Tips,ricks and stories from experienced gurilla growers.
1 Like
If you can’t have full sun, chose morning sun. Earlier ,the better. Daybreak brings a red shift light just when the sun is coming up.
9 Likes
Finding photoperiod plants that will finish in your area, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
I would plant many many seeds knowing most will be lost to the elements and pests. Give them minimal attention. I might water or feed one time. A few grams here, a few grams there…
Also fem autos are interesting for this purpose as the dont require 12/12 to flower.
5 Likes
I was a small town commercial grower for 43 years. Everything you have mentioned is very helpful. I would add, keep them short or tie them down with green cord. Try to plant on the edge of the woods slightly under the tree line. Dont put a lot of plants together in one spot. Plant them among the surrounding plants and dont clear the ground around them. They will stretch to find enough light on their own.
4 Likes
Guerrilla growing can be the easiest and most rewarding growing you can do. It can also be the largest disappointment you can have. Everything depends on your methods.
Here are a few tips I have learned over the years:
- Pick a strain that will acclimate easily to the conditions of your local environment. If you get a lot of rain or have humid conditions pick strains on the Sativa side or are resistant to mold.
- Pick a grow spot that gets sun all day, shade is your enemy.
- Choose a spot to grow in well. Make sure it’s far away from any foot traffic.
- When checking plants (do this as little as possible) always approach from different directions so you don’t make a path to your grow spot.
- If possible pick a huge briar patch, clear out the center by cutting a few of the briar bushes down and grow inside of the patch. This way no one can see them and deer and animals will have a hard time getting to them.
- Grow not far from a source of water. If a drought or lack of rain happens you can hide a bucket in the center of your patch and water them.
- Use clones from proven females, you don’t want to have to come back to cull males or lose plants due to harvesting males.
- Tell NO ONE, not you best friend, wife or anyone else!
Good luck and happy growing!
12 Likes
I use to take a cruise down the interstate highways and look for suitable locations by mile marker posts along the highway. If the spot looked good, I would park the vehicle on the shoulder of the road, wait for traffic to clear, just long enough to run down to the fence denoting highway property, again waiting for traffic to clear, climb the fence and plant one or two seeds. Usually just one.
Back in the vehicle, I would write down which mile marker this was done at. One year, I did a 60 mile run on an east/west interstate planting on both sides, although I learned that the north side is usually better because of the direct sunlight.
It was too cool to be driving down the highway at 70 mph and looking for some shrubberies at those particular mile markers. Imagine my delight and surprise 4 to 5 months later when driving by at the speed limit, I could see some very respectable specimens as a direct result of my Johnny Appleseed approach. Never more than two at any given spot.
These spots the other side of a highway fence never saw pedestrian foot traffic, or hunters as no self respecting hunter would sit next to a highway fence while waiting for a whitetail.
Less of them get molested by critters, especially deer when they are growing 10 to 20 yards from the highway.
I never watered them or went back until it was time to take them home, which I did after dark as there was less traffic, as well as trying to carry some of these shrubberies to the truck was so very obvious. Very scary at harvest time, and yet so highly rewarding.
That has worked for me a few times back in days of yore.
I’ve never mentioned that before to anyone, and now that our State has legal recreational use, I can now see a bunch of you looking off to the sides of the highway when passing mile markers. 
8 Likes
Some solid advice here as always. In the 90’s it all i did. I kept a couple moms and would take alot of cuttings. After a few years i learned to except your going to lose half or more. Plant extra!
3 Likes
Plant a few in different areas just in case someone cuts down your plants
2 Likes
I liked to grow somewhere where there was a stream. Not near the stream, but where there was one. I’d always take a fishing rod (always had a license of course) and that was my reason for being there. Parking on the side of a road can make people suspicious of what you’re doing (poaching, growing weed, burying a body ) Parking at a stream with a fishing rod = “what a nice man”.
@Oldjoints gave you some good info…NOT leaving a trail is very important. Clones are a good idea, though I never had a problem pulling out males either. I always looked after my crop, I was in there once every 2 weeks, weeding, fertilizing, watering if I had to, though I started using cedar swamps so rarely had to.
Find places you hate walking into…if it’s easy, odds are it’ll get found. That’s why I liked swamps…bugs and wet feet will turn a lot of people away.
I carried camo gear in a small backpack. Regular clothes in, change in the bush, regular clothes out.
Plant smaller patches. Big patches are easy to spot from the air. Better to have many small ones. And don’t make your patch rectangular shaped…make it look natural.
5 Likes
We used an acronym in the Army: OCOKA.
Observation
Cover and Concealment
Obstacles
Key Terrain Features
Avenues of Approach
-Observation means what you can see from that spot, and whether you can be seen
-Cover and concealment means places you can hide plants or even yourself
-Obstacles, as the name suggests are things that make approaching or leaving the area difficult
-Key Terrain Features are hills, draws, ravines, or even man-made structures
-Avenues of Approach are the possible ways into the area and how likely they are to be used
Remember, the cops are looking for certain things like debris (trash) obvious trails, unusual breaks in vegetation and spots of green on other wise bare ground, obvious man-made clearings and anything else indicating human activity in a place where there isn’t supposed to be any.
7 Likes
LITFA….it’s a frikkin weed let it grow. Throw some 14/14/14 osmocote in the hole with some worm castings and come back a few weeks later….
1 Like
I would take number 8 and make it number 1. All the guys that I knew who got busted for growing ( and they were many) , got drunk and showed their plants to someone. Dont do it. Also I dont have anymore 
so these are for everyone.
7 Likes
I’m sitting by the side of the road right now because my wife’s car broke down. AAA says it’s going to be an hour. So I did a little scouting, and found some perfect spots right here. This road runs through nature that for certain reasons I know nobody is going to build there - if you know what I mean.
Anyway forest service crews just went through and cleaned up for fire risk, and there are Gambel Oak thickets just getting started. Between six and twenty inches tall, with little clearings everywhere. There’s nothing here that would interest anyone, either. I’m on a six mile stretch and thinking about planting five plants around here. I’d plant more but I’ll have to visit them frequently because this is a dry area.
3 Likes