Urban Guerilla

[Mattock]

Good day, people!

So quarantine got me bored to death and I decided to take on some adventure. To grow some in wild. Funny thing is, I barely smoke anymore. Just missed the rush I think.

Good thing I have ~20 RQS Royal Highness F2 seeds laying around for last 5 or 6 years, right? Well, no. Few that showed small taproot after 3 or 4 days, never raised above the soil.

This failure haven’t stopped me, once idea is planted in my head, you can’t stop me. But I got to admit, that quarantine slowed me for quite a while. You see, I’m not from UK and I just can’t buy more seeds this easy as you guys do. If random customs check up touches my envelope, I’m fucked. I instantly charged with drug trafficking. All I needed to do is wait till quarantine is lifted a bit. Just to cross a border, drive for 50 more miles and visit grow shop.

And the day has come. My patience paid off. Finally, at 5th of June, I laid my hands on those precious seeds. I got:

3 x Auto AK

4 x Northern Lights

All from RQS.

Next the location. This one is tricky as well. If you get caught with more than 25 grams of wet weight, you’ll be prosecuted as distributor. So car is out of the question. I need place that I’ll be able to get to on my bike or feet. And quarantine made most random places crowded. Now there’s ton of people, where I have never met them before biking with my dog. Everyone’s trying to avoid everybody just ends up in same place. What makes it worse, I live in city, so those secluded areas are very limited. After whole week of biking and exploring with my dog, we’ve found it. Right under our noses. In the middle of a public park near my apartment building. One side of park is abandoned. It’s kinda swampy, boggy area. Whole city is build on swamp. Probably irrigation never touched that area.

So I preped 3 small patches, cleared bushes, weeds, dig up around 15 liter holes, filled it with coco/worm castings/perlite/fish meal/bone meal mix, raised it with another 7 liter bottomless pots. So some sort of smawp tube. Plan is to plant two at every patch and leave one at my balcony, if all goes sideways.

Alright, so I went to meet my family at 05/06, when I came back two days later, at 07/06. Paper towel never disappoints.

7/7 germinated.

~36 hours later, at 10/06, just chilling in balcony:

https://i.imgur.com/HHvpVCg.jpg(image larger than 700 KB)

https://i.imgur.com/EQVxlu5.jpg(image larger than 700 KB)

Just one poor girl not able to raise her head:

https://i.imgur.com/oKmcdjI.jpg(image larger than 700 KB)

Lets call her Freebie

[misterbee]

SUPER Good Luck in your efforts. Be safe/be well.

[Mattock]

Quick unplanned update. 12/06 or 3 days old:

Everything’s fine, except freebie died, which was anticipated. Northern Lights are keen to keep their shells for some reason.

Auto AK, which will be left at balcony:

Auto NLs with their shells:

And AK which is going to live in a park:

4/5 plant’s taproots penetrated the peat moss cup and got out.:

[Mattock]

14/06 or 5 days old:

Alright, so taproots that went through showed some discolouring… That being said, I chose to go and plant girls outside.

Spot #1:

NL Auto

Royal AK Auto

Spot #2:

NL Auto

Royal AK Auto

Spot #3:

Lost the copper slug collar !

NL Auto

Ant the Royal AK Auto that will live in balcony:

https://i.imgur.com/Y2wHuEc.jpg(image larger than 700 KB)

[Mattock]

21/06 or 12 days old:

I live at 56 latitude and so far we had some sort of tropical weather. It’s insane. We have hot, really hot days, followed by rainstorms and thunderstorms that breaks the trees, roofs, etc.

All time high heat for June 18th was officially measured at 32.4°C in shade.

So I just went for quick visit to see if seedlings have survived the storms. Brought some light calmag and biohumus feed with me.

Spot #1:

NL Auto:

https://i.imgur.com/2WgB5UF.jpg(image larger than 700 KB)

AK Auto:

Spot #2:

NL Auto:

AK Auto:

Spot #3:

NL Auto:

Balcony:

So looks like everyone survived. They’re small, but survived. it’s obvious that Northern Lights doesn’t like the heat. NL at spot 3 looks terrible, all dropping on it’s side, whole pot is covered in slugs mucus?

Balcony so far looks best. So far guerrilla experience haven’t been the best.

[Mattock]

07/07 or 27 days old

So quick update. Last time I visited girls was around 10 days ago. Didn’t even take any photos, because I went right after hailstorm. Yeah, right after heatwave we had a freaking hailstorm. All the plants looked damaged by it and slugs, I was so bummed out, so I didn’t took a single photo, but it looked pretty bad.

And all last week and this week we had awful weather. Constant rain, high wind, and overall cold weather. Looks like autumn right here at the moment…

Atleast some plants bounced back.

Alright, so

Spot #1:

AK:

https://i.imgur.com/SiOsDw2.jpg(image larger than 700 KB)

NL:

Spot #2:

AK:

NL:

Spot #3:

NL:

Balcony:

AK:

So as you can see from photos above, balcony one still looking the best, spot #3 is officially done. So down to two spots. No flowering or start of it as of now.

Even plants look small, some even terrible, it still looks much better than last time I visited them, so I’m happy about that.

Oh, and copper tape, even though not fool proof, but seems that it does its job really well.

[Mattock]

09/07 or 29 days old

Hello

Just wanted to share with you that the girl in balcony finally showed its first pistils.

[Mattock]

16/07 or 36 days old

Firstly I’d like to quickly apologise for the quality of photos. It was dark, wet and as summery weather just came back up here, park was full of people, so I was hesitant to take more than one photo with flash on. Next time I’ll try to find time to go there early in the morning.

And for the updates, not much to tell, except that the girl AK in balcony started to stank. Wasn’t that bad, but it just started flowering, so that will definitely will get worse. Thought that basil, mints and other herbs will cover the smell, but ofc they didn’t. So I had to move it to Spot #3.

Spot #1:

AK:

NL:

Spot #2:

AK:

NL:

Spot #3:

Forgot to mention that I LSTd it a bit due to stealth reason while in balcony. Just simple tieing and exposing 6-7 tops.

Sorry for shity angle and quality.

AK:

[Mattock]

19/07 or 39 day old

So as promised I went in at the morning and plants look so much better in daylight.

Spot #1:

AK:

(So far it shows best bud development)

NL:

(Leaves curling in, maybe heat stress, because last three days, sun activity was over the roof)

Spot #2:

AK:

(Tallest plant of 5, with widest, strongest stem)

NL:

Spot #3:

AK:

(Forgot to mention it last time, that I moved it from balcony to spot #3)

[anon81143130]

They look pretty happy to me

[Mattock]

26/07 or 46 days old

So quick photo update. Not much to tell, except that grow is finally looking promising and I’m happy about it.

Spot #1:

AK:

NL:

Spot #2:

AK:

NL:

And Spot #3 and auto AK in it:

Have a good week everyone!

[Mattock]

Thanks man. Yeah they are looking better each week, just had a really rough start. Should have grow them out more indoors.
Cheers @misterbee!

[anon92385567]

Inspiring mate

[Badger]

Very resourceful finding a spot. Well done. Good luck and stay safe. Welcome to OG by the way.

[Mattock]

Wouldn’t call that inspiring lol
@Badger Thanks, man. Had plenty of time till border open up, so used that time productively.

[Badger]

Good for you! I’ve been productive as well. I haven’t grown in years, but I started mixing my own supersoil, and getting back into it.

[DesertGrown]

First, welcome to OG @Mattock. I’m glad you have joined us!

Urban guerrilla growing can be high risk due to many factors, sight and smell being the foremost, but it seems like you found a few well hidden spots and are coming along nicely.

When I started reading this thread, I thought you made sound choices on where you wanted to grow. Cannabis plants blend nicely with a lot of other plants in a natural setting and at times may become “invisible” even to a trained eye.

Smell is much harder to conceal in an open environment… and those that have a keen nose for the smell of cannabis are the only worry in situations such as this. If you can smell it, you can find it… usually. Strains with low/no aroma when growing are often times the best for urban guerrilla growing.

All these things considered, I think you’ve done a spectacular job despite the many issues Mother Nature has thrown at you so far.
Cannabis is a highly resilient plant, that once established, will be able to take a good amount of abuse, heal itself, wants nothing more than to finish it’s lifecycle and carry on its genetics.

If I may, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions about your slug problem.
When using copper tape/bands, make sure to clean them when they start showing signs of oxidation. This lessens the effect of the copper shock they receive when they come into contact with it. Vinegar on a rag cleans the copper sufficiently enough to restart the copper/slime shocking chemical reaction and keep them away.

Egg shells/nut shells/coffee grounds are other great natural deterrents for slugs.
Egg and nut shells must be crushed into small pieces and sprinkled around the base of the plant. The shards will easily slice through the slugs skin, killing them by desiccation. The shells will eventually break down enough to be used by the plant. Egg shells offer more than 40% calcium and nut shells (excluding Black Walnut) offer abundant carbon to the soil.

***Black Walnut has a compound in it called Juglone and it’s a very powerful growth inhibitor that will stop your plant from growing. Don’t use any part of a Black Walnut tree unless it has been completely hot composted to rid it of the Juglone.

Coffee grounds also work by desiccation, due to its caffeine content… the stronger the coffee, the better the deterrent. Coffee adds a little nitrogen and a lot of carbon to the soil.

I can’t wait to see your harvest… it won’t be too long now!

[_randomguyinthewoods]

Just to add a bit to @DesertGrown s statement. I like to use copper pot scrubbers. Where I live I can get them cheap and they are really difficult for the slugs to crawl through because they are abrasive and copper. I just cut them in half and make rings around the base of the plant and hold it together with a zip tie. But I gotta admit you really pulled this one off man congrats now comes harvest strategy

[Mattock]

Thanks, man. Yeah, the spots are so hidden that even you stumble upon them, there’s a chance that you won’t find it next time. At least that happened for me… At least 3-4 times I couldn’t find my supplies/plants. And the vegetation wasn’t even that settled. To see them you need to know where exactly to go to and what to look for.
For the smell, as I mentioned before, it’s in a swampy area, there are few creeks, which kinda has its own pungent smell, then you’ll have wild berries which will start to rot if nobody’s picking them up.
So atleast for now smell is not an issue. I could smell that fresh grass if I’m standing next to it. And anyways they aren’t near the pathways.
What bothers me most, the more you visit and care, the more obvious your trail gets. Place is surrounded by creeks, so to get to them you really only have 1-2 paths, which is far from ideal…
And for slugs, I don’t care about them that much
Plants are settled and if I won’t change the place I live, which I probably won’t, then I’m moving to indoors. Micro growing style. It’s just to frisky to grow weed in public park, you know.

@_randomguyinthewoods Yep, the harvest/trimming or in particular drying will be most challenging part I think.
I just ordered 40x40x80 cm tent with carbon filter. Hope I’ll get to use it for upcoming microgrows.

[Badger]

I used to walk the river to keep from making my trail more pronounced. Indoor is definitely less exciting than guerilla, but more secure from pests. Just remember don’t let anyone know what you are doing.