How to Grow Weed Outdoors in a Swamp
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
Who would ever find a garden entrance-way like this?
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.
Or what about something like this if you have no water to 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.
The super large peat pots are getting harder to find so you may have to improvise if they aren't available in your area.
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.
The Aztec Indians of Central America farmed on water using this same basic method centuries ago.
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.
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