more information about soil, pH, and NPK, refer to Chapters 5 and 6.
4
The Great Divide: Indoors or Outdoors
We now come to the core divide in marijuana growing. At this stage, you should know something about the history of cannabis, how it is smoked, its various species, the high, its seeds, the life cycle of the plant, not to mention propagation, germination, and transplanting. With the exception of transplanting, all these things are generally pre-production methods. Now, you are ready to start growing: you’re about to take your seedling and put it into your main grow area. This means that for the next three to nine months your plant is going to be located in a certain environment. That environment will be either indoors or outdoors. So, let us talk about each environment in brief for a moment and also discuss the important issue of security before moving on to a more detailed description of indoor and outdoor grow spaces, environmental control, and basic and advanced growing techniques in the chapters that follow.
Gardening Tools
Here is a list of the basic items used to grow cannabis plants, both indoors and out.
• Light source
• Nutrients
• Soil/medium
• Rockwool cubes (Oasis cubes or Jiffy cubes are just as good)
• Small shovel or trowel
• Support sticks
• Water source and delivery system
• Fertilizers
• Propagation trays
• Pots
• Scissors and/or a sharp knife
• Pest control
• Thread
As we advance to the latter sections of this book we’ll see that growers can equip themselves with many more items to help them on their quest for bigger buds. The above list of tools represents the basics.
Some places are remote enough and big enough to allow for several hundred plants to grow indoors.
Planning for Indoor Growing
Next to choosing a strain, lighting is the most important factor that must be considered when growing indoors. The first thing you should know is that indoor lights produce bigger flowers (more bud) than natural light coming in the window (the process of utilizing natural light indoors is often called a window grow). This means you get more THC quantity with artificial lights than you will with natural sunlight indoors. Even in countries that have relatively hot sun for six months of the year, it is still hard to produce big buds indoors under natural light. Some people have grown plants under an attic window that’s open during the dry days. This will grow you bud, but not as much as an artificial lighting system will produce. The other side of the coin is that natural light is free, electricity is not, and grow lights can be expensive to buy and run.
It is very important to plan ahead and envisage the final harvest in order to space your plants accordingly.
A grower pulls up a fistful of top colas from an indoor grow room.There are several ounces here and loads more to come.
When using a window grow, try to place your plant near a window that receives the most sunlight throughout the day and the seasons. If you plan on a window grow, remember that you want your plant to get most of its light during flowering. If July is the best month for sunlight, then you may consider germinating your seedling back in April or May or even as early as early March. Try to estimate when you’ll get the best weather and coordinate this with the flowering times directed by the breeder.
A single light, large reflector and lots of mylar can spread enough light to expand the parameters of a grow by several additional plants.
Also remember that people might be able to look up and see your plant if it is growing near the window. People washing your windows can also see in. Also, if you have a Sativa plant it will get big and very conspicuous. Take all these factors into consideration when you are growing your plants with natural sunlight indoors, but keep in mind that even low wattage indoor grow lights will improve your yields tenfold compared to a window grow. Window growing can result in a vain attempt to grow bud and is one of the top reasons why first time cannabis growers discontinue growing cannabis. A window grow by no means reflects the cannabis plant’s true potential.
If you are growing indoors, then you may have a room or part of a room that you wish to use, such as an attic, closet, basement, or spare bathroom. These locations nearly always require artificial light. There are many ways to set up an indoor grow room. We will discuss this in Chapter 6.
Outdoor Growing
Throughout the discussion that follows, we define outdoor growing as growing on your own property and guerrilla farming as growing away from your property, either in public areas or on someone else’s property.
A trailer full of clones on their way to an outdoor grow.These babies will eventually cultivate into some very nice mature bushes.
Outdoor clones planted in rows can grow into every cannabis farmer’s dream.
This sativa-heavy T.N.C. from K.C. Brains grows tall and yields a lot of bud. Photo K.C. Brains
Your grow patch, whether on your own property or public property, must be pretreated and tended to regularly. Leaving seeds in the soil and coming back four months later is generally not going to produce the best results. Two things must be done to the patch before the grow—weeding and digging.
Planning for Outdoor Growing and Guerrilla Farming
The biggest problem with outdoor growing is keeping your grow area secure and private. Some people will rip off your plants in a second if they see what you have. Others will just create trouble for you. The risks are high and security is vital. I once heard about a small community that lived near a forest and grew their marijuana near a stream. They eventually had to stop growing as their plants were being ripped off by the locals from the town nearby. The thieves were not just teenagers, adults will also steal. Some rippers are professionals, using other people’s grow as their main supply.
This K.C. Brains greenhouse has cannabis as far as the eye can see. Large populations are a breeder’s delight. Photo K.C. Brains
Perhaps the best, most affordable, and low-key way to conceal an outdoor garden is to grow your cannabis plants among other plants