you plan on using containers for growing in, consider using something like giant peat pots that you could buy at your local nursery because their matte brown surface blends well.

Brown burlap gunnysacks that you buy at your local feed store also work great for keeping tools of the trade in and brown burlap also works great for general concealment. For covering up grow beds, containers, or “whatever”. Then whatever you do, never leave any trash in your patch.

Use Nice Healthy Plant Starts

Your last bit of advice here is to start off with good, tall, healthy plant starts with nice thick stalks on them.

Plant your seeds in the largest styrofoam cups you can buy that are filled with the best potting soil that’s available at your local nursery.

Then grow them for about five weeks ahead of time so when it’s time to plant there ready to “take off”.

“Tall, spindly plants are generally caused by insufficient light. If you place the container in a window you should be sure to turn it several times a day. Plants will lean to the light.”

This way you aren’t stuck running back and forth coming and going caring for some struggling babies and leaving a trail or perhaps having somebody see you. Also using nice big healthy starts give you more options with regards to where you can plug them in and that too works towards concealment.

A cornfield, a nice bushy overgrown meadow on your neighbor’s back 40 acres, the overgrown landscaping mess behind a business down the street, up at your favorite camping spot etc. When you use nice big healthy starts it’s just a simple matter of plugging them in and then watching them take off.

Then another thing to keep in mind here is that the type of seeds you buy should match the terrain you hide your plants in when you’re growing weed outdoors. Tall strains for hiding in tall bushes and short little Afghan hash bud seeds for hiding in lower brush.