Outdoor Growing Check List

When planning an outdoor garden, regardless of what type of plants we are growing, the fundamentals of timing and outdoor conditions still apply. Planting too early or too late will not work very well, likewise too cold or too hot are also unfavorable at the wrong times in plant development. Slowing the metabolism of a young plant too much with cold temperatures will stunt its growth (this may be permanent). Putting young plants out in scorching summer sun will burn its leaves and will most certainly result in a discouraging failure.

We will mostly be talking about photo-period strains for this section on outdoor growing, but we fully intend to touch base on the topic of auto-flowering seeds as viable options for an outdoor garden and the fact that autos are probably your best bet to get a successful garden under your belt. We garden in hardiness zone 3a this may not mean much to most people but when we are planning a garden that is crucial information. You can check what zone you live in on this site. Pull up the hardiness zone map and have a look for your location.

The outdoor growing check list is not meant to be a comprehensive list it is meant be used as a guide you can add and remove things from.

Outdoor Check List

• Mix your batch of amended soil some time in April or early may at the latest and obviously the earlier the better
• A full 14 hrs of daylight are required to put plants outside (timeanddate.com)
• A south facing plot (or close to it)
• A minimum of a full 10 hrs of full sunlight are recommended to optimise growth
• Planting directly in the ground
• Planting in raised beds
• Do we have good seeds? selecting a good breeder is crucial, so we created a table bellow to give you an idea of how we make this decision
• Autos or photos
• Photo period flowering seeds need to be started indoors under lights sometime between March 15th-April 30th
• Putting young rooted plants or clones out sometime between May 15th-June 15th (adjust these dates to your zone and the weather)
• Plan to ferment all necessary nutrients before hand (we recommend this)
• A plan to make nutrients as you go (this option is also viable)

These are just a few considerations that need to be made, many more will come up and proper planning is the best way to achieve success. One of the other major decisions that needs to be made is what seeds will you be growing? This is a very personal question and many climate factors are in play, our farm is in a very northern climate of the pacific north west for growing anything. Good seed and even a social relationship with a good breeder is crucial in our climate to achieve a high level of success. The best news we have for you is the fact that many people grow successful gardens in harsh climates all of the time, this may require a greenhouse at times but this should never deter anyone from trying.

The next table represents seeds I have used recently or plan to be using in the near future and i encourage people to stay organised like this. Keeping organised is very important especially when you start getting into producing seed or collecting cuttings for cloning when you do find a really exceptional phenotype that is worth preserving for future projects. We even go as far as giving each separate plant a unique ID number for record keeping purposes.

Trusted Seed Banks, Breeders and Notable Outdoor Strains

Fems = Feminized seeds (only females)

Regs = A mix of male and female seeds

Autos = Auto flowering seeds (autos can be regs. or fems.)