Growing marijuana is a rewarding hobby and can offer a great business opportunity as well. By the time you're done with this guide, you'll know how to grow cannabis in a indoor grow tent like a professional, allowing you to get better and bigger yields than you've ever imagined at surprisingly low cost.
In order to thrive and grow, every cannabis plant needs:
Light – whether you’re using sunlight or grow lights, you must understand the light needs of a cannabis plant to get the best bud quality & yields.
Growing Medium – the stuff your plants grow in; soil isn’t your only choice!
Air – a well-ventilated space with good air exchange and a slight breeze is best.
Temperature – A good rule of thumb for cannabis plants is if it feels too hot for you, it’s probably too hot for your plants. Just like humans, cannabis plants can die if exposed to extreme temps.
Nutrients – you can buy pre-formulated nutrients that you just add to your water, or you can compost your own super soil so that it already includes all the nutrients you need.
Water – like all plants and living creatures, cannabis needs water to survive and grow. Is my tap water “good enough” for growing cannabis?
When growing cannabis indoors or outdoors, you will need to ensure that it gets the proper amount of these 6 resources.
Grow Lights for Maximum Growth
For inside cultivation, it’s crucial to make sure everything is done right to maximize the potential yield from each plant. One of the most important parts is the lighting for the plants. Since the plants are grown indoors, they don’t get the natural light they would receive outdoors. To grow properly, marijuana plants require at least eight hours of direct sunlight. More light can lead to bigger flowers at the end of the growth cycle.
Most beginners are going to opt for CFLs as they are the least expensive to get started. They’re easy to use and do work well for marijuana plants. LED lights are another option, though they are more expensive to purchase. Once they have been purchased, however, they do require less electricity compared to other types of lighting. The best lighting options for marijuana plants, however, are MPH or HPS grow lights. These are far more expensive, but they do provide the best lighting for cannabis plants.
As a beginner, however, it’s likely you’ll want to make everything as easy as possible and start with a less expensive setup. There’s always room to grow in the future. If you only have a few plants and are trying to keep costs to a minimum, CFL bulbs are likely the best LED grow light choice. They provide the right light for the plants, can are the least expensive option, and are easily available, so you don’t need to special order them.
Pruning For Higher Yield
When pruning, start early and often. Cut or pinch branches just above the node where two new shoots will emerge. If you stay on top of this process, you’ll have plants that look like bonsai bushes, with plenty of bud sites but not a lot of stretching out and big gaps between nodes. This is the efficient way to get bigger yields out of small spaces but your vegetating time will increase so factor that into your schedule.
Don’t prune or pinch plants at all once they’ve begun flowering – you’ll only be decreasing your harvest at that point. If the branches are threatening to reach the light, bend them or tie them down to keep them from burning. A trellis system constructed from chicken wire at canopy level (aka the ScrOG or Screen of Green system), will further spread out bud sites and increase your yields considerably. Simply train growing shoots to grow horizontally along the bottom of the screen to fill empty spots.
Flower Power
Indoors, The decision of when to induce flowering in your plants is entirely up to you. If you want to learn how to grow weed, it’s important to determine how much space you have and to factor in the fact that your plants will stretch for at least a few weeks after flowering is induced. I usually recommend one week per gallon of container, so a plant in a five-gallon bucket should get approximately five weeks of vegetative time.
When you’re ready to begin the flowering stage, switch your timer to a 12 hour on/12 hour off light cycle. Be sure never to interrupt the 12-hour dark period with any light. This confuses your plant and can cause serious problems.
Change your feeding regimen to one suited for flowering. Plant nutrients generally come in vegetative or flowering formulations so switch over to a “blooming” solution. Depending on the flowering time of your strain, determine when you have two weeks or so left and begin the flushing process. If you’re growing a 60-day flowering strain, start to flush your grow medium with only plain water around day 46.
Watering
Water your plant regularly with clean, safe and water. Certainly, using chlorine-free or filtered water leads to better results. Always avoid overwatering and watch for good drainage. How to know when to water a Cannabis plant? A good test might be to stick a finger down a few cms or an inch into the soil and if it’s dry, then you’ll know it is time to water.
Ventilation
Ventilation and airflow are key for Cannabis plants to thrive and grow healthy. In this stage, they need air not only to breathe and grow their bodies but also good ventilation to avoid the formation of mold, fungi, and rot. A good fan moving the air inside your growing environment helps a lot, but beware not to point it directly to the buds. An exhaust fan is great for increased ventilation and air movement, this also helps lowering humidity. If the exhaust fan is not enough, a dehumidifier is definitely the best and easiest solution for keeping humidity at range. Also a carbon filter for grow tent is essential.
pH levels
pH levels must remain between 6 and 7 when growing in soil. Most nutrients are available for the plant in the growing medium only between this range of pH. pH levels out of this range may cause your plant to experience nutrients deficiencies and toxicities because the nutrients may be in the soil but the plant cannot absorb them.
Harvesting, Drying and Curing
Knowing when and how to harvest your buds is as important as knowing how to grow weed.
Use a loupe or a strong magnifying scope to take a very close look at the trichomes; the tiny glandular stalk and head sometimes referred to as “crystals”. Up close, they resemble little glass mushrooms with a stem that forms a bulbous round clear top. Inside that gland head resides the psychoactive compounds (THC, CBD etc). Harvest when the majority of the gland heads begin to go cloudy white and before they’ve gone completely amber. Harvest when they’re mostly amber if you desire a more lethargic stone.
Post-harvest, you will trim and hang up your buds to dry. This process should take about a week or two depending on the humidity and heat in your area. It’s always best to keep this process slower than 3-4 days in order to ensure you aren’t locking in that “green” chlorophyll taste. Add a humidifier to your drying room if you think your nuggets are drying out too quickly. Never leave a fan blowing directly onto your drying colas but make sure air is circulating to avoid mold and bud-rot.
After you’ve determined that your buds are sufficiently dried you’re ready to jar them up for the cure. The stems should snap instead of bending and the outside of the flowers should feel bone dry to the touch. The truth is there is still plenty of water stuck in the bud and the curing process will slowly “sweat” out the remaining liquid.
Always use opaque jars (ones you can’t see inside) and place them in a cool dark place. Open up the jars to determine the level of moisture and leave them open if there’s any condensation forming on the inside of the glass. Slowly but surely, if you open and close the jars once or twice a day, the moist air will be replenished by dry air and the water that’s stuck in the middle of your bud will work its way to the outside and then out into the air altogether. After three weeks to a month or so curing, your buds should burn and taste perfectly.
Methods for curing
Sure, there are fast ways to cure your buds like using a microwave, but save the microwave for your popcorn as this method using irradiated heat can reduce the quality and potency of the smoke.
The decarboxylation process that turns THCA into THC is what will be taking place as you dry and cure your crop.
My preferred method of drying crops is air drying. I like to hang my buds upside down with a fan in the room circulating the air until they are ready to be cured. Make sure you don’t let them get too dry; you want them to be moist enough to be flexible but still dry so they don’t get moldy.
The next step requires some patience, but you will be rewarded with flavorful tastes and gratifying aromas. The slow cure takes a few weeks. Get out your mason jars and fill it to the top without stuffing it. Put the jars in a dark place that doesn’t get too hot. Every week shake the jars to get the buds moving around and open the jars for half an hour or so. Try your buds at different stages to find out what you like.
Curing your crop is worth the time and effort as your bud will reward you by its taste and potency.
Storage of seeds
Storing marijuana seeds shouldn’t be a difficult subject matter, yet every toking Tom will tell you their method is the best only to come out with half your seeds ending up unusable. Often times storage methods are not considered serious enough. Yet, when you spend enough dough on your favorite strains, you don’t want any of them ending up barren due to a silly mistake that you’ve made.
Now, I know many of you have never explored using your green thumb to plant anything until you’ve considered growing your own diggity dank nugs, but let’s take it back to 3rd-grade science. We all know that in order for a seed to germinate it needs a few vital things. Like the saying goes “April showers bring May flowers.” It needs moisture, light, and warm temperatures. So, if you want to keep your seeds from germinating avoid all those things. Sounds simple enough, right?
How to store your seeds?
So to break it down, you’re going to need an airtight container like a film canister for example.
Then, put a few silica gel beads or rice grains in your container to soak up any accidental moisture. The humidity should be no more than 10%. Put your seeds in a tiny envelope, bag, or ideally vacuum packed and then put it in your airtight container. Make sure to label what’s inside each container with a date on it as well. You don’t want to take your seeds out unless you have to; temperature changes and exposure to light isn’t good for viability in the long run. Now you’re ready to put your babies away for planting next year. Avoid putting them in the fridge door where the temperature tends to vary, better in a back corner somewhere.
I understand that sometimes you live with other people and you don’t want them to get their grubby little fingers on your seeds. If you don’t want to have a mysterious canister in the back of your fridge labeled “Nothing in this cannister is worth dying for” then you can take a riskier option and store your seeds in a closet, under your bed, someplace dark and protected. However, these places may be more susceptible to temperature change and the #1 enemy of seed storage: humidity. In this case, you must be adamant when it comes to moisture control.
Store your cannabis seeds properly and you can sleep well at night knowing that next year and maybe a few years after the next you can still enjoy growing your most beloved strain of seeds.
Final thoughts
This guide is meant for any cannabis enthusiast who would love to grow cannabis indoors and experience the thrill. While there are chances of mistakes, but that’s normal as you gain experience, you’ll be more than happy for growing, harvesting, and finally using self-grown cannabis. What's more, if you are a beginner, ECO Farm marijuana grow kit is best recommended for you.
We hope this beginner’s guide on how to grow marijuana indoors was able to help you, and we expect this will lead you to the productive and fun cannabis growing journey.