Basic growing knowledge

Ganja, marijuana, devil’s grass, devil’s lettuce, weed, reefer, pot, and on and on down the rabbit hole we spiral into a hazy green oblivion. These all refer to the dried and cured tops of female cannabis plants, which you probably know better as buds. Cannabis plants naturally grow nearly everywhere in the world and in almost any environment - which as you’ll find out makes our job as growers fairly easy.

But first . . . If there is one piece of advice that you take from this guide, it’s that you NEED to know both your local and federal laws before growing. Trust me I hate having to write that for a lot of reasons, but it needs to be done. Growing cannabis, in my opinion, is one of the most fun things you can do in life, but nothing kills that vibe faster than cops breaking down your door.

This guide is made possible by Grow Weed Easy, one of the best sources for everything related to growing your own cannabis!

This is a big guide, but I wanted to create a actual guide that wouldn't just vaguely tell you what you need and then abandon you when you're actually growing. I can’t tell you how many times I see a guide’s lighting section basically consists of “There are three types of lights: CFL, LED, and HID.” and stops there. That doesn’t tell you which is best for you, or what’s makes a good LED vs. a bad one, or the issues that different light types have.

You’re going to need that information before you can grow, so you might as well have it all available to you in one place so you don’t have to keep searching around online aimlessly for hours. You can use this guide for your first grow, your fifth, and on and on. Unlike those guides, this one takes you from no weed to having your own sweet and deliciously homegrown crystally nugs.

The simplest answer: 4 months. Different cannabis species means different lengths of grow. While, there a lot of strains out, but they all fall under three types (species) of cannabis plants: sativa, indica, and ruderalis. They all vary a bit in time, which I’ll explain later, but this is the average you can expect.

From seed to harvest: at least 3 months
Drying: 1 week
Curing: 2 weeks

After harvesting the flowers, you will need to dry them, which usually takes about a week under ideal conditions. Finally, to give these buds a smoother taste, stronger aroma, and potentially a higher potency, you’ll want to cure the buds for two weeks.

Everyone has their own reasons for growing cannabis. Personally, I grow it recreationally for myself and medically for my partner. I also got tired of meeting up in shady parking lots and paying absurd prices for iffy weed, and that was if I could even find it. When you think about, it’s only logical to grow your own cannabis.

Higher quality Cannabis

Your plants have your undivided attention if you so choose to give them. You are responsible for the quality, even when it comes to genetics because I will show you how to pick the right seeds. You will know and are responsible for everything that goes into your plants.

Consistent supply

A single plant can result in a hefty harvest, so you have no more reasons to run out of your stash. From the beginning, even when I had a poor setup, I always grew enough with one plant for two everyday tokers.

It’s cheaper

Compared to purchasing it from a third party, growing your own cannabis can be much, much cheaper. If you follow the information in this guide, you can make up in marijuana what you spent on your entire setup. Some can do that in one grow, I personally did it in two grows. My first grow setup was god awful mess too.

Health reasons

Cannabis can be used to alleviate several medical conditions, for example: epilepsy, pain, or simply being stressed out! Growing means you can always have your favorite medical strain on hand.

Safety

This might seem like an odd one at first, but as long as you don’t go blabbing everywhere that you grow, you’ll be a lot safer than you would be buying from shady dealers.

The genetics of your cannabis plant can have a huge impact on your grow results, so it is important to know a little about what you are going to deal with.

Cannabis plants are categorized in two notable ways: species and strains. The terminologies gets a bit messy and are used interchangeably. You have three species of cannabis: sativa, indica, and ruderalis. Strains are the varieties of the cannabis species. This means you’ll hear things like this strain is a sativa.

Hybrids are a mix of two or more strains/species. Nearly all cannabis strains you will run into today are some sort of a hybrid, some strains lean more to sativa, while other strains lean more to the indica side. I mentioned earlier that there is another species of cannabis known as ruderalis.

These short plants grow in the desert where they flower regardless of light schedule because they grow in a part of the world where they may never see 12 hours of darkness. It’s debated whether ruderalis are their own species of cannabis, or actually a subspecies of Cannabis sativa. Regardless, when a ruderalis is crossed with a photoperiod strain/species it may produce a plant that expresses its genes as an autoflower. Autoflowering will still fall under the three main strain varieties from above: sativa strains, indica strains, or hybrid strains. We will talk more about the ruderalis in the next article.

Genetics strongly influences the way your plants grow and the effects it will give you.

Sativa

Sativa strains grow a lot taller and take longer to mature. Sativa strains often have thin, finger-like leaves (this is probably the leaf you visualize when you think about marijuana).

Effects: Tend to cause a more cerebral or mental high.

Indica

Indica strains grow shorter and bushier, and they are quicker to mature than sativa. Indica strains have fatter and shorter leaves.

Effects: Tend to be more associated with a body and medical high.

Hybrid

Hybrids are bred to carry the best traits of both sativa and indica variants. The influences on growth and effects strongly depend on the dominant traits of strains used to breed the hybrid. But expect a middle of the road plant in all facets, and hybrids are probably what you’re most used to consuming.
Effects: Middle of the road and balanced.

Just as with humans, Cannabis plants also have sexes. Each plant can grow into a male or female plant, which is normally a 50/50 chance. On rare occasions, a plant may present itself as a hermaphrodite, but this is usually because a grower makes a serious error sometime during the plant’s growth, and personally, I have never had a plant “go hermie” on me.

Female

The female cannabis plants produce the buds you smoke, but only as long as she’s not pollinated by a male.

Male

The male cannabis plants produce pollen sacs and do not produce buds with THC. Getting rid of male cannabis plants prevents pollination and allows your female plants to grow buds without seeds. Most growers are only interested in growing buds and get rid of the male plants straight away.

Identify the gender

The sex of a cannabis plant will show at the end of the vegetative stage, or at the beginning of the flowering stage. There is no way to determine the gender of a plant initially either by looking at the seed or by looking at young plants. Both male and female plants look exactly the same until they start their flowering stage.

Most growers will need to identify the gender of their plants as soon as possible in order to remove any males promptly before they pollinate the females. Females will present white hairs that are called stigmas and usually incorrectly referred to as pistils. Male plants will grow pollen sacs that . . . well, look like testicles.

One of the super fun things about growing is you can create your own cannabis plants, by crossing a male plant with a female plant that is a different strain. But let’s save that for down the road.

Ruderalis, also known loosely as 'autoflowering' or 'autofem'

Growth: Autoflowering strains will grow the shortest and will have the faster seed to harvest time, however, as a result, they produce less yield.

Effects: Autoflowering are the offspring created when a ruderalis plant is crossed with a sativa, indica, or hybrid plant, and usually they express the latter’s genes. So, if a ruderalis plant was crossed with the strain Amnesia Haze, one should expect a sativa-like high, since Amnesia Haze is a sativa based strain.

Ruderalis naturally produce way less THC than the photoperiods. Because of this autoflowering strains weren’t considered as potent and many would avoid them because of this. But that was a long time ago and well-bred autoflowering varieties will be neck-and-neck in THC levels compared to its photoperiod cousin.

Just like you, your plants will have basic needs that cannot be neglected. There are a number of factors throughout their growth that influence their development. Water and light are two of the most important factors to get your plants growing. There’s a lot of theory and research that has been done on the influence of light. To keep this part simple: cannabis plants can grow very fast in a short amount of time, but this requires a lot of light.

There are many growers who prefer growing outdoors. For the best results, growing outdoors requires an accessible private space which gets at least 8+ hours of direct sunlight per day. Growing outdoors is limited by the seasons as well, as the grower has to plant in spring and harvest in fall.

Many new growers start off by growing their cannabis plants indoors in front of a sunny window just like a normal houseplant. It might look like the plant is growing and getting light, but the light through a window alone is usually not enough. These plants usually don’t ever produce more than a thin bud during the flowering stage, with many not producing any bud at all. Without any flowers or buds, you’re out of luck!

Nearly all indoor growers will need some type of grow light so they can replicate the light from the sun, and a timer as well to easily control a set day/night light schedule. There are many different types and sizes of grow lights available, ranging from simple household light bulbs to more specialized grow lights that can result in pounds of buds at a time.

One of the most common mistakes new growers make is hurting and even killing their plants by conducting spur-of-the-moment experiments. Cannabis is a super hardy plant and with basic knowledge and research growing is fairly easy. I legit almost completely decapitated my main stem in my 3rd grow, but because my setup was better and I didn’t cut corners like before, I grew my largest plant yet at that time.

Always do a quick web search whenever you have a question about growing and are unsure. Why make your plants be the lab rat of an experiment when I guarantee you someone else has already done your idea before. Think I’m joking? I’ve read stories by growers who have legit urinated on their plants, and growers who have given their plants birth control for added estrogen.

Little things, like learning the proper nutrients to give your plants instead of walking into a store and picking up generic gardening nutrients like Miracle-Gro go along way. Spend a little more money on nutrients designed for cannabis. Cannabis needs a certain ratio of nutrients during different stages of their lives. Using the wrong nutrients during the flowering stage can severely hurt your plants and greatly reduce your yields. This will end up costing you way more money than it would have if you just bought the correct nutrients.

Another common problem is accidentally skipping crucial steps in the growing process, such as maintaining a proper pH. It is entirely possible to get lucky, but without the proper steps, it is a lot more likely you’ll end up with plants that either die or never produce any usable buds.

A cannabis plant’s life consists of two main stages: vegetative and flowering.

A cannabis plant will keep growing during its vegetative stage as long as it “believes” it is in spring or summer. When you switch down the lights on the plant, it fools it into thinking winter is on the way and the plant starts producing flowers. This occurs naturally outdoors as the seasons changes. However, indoor growers have the ability to control their environment and use their lights to ‘tell’ their plants when it’s time to start flowering.

As a grower, it is very important to understand that cannabis plants in the wild have their life cycle set in stone.

Remember when growing indoors, that it’s all about tricking your plants into thinking they are outside and you do that with science. You don’t have to understand it all right now, but knowing things like it’s not age that makes a cannabis plant flower is incredibly important and will simply just make you a better gardener.

Cannabis plants that react to light changes are grouped together under the term photoperiod cannabis strains. There is an exception for strains that start flowering regardless of light changes, these are called autoflowers and are explained in the topic “Autoflowering and Photoperiod Cannabis Strains”.

Vegetative stage

Cannabis plants will keep growing as long as you give them more than 12 hours of light a day. Most growers give their cannabis plants either 18 or 20 hours of light while in the vegetative stage.

Flowering stage

When the lights are reduced to 12 hours or less the plant begins the process of switching to the flowering stage, the stage where it produces flowers. And while the light schedule is the reason why cannabis plants switch from vegetative to flower stage, things like lowering your temperature and switching to flowering nutrients that have less nitrogen (N) and more phosphorus (P) all play in role in making a successful switch and reinforces the tricking.

Cannabis Life cycle

I started growing in college and decided to take a couple plant biology classes, and that taught me just as much about growing cannabis as reading cannabis-specific literature did. Cannabis is a plant and humans have been studying and manipulating plants for thousands of years. There is nothing special about the science of cannabis and way too many growers ignore that, but it’s their loss.

I guarantee that all professional growers will tell you the same.

Cannabis’ life cycle in the wild:
1. The cannabis seeds sprout during spring.
2. The plant grows during the summer.
3. The days get shorter, fewer hours of sunlight.
4. The cannabis plant starts making flowers or pollen.
5. The plant gets pollinated.
6. The pollinated female cannabis plant makes seeds.
7. The plant spreads the seeds and dies off for the winter.
8. The process repeats.

Don’t be like beginner me and think that if you have a growing space that’s 1 meter (40 inches) tall that means it can house a plant that’s equally as tall. You need to account for not just the plant’s height (which can vary greatly depending on strain), but also the type of lights you are using (grow lights need to be a certain distance from the plant), and how tall your grow container is.

Most grow tents are usually at least 1.5 meters (60 inches) in height and I wouldn’t go under that. I think aiming for around 2 meters (6 feet) is probably your best option which I know seems tall. So let’s look at a setup and see how height adds up fast.
For calculating light height, you can jump down to the section “Grow Lights or Sunshine”.

Let’s say it looks light this: lights, a 20 liters (5 gallon) container for soil, and a lovely indica strain that averages around 90 centimeters (35 inches). Add around 25 centimeters (10 inches) for the container and at least 10 centimeters (5 inches) for the lights. That means you need at least 1.25 meters (50 inches) of height for your container/tent if you choose to not do any plant training to keep the height down.
Say you’re using LEDs, so when your plant is at its tallest, your LEDs will be about 40-45 centimeters (16-18 inches) away. Then add room for it to hang if you’re using a common LED grow light that has fans. You’re now looking at 1.65 meters (65 inches) of height if you don’t do plant training.

Now, training can dramatically lower a plant’s height, but that vertical height has to go somewhere and that means with plant training you’ll need more width and depth space, which can take up space for other cannabis plants. The plants that I grew in my early years were commonly around 50x50 (22 x 22) in with LST (plant training).

The best thing you can do is make a blueprint of your planned grow setup before purchasing any item.

For more on plant training techniques check out the section titled “Plant Training”.

The next thing you need to decide is whether you want to grow indoors or outside. They both have their pros and cons. 

Indoors
Growing indoors definitely gives you the most control over your plants, and the best thing about it is you can grow year-round. However, most consider growing indoors to be trickier than growing outside. Plants are just meant to be outside, that’s where they thrive and want to be. When growing indoors you’re creating an artificial environment and while it can outgrow its outside cousin, it’s still an artificial environment that’s trying to be the real thing and requires more work. On average an indoor plant is probably weaker and more fickle than it would be if you grew it outside.

Another big pro is as long as you pay attention to odor control, growing indoors is the stealthier option if that is an issue for you.

Outdoors
Growing outdoors definitely gives you the benefit of ease and is more cost-effective. But you’re restricted by the seasons as you can only plant in spring and harvest in the fall. Outside also brings along its own problems with stealth-related issues and you have to worry about potential thieves that range from humans to animals to insects.
Weather is both a blessing and a curse because it creates stronger and hardier plants. You’ll come to find that cannabis is one hell of a plant when it comes to adapting to her environment and by doing so they become stronger plants. As long as temps, rain, wind, and pest don’t get too crazy on you, you’ll have an absurdly durable plant that mocks its indoor cousin’s feebleness.

The best advice I can give for judging whether your environment is suitable for growing is how do you feel? Do you feel that it’s too hot outside, then plant probably does as well! Too windy, well you can guess what your plant thinks.

When growing outside you only have two real requirements: 8+ of good sunlight every day and planted in the spring or at at least placed outside in the spring.

For growing inside you’ll need at least three things for your light setup:

Surge Protector:
always an extremely wise to have one regardless of your type of lights. 

Light Timer:
don’t even think about not having one. Photoperiods need 12 hours of darkness when flowering. If a photoperiod is exposed to too much light during flowering, she’s can revert back to her vegetative state. You’ll also want to keep a fairly set in stone lights on/off schedule during the flowering stage.

Grow lights:
This goes without saying.There are three main types of lights (CFLs, LEDs, and HIDs) and like grow medium they have their pros and cons.

If you can afford the startup cost and know that you’re going to stick to growing then your best bet is probably still HID lights. CFLs and T5 are good for beginners and require a less complex setup and as you can see you can get a lot of watts for cheap. LEDs are quickly becoming the staple and will probably soon replace HIDs, but how soon is hard to say. The chinese made ones won’t compare to HID lights and before you buy one you should compare it with the T5 fluorescent as many growers feel they are better.

If you’re up for it build a COB LED grow light.

Best: HID and COB LED
Good: Chinese made LED panels and T5 fluorescent
OK: CFLs
Too soon to tell: Plasma (great potential)

All and all pick the one that’s best for your needs because all can grow cannabis to great potentials.

Indoors
Expect to spend anywhere from $100 to $1500+. That might seem like a large range but lights and grow medium/setup play a large role in factoring in costs. You can have a fairly professional setup for around $800 which can produce a pound of bud if you know what you’re doing. Even if you can only produce half that you’re still saving a lot of money. Let’s say you’re paying $80 for a quarter of bud. That’s $320 an ounce and $1,920 for half a pound. Plus, if you’re just growing for yourself and maybe another person you won’t need anywhere that much marijuana if you’re growing year round. 

This makes it more than easy to make up the startup cost with just one grow, and now you see that it’s worth it to grow if you want to save money.

Outdoors
Expect to spend anywhere between $0 and $200, and that includes nutrients and seeds. The trick with growing outside is finding a spot that is discrete, gets at least 8 hours of direct sunlight, and is safe for the plant from both weather and pests. Many professional growers use greenhouses, and that will, of course, skyrocket the cost of growing outside. 

Small-scale growers won’t see their electric bills change too much. When I had my small-scale setup, I had around 250 to 300 watts of CFL grow lights with a couple small fans running 24/7 for ventilation, and the only time I ever noticed it affecting my electric bill was when the plant was in flowering and I had all my CFLs and fans running. Your seedlings and to a lesser extent your plants in veg, don’t need the full 200+ watts to grow and thrive like it will need in flowering.

If you’re worried about the extra wattage causing suspicion then you can rest easy. A 600 watt grow light only uses about as much electricity as a full-size refrigerator and that’s one of the larger bulbs you can buy. For growing one plant you won’t need anywhere near that amount of wattage.

You can usually calculate how much your setup is costing you by looking at your electric bill and seeing what the cost per watt is. This number will be different depending on where you live.

Let’s talk about the structure that houses your plant’s environment. When growing indoors you’re creating an artificial environment that should be separate from your house’s. Plant’s need their privacy as well.

A lot of growers start off by growing in their closets, but that’s not a great place by default. Grow tents are the easiest way to go, but they force you a bit into a more professional setup because of how they are designed. If you’re like me, that may make you feel uncomfortable to have in the beginning. It’s easier to claim you’re only growing for yourself when you have a very DIY looking setup.

You can make your own grow tent by taking plastic containers or totes and stacking them to create height. You will have to cut holes for an exhaust system and lights.

You’ll want the inside to be reflective either by buying white containers, painting them white, or using a reflective material like mylar. Please do not use aluminum foil as it’s crinkly nature will reflect light unevenly creating dangerous hotspots for plants.

If you paint your grow space white, you’ll want a paint that is preferably at least 90% reflective. Flat white is the best, but some growers have concerns about mold since it’s not waterproof. I personally never had any issues with flat white paint and mold, and I used a container with it for a few years that had 10+ grows. If you are concerned about mold, glossy white paint is waterproof but less reflective.

Here’s a handy chart for materials and their reflectivity:

When most people think about grow mediums or media they think of soil. And while soil is great and perhaps the best for beginners, most growers move away from it after awhile. There are three main types of grow mediums.

Grow Medium Summary:

Soil (Traditional)
Most common (meaning most information out there), beginner friendly, and produces buds with a strong flavor.

Soilless (drain-to-waste)
Plants can grow better than in soil, great control while being easier to grow than hydro. Great at being middle of the road between the two others in pretty much every facet. 

Hydroponics (re-circulating)
Takes the most effort to grow, but makes up for it with fastest and largest yields that produce the most potent bud. Highest setup cost, but if you factor in yield, it’s the cheapest in the long run.

All three are great for growing and can grow hardy plants that deliver incredible yields. A lot comes down to budget and personal preference. So how about we find you the best grow medium for you.

Soil is super traditional to grow in and I think every grower needs to try soil at least once in their lives just to say they’ve done it. Though, maybe I’m partial since I started with soil myself. You can either buy soil or make it yourself. Often you can buy soil from companies that put nutrients in the soil for you and will have enough nutrients to feed the plant until flowering (this is often referred to as hot soil).

This helps and hurts beginners because it allows them to focus on other aspects of growing cannabis during the early periods. But soil with nutes can burn seedlings because they start feeding on the nutrients too soon. Seedlings provide themselves with their own nutrients with their cotyledons leaves - those tiny oval-shaped leaves you see when a seedling has sprouted.

This can easily be avoided by either mixing potting soil in with the hot soil or growing the seedling in a smaller container then transferring it to it final grow medium when it hits vegetation.

While soil is the most straightforward there are some things to keep in mind:

1. If you see the phrases “extended release”, “time release”, or “slow release” run far, far away. You’re probably familiar with Miracle-Gro which is notorious for having time release nutrients, and it’s ill-advised to use it.

2. Potting soil is fine to use for the entire grow, but you’ll want to “treat” it will nutrients and microbes that encourage a natural ecosystem.

3. Many growers move on from soil because soilless and hydro allow more customization of the grow medium which creates a lot of control. Soil growers can do a fair amount of customization as well (though not as much) by creating their own soil. You want to create the ideal soil mixture that gives cannabis plants what they crave and no it’s not electrolytes.

4. Adding perlite (volcanic glass) to your soil is usually advise as it creates more space and allows the soil to breathe and makes for better drainage. Nutrients and microbes like bat guano, compost, earthworm castings, fish meal, peat moss, kelp, fungi work together to creates a healthy and rich soil that cannabis plants thrive in.

Recommended Soil Brands:
Fox Farms - Their “Ocean Forest” soil is great for sustaining most cannabis plants with nutrients until flowering, but they may cause nute burn to seedings. This won’t kill the seedlings, but it may stifle their growth for a few days. When growing a photoperiod this won’t matter in the long run as you can just keep the plant in veg longer to make up the time spent on recovery. But for autoflowering strains it’s recommend to mix in some of their potting soils: “Happy Frog” or “Light Warrior” which will reduce the nutes in the soil mixture. Add about 30% perlite in the mix to open up your soil for better drainage and root health, and you’ve got a good start for success.

Let’s look real quick at the best container to use for soil and soilless. Fabric pots, also known as “Smart Pot” or grow bags are without a doubt the best containers for both soil and soilless. They are incredibly malleable since they’re just fabric, but they are durable enough to hold gallons of soil while allowing incredible airflow for getting oxygen to the roots and allowing great drainage.

Combined with a coco coir/perlite mix, it’s essentially impossible to overwater your cannabis plants. This is great because many first-timer run into both over- and underwatering issues.

Around a 5 gallon pot is the perfect size for beginners. You can figure out the size you need based on the plant’s final height. 2 gallons per 12” of height is a good rule of thumbs. All plants vary a bit so if you’re worried, aim for a larger rather than smaller container because too small can cause rootbound, which makes a plant more vulnerable to issues.

Soilless is often grouped under the term hydro, but to me and to a lot of growers, soilless acts more as a mix between soil and hydro. I think for clarity it’s better to just refer to soilless as soilless or even better drain-to-waste and use it separately from hydro. When most people refer to hydroponics they are probably referring to a re-circulating system where the roots are actually sitting in the water.

Soilless means you’re not growing in soil (who would have guessed) and that it’s inert. Inert means that the medium has no nutrients in it. You water the plants in the same way as you do with soil and this is usually called drain-to-waste. Drain-to-waste means that the water you give your plant is drained and not used again. Feeding guides/schedules that nutrients companies provide are usually broken down into three categories: soil, drain-to-waste, and re-circulating.

Soilless is a great in between when you can’t decide between soil and hydro. Soilless’ setup is much more like soil where you use a grow container like a fabric pot and you feed (hand water) in a similar way.

Coco coir is the go-to for soilless lovers and is made up of coconut husks and fibers. When using coco coir, you’ll want to make sure you wash it several times before using as it’s usually loaded with salt. But after that you can reuse it again and again for multiple grows, just make sure to flush with mass amounts of water before reusing.

Again, a mix of around 30% perlite to coco coir will create an incredible airflow for your roots and delivers them vital oxygen for maximum growth, while the coco coir holds onto the water long enough for your plants to drink. Plus, how cool is it to say that you grow cannabis in coconut husks and volcanic glass?

Please note: I recommend not mixing soilless mediums like coco coir into your soil. You might see people mixing coco coir into their soil to create better drainage. Grow mediums require different pH ranges for the nutrients to be absorbed by the plant. Most growers use a different pH range when watering in coco coir compared to soil. Perlite is completely fine, and recommended, for mixing into both soil and soilless mediums.

Hydro isn’t really that difficult either, it just takes a little more work to setup, has the highest set up cost (though it’s the cheapest indoor method long-term), and there is a lot of bad information out there. But if you want to get the best out of your cannabis plants then hydro is the way.

While soilless is a hydro system, most refer to hydro they are talking about a re-circulating system where the plant’s roots are actually submerged in water. The most common setup is called a DWC (Deep Water Culture). An air pump is installed so oxygen can be pumped into the water and provided to the roots.

Despite the roots being underwater, they are actually provided with more oxygen compared to the other two methods.

Err on the side caution when giving nutrients since they will be circulating throughout the system and more readily available to your plant.

After setup, growing in hydro is just as straightforward as the other growing methods.