Are you tired of dealing with shady people when all you want to do is just get a little smoke for yourself? Yeah… I know the feeling. At some stage we all though about growing our own stuff, so I say why not. In this beginners guide to growing marijuana indoors we will teach you everything you need to know if you’re just starting off.
Growing marijuana indoors has never been easier. Why ?
- Cannabis is a strong plant, which grows fairly quickly ( one of the reasons it’s called “weed”)
- Even beginners can get good results as it doesn’t require perfect conditions to grow.
- Every 4-6 months you will have full jars of nice and ready to be smoked buds.
Equipment checklist
Before we get in to details, keep in mind that this is not just some little experiment you have going on in your basement. This is as an investment. Once you have your own grow box set up, you will never need to buy some random weed on a corner ever again.
Stuff that you will need
This is a rough list of items that you will need to grow marijuana. We’ll get into details later
- The main ingredient … (drums are going off) … Seeds. Yes, seeds – any cannabis seeds will do. Even those you have found in a baggie. For better results consider buying seeds
- Pots and soil
- At the very least you will need light
- Fan. Even a basic setup should have a fan
- Smell filter. If you don’t care about your neighbours and intense smell doesn’t bother you then don’t worry about it
- Fertilizer. Soil will not be enough to feed the plant in later weeks of growing
The grow box/grow tent
Grow tent serves couple of purposes. First of all it keeps smell and light inside. Inside walls are covered in light reflective material , so plants get even better exposure to light. There are holes for wires and vents already built in. Grow tent might be bit more expensive but it is definitely worth every penny. Even tho you can make a grow tent yourself, it will cost you some money and much more of your precious time.
We recommend this grow tent for growing marijuana indoors
Light
Nothing grows without light. For cannabis the more light the better. Good lighting can be a difference between big healthy plants and small ones with only couple of blooms. Use good lights and you will have more weed to harvest when the time comes.
There are 3 different light sources you can use when growing cannabis indoors. Lets dive into it.
Led lights
Modern farmers use led lights now to grow various plants. Led lights produce less heat, which doesn’t dry up plans and soil so quickly, so you don’t need to water them so often. Led lights also have x5 times longer lifespan than regular fluorescent bulbs. They are a bit more expensive, but they use very little electricity and they last much longer. If you think about a long run, led lights are a very good investment.
Get: Led lights for growing marijuana indoors
CMH lights
Ceramic Metal Halide – Basically works more or less the same as regular MH lamps. Only difference is that ceramic arc tube is used for these bulbs. It means that bulbs can reach higher temperatures to heat gasses inside, which gives that nice light spectrum that plants enjoy. These lights outperform regular HID bulbs any day. CMH bulbs will eat more electricity and produce more heat than led lights, something to keep in mind before setting up your grow box.
Get: CMH light for growing marijuana indoors
HID lights
High Intensity discharge lamps. Now these lamps are the most basic ones and you can find them anywhere. Problem with these lamps is, they produce more heat and eat a lot of electricity. They might become a problem depending on your personal setup. They can increase heat and humidity inside your grow tent, while CMH lamps can reduce heat and humidity. You might think that these will work just fine and trust me – they will preform well enough, but you will lose money over time with electricity bills. Big electricity bills might raise suspicion, and that’s not what you want in most cases.
Ventilation and air filtering
First of all lets talk about why do you need fan, filter and duct in the first place. As you set up your grow box or grow ten, you should make sure that you leave holes for fresh air to come in and for used air to go out. You should have holes in the bottom of tent for fresh air and hole in the top for filter. Fan inside the tent helps reducing direct heat from lamps and it might just save your plants from drying up. Basically you want to keep the air flowing, if it stays still everything will be dry.
Fan
There is big selection when it comes to fans. I suggest getting an industrial fan, like one in the picture. If you are not planning to use air filter then 4 inch fan will do, but if you plan to use filter, I’d suggest you get 6 inch fan. Another thing you could add yo your fan is speed controller. As you will start off and your plants will be small, you won’t need fan running full speed. Reduce speed and save some money on electricity. It’s easy to attach this fan to the ceiling. Connect your fan with air filter on one side and duct on another and you’re good to go.
You can also use a cheaper fan like the one on the left. But It is barely efficient and is considered more of a toy then an actual fan for growing indoors. For that purpose you can use any fan at all, even fan from your old computer. If you just want to make a quick tent for one or two grow cycles then consider cheaper materials or ones you already have at home or in shed. You won’t have nearly as good results as you would using proper equipment, but it will do for a grow or two.
Filter
Cannabis has a very strong smell to it. Unless you live in a farm in the middle of nowhere, the smell might become a huge problem as the plants grow. Using charcoal air filter can help you get rid of that smell. You don’t want cops knocking on your doors just because some nosy neighbour noticed weird smell coming from your house, do you ? These filters can easily be attached to your industrial 6 inch fan. There is active charcoal inside the filter that soaks in smell coming from your plants. You need to replace these filters every once in a while when you start smelling weed outside your grow box.
Duct
Duct can be used to lead used air out. It’s easy to attach it to your industrial fan. You can lead it anywhere, through window, open doors, or hole in a wall. It all comes down to what you prefer. Use your imagination.
Get full 6 inch set (fan,filter,duct) here
Pots and Soil
Fabric pots work much better than the classic solid pots. Roots can get more oxygen and excess water can escape much easier. 2 gallon pots should be just fine for a average grow tent.
Get the best quality soil you can find. Visit your local hardware store or garden centre. With good soil you can forget about fertilizer for about 3 weeks.
Marijuana seeds
Where to get marijuana seeds? Answer is simple – if you ever found seeds in a weed baggie, those will do. If you want to be more specific and guaranteed to get what you want, I’d suggest ordering some seeds online. You can find high quality seeds and variety of different strains. Make sure your seeds are healthy before planting. They should have nice and shiny tiger pattern, dead ones are usually hollow or black.
We suggest these guys from Netherlands, they have been doing this for long and they deal with it discreetly : Seed Bank
What is the best place for grow box ?
Growing marijuana indoors can be beneficial for a number of reasons. One of the main ones would be that you can easily hide your grow box anywhere in the house. You can place it in closet, basement, attic or even shed outside.
It’s a good growing technique especially if you don’t want anyone to find out. And it’s good to keep something like this to yourself, because even if it is legal to grow cannabis in your country, you might still have someone who would sneak in and rob your stash. Keep in mind that if more than one person knows something, it’s not a secret anymore.
Another good thing when growing marijuana indoors is that you are not relying on weather. Cannabis needs a lot of light. Grow box is perfect for that, you can make perfect conditions for your plants to grow.
Time to germinate seeds
First of all, check how much space does your grow box have. For the sake of this growing marijuana indoors guide, let’s say your grow box fits 6 pots. You might want to start with 2 extra (this goes for feminized seeds) and maybe 6 extra (if you are using random seeds). Extra seeds are your safety net, in case not all of them see the light. If you are using seeds you bought online, they’re most likely feminized already, that means there’s about 99% chance of seeds growing to female plants. however, if you’re using seeds you found in a bag of weed, you might have roughly 50% chance of them being female and same chance of them being male.
If your plants grow up to be male, you will have to destroy or isolate those away from females. We will discuss more about how to figure out which ones are male and female plants later in this guide.
Usage
Lets get to the main point of this section. We’ll be using peat pellets for this guide. There is another method of soaking seeds and planting them on a moist peace of paper or napkin. But we’ll be focusing on pellets as we just had a better success rate with those. If you like the napkin method better, please go with it.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Put 6-8 of pellets into water and take them out when they expand
- Start placing seeds into pellets. Put them in the middle of pellet, about half inch deep (~2 cm) and cover them with ground
- Time to leave pellets in a dark and warm place.Keep pellets moist. Don’t pour too much water, you don’t want to wash out seeds.
- About 3-7 days in, your seeds should start sprouting. That’s your clue to turn the lights on. Once you see a little green coming out from the pellets, switch on your grow lights. At this stage, you want to keep lights on for 16/8 cycle. 16 hours of “daylight” and 8 hours “night” time.
- Prepare your pots. Once you see roots start to come out from pellets, you need to transplant them into pots. Use good quality gardening soil. Don’t use soil from your actual garden, it may contain parasites and insect eggs.
Transplanting
So your pellets started growing roots out of them. Good. Time to prepare your pots. Pour gardening soil into your pots, dig a fairly deep hole in the middle (for pellet). Now place the pellet into the hole, keep those baby leaves above surface. Bury about half of stem for extra support. Now pour some water around your plant gently. Try not to pour water directly on plant, they’re still babies and they’re very fragile. Put them back in your grow box, under lights.
Get jiffy pellets for growing marijuana indoors
Watering your plants
Cannabis grows fast, like weed (grass) so it needs a lot of water. You would want to water your young plants around once a week, while mature plants need water once a day. Not enough water can dry up and kill your plants, but so can over watering. The trick is to feel the ground with back of your fingers, if it feels cool then there’s enough water in the soil. If it feels warm then you should water your plants. You can also tell by the way your plants react.
How to know if my plant is getting enough water?
Leaves started hanging down a bit ? It means your plants are thirsty for water, add some and they should return to normal fairly quickly. You should let excess water drain out from pots, best way to do that is use the fabric pots as mentioned above. Leaving your plants in water can cause some serious damage to them.
Vegetation
Now your plants are moved to pots and standing under the lights in your grow box. You should keep them under light for 16 hours a day. Let them sleep for 8. This will go on for about 3 and a half weeks. Water them when needed. Make sure not to over do it. This is a growth phase.
Week 4 of growing marijuana indoors – Flowering stage
Your cannabis plants look more or less like this after 3,5-4 weeks time. It’s time to change the cycle of light. Your lights should be on and off for 12/12 hours. This change of cycle will trick plants into thinking that summer is going towards the end and they need to start making some seeds. First buds will start appearing after around 4 weeks of 12/12 cycle. Now it’s a good time to talk about male and female plants, how to indicate them and how to get rid of unwanted male plants.
How to know if cannabis is male or female ?
After about 4 weeks you will start to notice buds appearing on your plants. Both males and females have buds. Lucky they look differently and that’s how you can spot them. Females will have whitish hair appearing on them, while male plants will have balls hanging from them. When you spot a male plant, it’s best to remove it ASAP, because later on they can pollinate your females and they will produce much less harvest.
Feed your plants with fertilizer
As we mentioned time and time again, cannabis is a plant that grows very fast and requires all sorts of nutrition through out it’s growth period. That’s why its good to think about using fertilizers. Your soil can only provide so much needed nutrients for a short period of time: 3-4 weeks. After that, it’s a very good idea to turn to fertilizer. You can use any kind of fertilizer, even one for growing tomatoes.
Note
Thing to remember is, always mix it with water. Never pour fertilizer straight into soil, that might kill the plant. Any fertilizer works, but there are certain fertilizers made just for growing marijuana. You can always wax your car with candle wax, but there is wax produced for cars exclusively. Same here, why use any fertilizer, when you can use one that is designed for a certain plant.
Get fertilizer designed for growing marijuana indoors
How often should I give fertilizer?
You should start giving your plants fertilizer when they’re about 2-3 weeks old. Until that time they should have enough nutrients from the soil itself. If your plants are young, you might be watering them every second day. So you should add fertilizer when you’re watering them.
How to check ?
Rule of thumb is 3/1, which means 3 times of fertilized water and 1 time of fresh water. Say if you were watering your plants on sunday using fertilizer, then you would do the same on tuesday and thursday, but on saturday you would use fresh water only. That protects your plants from salts building up in the soil, that might hurt your plants.
Furthermore…
You might need a TDS meter to give your plants correct dosage of fertilizer. Keep an eye out for the way your plants respond to fertilizer. If leaves start to become yellowish or dark, think about giving more fertilizer. If brown/yellow color spots start to appear, give them some rest from fertilizer, like a week or so.
Pest control
If you notice small white bugs crawling your plants, they might be spider mites in most cases. These small creatures can harm your plants. You can get rid of them by using pesticides.
A thing to keep in mind, you are growing this for human consumption. You can’t use any heavy stuff on it, or you might end up smoking poison. We recommend using Neem oil.
How and when ?
After your lights go off for the night time, spray your plants with Neem oil mixed with water (read bottle label before mixing). Don’t hold back, pay extra attention to bottom of leaves, thats where most of them will be hanging around. Leave it for the night, It will dry up after a night. If you somehow don’t get rid of them, do same the next night. They should be gone for sure.
When will it be full grown? Is it time to harvest yet?
After you start flowering period, it will take 2-3 months of flowering until you can harvest your marijuana. During this period, keep watering your plants, adding fertilizer. Your plants will grow taller, restrain them with ropes or wires if they grow too tall. Keep lights above the plants as they grow, don’t let them touch the lamps.
Time till harvest?
After 2-3 months of flowering it’s finally time to harvest the buds. Plant slowed down in growth and you can feel a strong smell of marijuana. Most white hair of buds have changed into brown ones by now. Your buds look much more solid. Those are common indicators that the plant is ready for harvest.
Harvesting time!
The day we all look forward to – harvest day. This part is easy, just cut the plant right above the ground. Great job!
Next step is trimming. This is where the fun begins. I suggest using small scissors to cut the leaves from buds. As leaves have no use and smoking them would just get you to cough more. You can keep the smaller leaves that are covered with crystals, they’re good for making hash or butter. The cleaner you trim, the more beautiful buds will look.
Drying
This is kind of important part. Dry them slowly. Best way in our opinion is to place it on a peace of paper and leave it in the dark room. They will dry slowly but not too slow. Don’t dry them with blow dryer or in the oven, It will taste really bad. Don’t dry too slow either, It might catch mold and it will be ruined.
Later drying
You should dry them for about a week. After a week, put them into plastic bag and leave them in it for the night (don’t make vacuum inside the bag). Take them out again and leave them to dry for 12-24 hours, then put them in the bag again. This will slow down drying process a bit.
At some stage your stems should start braking upon applying pressure, accompanied with a nice ‘crack’ sound. They should feel dry, but not 100% dry. You want to leave some of humidity for curing process that follows.
You can spark one up now and have a taste. It will not have reached it’s full potential yet, but it’s smokable. Curing process is what makes it stronger and nicer to smoke.
Full Drying cannabis Stoners Like way guide here
Curing, make buds even better
As mentioned in section above, freshly dried marijuana can be smoked. But it won’t be as potent. That is where curing steps in. For next 2-4 months or even more if you want, you will keep buds in closed glass jars. They should be stored in dark place. Once every few days open the jars and let some fresh air inside. Marijuana takes time to mature, just like when they make whisky, vine or cheese.
Our full guide on Curing cannabis
Over time chemical processes will reduce chlorophyll and increase in active substances such as THC. The buds will increase in potency and they will be easier to smoke.
Finished! Time to spark that join, light that bowl and celebrate.
