top 10 best weed growing tips

Top 10 Tips on How to Grow Weed at Home

How to grow weed at home good enough to culminate in a beautiful harvest of baseball bat sized buds is never always just cut-and-dry.

Perhaps you’re an intermediate cannabis cultivator looking for some confirmation that your entire growing process is sound without all the message board surfing.

Maybe you’re a new home grower getting started and doing research on the best tips for growing cannabis.

Whatever your cannabis cultivator status, we’ve narrowed down a lot of the information available regarding how to grow a weed plant efficiently into this definitive list.

10. What cannabis strain to grow?

Growing different cannabis strains gives different results. Sativa provide more of a headier or energetic high, take longer to grow, and stretch pretty high with averages of about 6 feet. Indica take a shorter amount of time to grow, provide consumers with a heavier body stone that’s ideal for pain relief, and grow shorter versus their sativa counterparts.

Purchase seeds or clones that jibe with your individual situation. Perhaps you’re in a colder climate. Then growing indoor cannabis hybrids is probably the smart bet. Check out our list of the best cannabis strains to grow at home.

9. Proven cannabis seed genetics make a difference

Whether indica, hybrid, sativa, indoor, or outdoor, the best way to grow cannabis from the start is to use stable marijuana seed genetics or clone cuttings from trusted cannabis breeders. Do research online to see which breeders are a cut above the rest, and have a proper genetic lineage to their cannabis seeds or clones documented.

Stable and proven cannabis seed genetics make all the difference with so many different aspects of the plant:

  • Terpene profiles
  • Overall plant health
  • Growth vigor
  • Cannabinoid content
  • High yields
  • Trichome coverage

8. Give your plants enough space to grow

Sometimes as home cultivators, we want to get as much bang for the buck regarding enough space to grow marijuana. That can mean trying to load half a dozen plants into an indoor cannabis tent only meant to hold and grow four. Or while maintaining an outdoor garden bed full of cannabis plants, not accounting for enough individual room for them all to receive proper light and nutrients.

Overcrowding can be detrimental to plant health. Avoid having to toss plants that you put so much time and care into by planning accordingly for surface area or using more outside space or a dedicated indoor cannabis growing room.

7. Ventilation systems for indoor cannabis growing

Indoor cannabis growing certainly has its fair share of merits. The biggest of which is that it's a more controllable environment versus outdoors.

By setting up a ventilation system, fresh air is exchanged constantly–a must for the indoor cannabis plant. Stale air is circulated, which then helps keep your indoor cannabis plants at their intended target temperature and humidity ranges.

Ventilation systems also reduce common mold that can occur as a natural side effect of growing a large organic plant in conditions that mimic nature. Other natural pests such as mites can also plague growers that don’t maintain or properly utilize a ventilation system in their set-up.

6. How much light is needed for cannabis?

Photoperiod cannabis plants grown indoors typically require anywhere from 18 to 24 hours of proper light exposure during the vegetative stage, and a 12 hours on 12 hours off schedule while flowering.

How much light is needed to grow is also determined by where you grow. When growing outdoors, the late spring/summer/early fall period provides enough natural sunlight to get your plants the proper photosynthesis they need to grow strong.

Indoor cannabis light sizes depend on the amount of space and plants being grown with them at one time. Ensure you have enough direct light to cover all plants equally.

The following types of indoor cannabis grow lights vary significantly in cost, especially the bigger they get:

  • Light Emitting Diodes (LED)
  • High Intensity Discharge (HID)
  • Fluorescent

5. How to grow marijuana with supplemental nutrients

Protein-based composts have proven to work wonders by producing sick yields and buds via supplementation. Confirming to many at-home cultivators that they actually know how to grow marijuana properly.

Composts like manure, agricultural waste, and even coffee grounds add beneficial elements like potassium, nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus to soil blends to encourage fertility.

However, supplementation can also be too much of a good thing. Home growers should properly research the ideal ratios of compost to add to your soil, as too much can mean excess ammonia levels that negatively affect plant health tremendously.

4. Monitor for cannabis plants deficiencies

Cannabis plant deficiencies present themselves primarily in the leaves. Any yellowing, browning, or fading of the leaves usually indicates a major lack of nutrients or overexposure to light.

Any of the above supplementation tips or composts can raise nutrient levels back to where they should be. Be sure to monitor and maintain proper pH balance in your soil so that it can make these nutrients their most bio-available.

Bud rot is a phenomenon in regions that have a lot of rain or high humidity. For outdoor plants it’s especially common in those types of areas. Covering your plants even partially and shaking off morning dew helps avoid this pesky mold formation.

Droopy leaves indicate that you’re stressing your plants by overwatering. Cannabis leaves should always point up to the sky as if in a “praying” formation as an indicator of a healthy, maturing plant.

3. Pruning and trimming marijuana plants

Marijuana plant canopies can often be big and bushy. Pruning and trimming marijuana plants closely with any excess fan leaves removed helps optimal light and airflow reach your entire plant and not just certain sections.

Techniques such as topping work by splitting top-situated branches into two. This method keeps plants from growing too tall and creates more manageable sections that are fuller and able to receive more light.

Low stress training (LST) is often utilized by cannabis growers to train the plant into a good symbiosis that also keeps the branches uniform. A gentle bend of a branch during the veg stage, or even applying a twist tie to make the branch grow in a certain direction can lead to bigger yields further down the line.

2. Harvesting cannabis according to trichomes

Trichomes are tiny nodes on just about every plant that act as natural defense mechanisms. On cannabis plants, trichomes happen to contain almost the entirety of the inherent terpenes and cannabinoids. Needless to say they are pretty important, especially because the trichomes indicate when growers should be harvesting cannabis.

Using a jeweler’s loupe, microscope, or really good camera phone, regularly check the trichomes when it’s close to harvest time. Focus on finding mostly milky-white trichomes along with a few amber-colored ones in order to know when the time is right to chop down plants for max potency.

1. Cure & dry harvested cannabis properly

Chopped buds from your harvested cannabis plants should be dried and cured properly. Dry your buds by attaching them by their stems onto an object like a heavy coat hanger for stability. Then hang said object in a well-ventilated room for several days until the moisture content is removed, and the harvested buds are dry.

Once dried, the bud then goes into glass jars with Boveda humidity packs and a dark, cool, dry area to reach ideal carbohydrate and terpene levels for several weeks.

During this process jars need to be burped, or opened daily several times to allow new oxygen and air to enter while old CO2 is removed. Products like burp bags are also available to make this process easier and quicker.

How to grow marijuana is all up to you

If you’re a seasoned grower maybe now you have the confidence that everything you’re doing is fine, and you can give yourself a break.

For a newer grower, perhaps all of the above best tips on how to grow marijuana now allow you to make a checklist to confirm you’re adhering to these principles.

Make adjustments, do research, test certain variables–the power of how to grow a weed plant is solely in your hands.

If you aren’t ready to jump all-in on a growing tent, autoflower seeds can make a simple patio crop in the summer. Check out our latest selection of King Palm cannabis smoking accessories to complement your bounty of homegrown buds in 2023 and beyond!

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