Indoor Growing
Growing indoors is much more private than growing outdoors and you also get more control over your grow.
An indoor cannabis grow can be surprisingly cheap to get started and maintain, especially if you plan on growing just a few plants.

Growing outdoors is cheaper to get started since you don’t have to get grow lights or create an indoor grow area, though you will have to worry about privacy/stealth, possible pollination, people stealing your plants, bugs, deer and other unexpected outdoor visitors.


There are lots of different grow lights for cannabis, including:

The Sun
Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) & Household LEDs
Other Fluorescent Lighting (T5 / T8)
LEC (CMH) grow lights
LED grow lights
Metal Halide (MH) & High-Pressure Sodium (HPS)


These are the most common grow mediums:

Soil – grow in organic composted super soil for the easiest growing experience, or start with the popular Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil mix (FFOF already contains enough nutrients to last the first month of your young plant’s life).
Soilless Mix – anything besides soil including coco coir, perlite, vermiculite, etc. (all soilless mixes are technically considered hydroponic growing since there’s no soil).
Directly in Water / Hydroponics – Get some of the fastest growth and biggest yields possible, especially when combined with HID/LEC/LED grow lights.
Less Common Types of Hydro – Some people grow with plant roots suspended in misted air (aeroponics) or in a tank with fish (aquaponics), but these are relatively less common for cannabis growers.


Soil growers – unless you’re growing with composted super soil, you will need to get cannabis nutrients made for soil to make sure your plants produce at their best. Even if you started with an amended soil like FFOF, you will still need to start adding nutrients once you reach the flowering/budding stage as cannabis plants are heavy feeders and your plants will have already used up most of the nutrients in the soil by the time budding begins.

Soilless & Hydroponic growers – If you are growing in any medium besides soil, like a soilless mix or directly in water, you will want to get cannabis nutrients specifically made for hydroponics. Some nutrients are even more specific; for example, Canna Coco is formulated to work best for growing weed in Coco Coir. For hydroponic grows, I highly recommend the General Hydroponics Nutrient Trio – here’s the cannabis-friendly GH trio nutrient schedule I use with my cannabis plants.


For those growers lucky enough to know other cannabis growers in real life, getting plants is usually pretty simple. Many cannabis collectives and dispensaries will happily sell you clones though they tend to be a little less liberal when it comes to selling seeds. A great advantage of purchasing clones or seeds from a trusted source is that you know you can trust the genetics you are receiving.


There are many methods for cannabis seed germination.
Personally, I think one of the easiest ways to germinate a cannabis seed is to place it directly in a specialized starter cube like a Rapid Rooter.
Just keep the Rapid Rooters moist (but not soaking) and warm. It can help to put your tray on a seedling heat mat. Seedlings should pop in a few days to a week.


Once your plant grows the first “regular” set of leaves, it’s pretty much officially in the vegetative stage. How long is the vegetative stage?

Cannabis plants keep getting bigger and bigger with long days (vegetative stage) and start making buds when they get long nights (flowering stage).


This is the stage where your plants start making buds. This stage will last until harvest!

During this stage, you will need to…

Change to 12-12 Light Schedule
Identify Gender of Cannabis Plants
Get Rid of any Males

When to Harvest Weed? Is She Ready for Harvest?

1.Wait until your buds stop growing new, white hairs
2.Wait until at least 40% of the white hairs have changed color (darkened) and are curling in.
3.Harvest when 50-70% of the hairs have darkened for highest THC levels
4.Harvest when 80-90% of the hairs have darkened for more a couchlock, anti-anxiety effect (some of the THC has turned into the more relaxing CBN)


After you have cut off and trimmed all of your glittery, beautiful fat buds, you will want to hang them upside down in a cool, dark place with plenty of ventilation so that they can dry out.