Misadventures of an Off-The-Grid Weed Farmer, Part 1: Flashback To Our First Attempt

We've mentioned our past of cannabis farming in the states, but I've never talked in much detail.  The first grow I was responsible for (as in day to day care) was actually completely off the grid.  I won't say where it was, but I'll describe the circumstances and what like was like growing indoors off the grid.  What we did was pretty illegal, but at this point technically everything we do is so by nature, so what else is new! We aren't intersted in pointing fingers, just showing what we did in the situation we had.

I crash landed in a house with no utilities in the middle of winter. Come springtime, John had already acquired solar panels and water storage.  We had a wood stove for heating and cooking and we realistically had shit covered. It wasn't easy, we didn't have the conveniences but we had what we needed and I loved the freedom.

The plan was to grow from the beginning, although not in the circumstances we did.  Nothing went as planned with that house from the get, but we did our best and spent a lot of money trying to do so in the process. When it became clear that things weren't going as planned, John concocted a plan to make shit happen. 

As a budding gardener, I wanted to learn the ropes of growing the plant I depend on, so while he did the planning and financing I did all the work.  There was managing here and there by him but I was the one up there every day with the plants so I got really connected to the system. I learned a lot about: plants, weed, soil, cloning, off the grid, solar power.

It all started in spring with seeds, that I started alongside my garden starts that year.  We had three notable strains that John procured: Violator Kush, Bubble Gum and Brain Storm. We were very fond of all three.

We got a generator to run the lights during the day, as our small solar setup wasn't cutting it.  We used the solar to supplement the generator, and it was a lot of work but it worked.  Let me walk you through my daily schedule for the grow.

6:30 AM: Wake up and make sure only veg lights (which were just flourescent grow lights) are plugged in, plug in the extension cords to the inverter and switch it on.  Those lights were running off of batteries that had been charged by the panels. It was enough to run veg which needed to be on for 18 hours a day minimum, which is what it was primarily used for.

9:30 AM: Wake up again, or just turn on generator and plug in everything: 600w LED grow light, 300w or so exhaust fan, 2 flourescent grow lights, 400w metal halide for veg.  All of this added up to more than what our solar provided, so during the hours of 9:30-9:30 the generator was on unless we were out of gas. We had an ozone generator for smell, that I'd burst on for a few minutes here and there throughout the day. Our power usage was low, but we were still always struggling against our small power limits. 

10AM: Ideally around this time I'd do maintinence.  This continued the following: watering, fertilizing, cloning, inspection for pests and male parts, cleaning and other tasks.  Sometimes transplanting and things like that would happen, which involved preparation of containers.  We were using drain pipe cut into sections and stacked two liters, no joke and they worked great.

The rest of the day was spent doing other things, sometimes related to the grow sometimes not.  Theoretically life was dedicated to keeping the grow and plants going, but we had lots of responsibilities in our off the grid lifestyle.

We took a year off to experiment with this lifestyle.  We found we loved certain aspects, but stability of utilities and internet were important things for us, as we found when we went without.  

Our challenges were numerous.  For one I was a new grower and I didn't really understand what to expect, how much there was to pay attention to.  Most growers use a timer, I was the timer literally turning on the power and off when needed every day for almost a year.  I didn't know what all to pay attention to and many mistakes were made.  Yields were low but they happened, so it's not like we got nothing out of the grow. 

That garden ended up freezing to death, as we were in a transitional period in wintertime once again. It was really sad to watch but I learned so much from that garden for the future.

To anyone interested in embarking on an off the grid indoor cannabis growing experience, I advise you do so in a warmer climate for your first time, unless you've got a lot of money to throw at it.  We did it with nothing and we got weed despite our trials.  It's an awesome experience but it is very hard, especially if you're doing it with nothing. 

Our ideal situation is an off the grid indoor situation, but that's a long time in the future in a freer world, or at least a freer community.  Eventually I'll have a climate controlled indoor grow that'll be completely off grid, but that's a lot of money that will be worth the investment for what we'll get.

I share this with you to inspire you, it can be done. It was an adventure I'll never forget and I advise anyone consider the implications of off the grid, especially if you've got a love for home grown high quality cannabis. 

This is a bit of a risky post, but I do it to share my true honest experiences with you all.  We came to where we are as people as a result of as series of decisions, sometimes very risky.  We got lucky in that we weren't caught, but unlucky in that the garden eventually died an icey death.  Our experiences have given the confidence to go on the adventures we have.

Most people tell me they wouldn't be strong enough to have lived my tale, and perhaps they wouldn't. There were many risky baby steps that got us to where we are.  Our path wasn't perfect, but I respect it and I don't regret it, and that's what matters.