Growing marijuana indoors is fast becoming an American
Pastime. The reasons are varied. With the increased interest
and experimentation in house plant cultivation, it was inevitable
that people would apply their knowledge of plant care to growing
marijuana. Many of those who occasionally like to light up a
joint may find it difficult to locate a source or are hesitant to
deal with a perhaps unsavory element of society in procuring
their grass. There is, of course, the criminal aspect of buying
or selling grass; Growing marijuana is just as illegal as
buying, selling, or smoking it, but growing is something you can
do in the privacy of your own home without having to deal with
someone you don't know or trust. The best reason for growing
your own is the enjoyment you will get out of watching those tiny
little seeds you picked out of you stash sprout and become some
of the most lovely and lush of all house plants.
Even if you haven't had any prior experience with growing
plants in you home, you can have a successful crop of marijuana by
following the simple directions in this pamphlet. If you have had
problems in the past with marijuana cultivation, you may find the
solutions in the following chapters. Growing a marijuana plant
involves four basic steps:
1. Get the seeds. If you don't already have some, you can ask
you friends to save you seeds out of any good grass they may
come across. You'll find that lots of people already have a
seed collection of some sort and are willing to part with a
few prime seeds in exchange for some of the finished
product.
2. Germinate the seeds. You can simply drop a seed into moist
soil, but by germinating the seeds first you can be sure
that the seed will indeed produce a plant. To germinate
seeds, place a group of them between about six moist paper
towels, or in the pores of a moist sponge. Leave the towels
or sponge moist but not soaking wet. Some seeds will
germinate in 24 hours while others may take several days or
even a week.
3. Plant the sprouts. As soon as a seed cracks open and begins
to sprout, place it on some moist soil and sprinkle a little
soil over the top of it.
4. Supply the plants with light. Flourescent lights are the
best. Hang the lights with two inches of the soil and after
the plants appear above the ground, continue to keep the
lights with two inches of the plants. It is as easy as
that. If you follow those four steps you will grow a
marijuana plant. To ensure prime quality and the highest
yield in the shortest time period, however, a few details
are necessary.
Your prime concern, after choosing high quality seeds, is
the soil. Use the best soil you can get. Scrimping on the soil
doesn't pay off in the long run. If you use unsterilized soil
you will almost certainly find parasites in it, probably after it
is too late to transplant your marijuana. You can find excellent
soil for sale at your local plant shop or nursery, K-Mart, Wal
Mart, and even some grocery stores. The soil you use should have
these properties for the best possible results:
1. It should drain well. That is, it should have some sand in
it and also some sponge rock or pearlite.
2. The ph should be between 6.5 and 7.5 since marijuana does
not do well in acidic soil. High acidity in soil encourages
the plant to be predominantly male, an undesirable trait.
3. The soil should also contain humus for retaining moisture
and nutrients.
If you want to make your own soil mixture, you can use this
recipe: Mix two parts moss with one part sand and one part
pearlite or sponge rock to each four gallons of soil. Test your
soil for ph with litmus paper or with a soil testing kit
available at most plant stores. To raise the ph of the soil, add
1/2 lb. lime to 1 cubic foot of soil to raise the ph one point.
If you absolutely insist on using dirt you dug up from your
driveway, you must sterilize it by baking it in your oven for
about an hour at 250 degrees. Be sure to moisten it thoroughly
first and also prepare yourself for a rapid evacuation of your
kitchen because that hot soil is going to stink. Now add to the
mixture about one tablespoon of fertilizer (like Rapid-Gro) per
gallon gallon of soil and blend it in thoroughly. Better yet,
just skip the whole process and spend a couple bucks on some
soil.
After you have prepared your soil, you will have to come up
with some kind of container to plant in. The container should be
sterilized as well, especially if they have been used previously
for growing other plants. The size of the container has a great
deal to do with the rate of growth and overall size of the plant.
You should plan on transplanting your plant not more than one
time, since the process of transplanting can be a shock to the
plant and it will have to undergo a recovery period in which
growth is slowed or even stopped for a short while. The first
container you use should be no larger than six inches in diameter
and can be made of clay or plastic. To transplant, simply
prepare the larger pot by filling it with soil and scooping out a
little hole about the size of the smaller pot that the plant is
in. Turn the plant upside down, pot and all, and tap the rim of
the pot sharply on a counter or the edge of the sink. The soil
and root ball should come out of the pot cleanly with the soil
retaining the shape of the pot and with no disturbances to the
root ball. Another method that can bypass the transplanting
problem is using a Jiffy-Pot. Jiffy pots are made of compressed
peat moss and can be planted right into moist soil where they
decompose and allow the passage of the root system through their
walls. The second container should have a volume of at least
three gallons. Marijuana doesn't like to have its roots bound or
cramped for space, so always be sure that the container you use
will be deep enough for your plant's root system. It is very
difficult to transplant a five-foot marijuana tree, so plan
ahead. It is going to get bigger. The small plants should be
ready to transplant into their permanent homes in about two
weeks. Keep a close watch on them after the first week or so and
avoid root binding at all costs since the plants never seem to do
as well once they have been stunted by the cramping of their
roots.
Marijuana likes lots of food, but you can do damage to the
plants if you are too zealous. Some fertilizers can burn a plant
and damage its roots if used in to high a concentration. Most
commercial soil will have enough nutrients in it to sustain the
plant for about three weeks of growth so you don't need to worry
about feeding your plant until the end of the third week. The
most important thing to remember is to introduce the fertilizer
concentration to the plant gradually. Start with a fairly
diluted fertilizer solution and gradually increase the dosage.
There are several good marijuana fertilizers on the commercial
market, two of which are Rapid-Gro and Eco-Grow. Rapid-Gro has
had widespread use in marijuana cultivation and is available in
most parts of the United States. Eco-Grow is also especially
good for marijuana since it contains an ingredient that keeps the
soil from becoming acid. Most fertilizers cause a ph change in
the soil. Adding fertilizer to the soil almost always results in
a more acidic ph.
As time goes on, the amount of salts produced by the
breakdown of fertilizers in the soil causes the soil to become
increasingly acidic and eventually the concentration of these
salts in the soil will stunt the plant and cause browning out of
the foliage. Also, as the plant gets older its roots become less
effective in bringing food to the leaves. To avoid the
accumulation of these salts in your soil and to ensure that your
plant is getting all of the food it needs you can begin leaf
feeding your plant at the age of about 1.5 months. Dissolve the
fertilizer in worm water and spray the mixture directly onto the
foliage. The leaves absorb the fertilizer into their veins. If
you want to continue to put fertilizer into the soil as well as
leaf feeding, be sure not to overdose your plants.
Remember to increase the amount of food your plant receives
gradually. Marijuana seems to be able to take as much fertilizer
as you want to give it as long as it is introduced over a period
of time. During the first three months or so, fertilize your
plants every few days. As the rate of foliage growth slows down
in the plant's preparation for blooming and seed production, the
fertilizer intake of the plant should be slowed down as well.
Never fertilize the plant just before you are going to harvest it
since the fertilizer will encourage foliage production and slow
down resin production. A word here about the most organic of
fertilizers: worm castings. As you may know, worms are raised
commercially for sale to gardeners. The breeders put the worms
in organic compost mixtures and while the worms are reproducing
they eat the organic matter and expel some of the best marijuana
food around. After the worms have eaten all the organic matter
in the compost, they are removed and sold and the remains are
then sold as worm castings. These castings are so rich that you
can grow marijuana in straight worm castings. This isn't really
necessary however, and it is somewhat impractical since the
castings are very expensive. If you can afford them you can,
however, blend them in with your soil and they will make a very
good organic fertilizer.
Without light, the plants cannot grow. In the countries in
which marijuana grows best, the sun is the source of light. The
amount of light and the length of the growing season in these
countries results in huge tree-like plants. In most parts of
North America, however, the sun is not generally intense enough
for long enough periods of time to produce the same size and
quality of plants that grow with ease in Latin America and other
tropical countries. The answer to the problem of lack of sun,
especially in the winter months, shortness of the growing season,
and other problems is to grow indoor under simulated conditions.
The rule of thumb seems to be the more light, the better. In one
experiment we know of, eight eight-foot VHO Gro-Lux fixtures were
used over eight plants. The plants grew at an astonishing rate.
The lights had to be raised every day. There are many types of
artificial light and all of them do different things to your
plants. The common incandescent light bulb emits some of the
frequencies of light the plant can use, but it also emits a high
percentage of far red and infra-red light which cause the plant
to concentrate its growth on the stem. This results in the plant
stretching toward the light bulb until it becomes so tall and
spindly that it just weakly topples over. There are several
brands of bulb type. One is the incandescent plant spot light
which emits higher amounts of red and blue light than the common
light bulb. It is an improvement, but has it drawbacks. it is
hot, for example, and cannot be placed close to the plants.
Consequently, the plant has to stretch upwards again and is in
danger of becoming elongated and falling over. The red bands of
light seem to encourage stem growth which is not desirable in
growing marijuana. the idea is to encourage foliage growth for
obvious reasons. Gro-Lux lights are probably the most common
flourescent plant lights. In our experience with them, they have
proven themselves to be extremely effective. They range in size
from one to eight feet in length so you can set up a growing room
in a closet or a warehouse. There are two types of Gro-Lux
lights: The standard and the wide spectrum. They can be used in
conjunction with on another, but the wide spectrum lights are not
sufficient on their own. The wide spectrum lights were designed
as a supplementary light source and are cheaper than the standard
lights. Wide spectrum lights emit the same bands of light as the
standard but the standard emit higher concentrations of red and
blue bands that the plants need to grow. The wide spectrum
lights also emit infra-red, the effect of which on stem growth we
have already discussed. If you are planning to grow on a large
scale, you might be interested to know that the regular
flourescent lamps and fixtures, the type that are used in
commercial lighting, work well when used along with standard Gro-
Lux lights. These commercial lights are called cool whites, and
are the cheapest of the flourescent lights we have mentioned.
They emit as much blue light as the Gro-Lux standards and the
blue light is what the plants use in foliage growth.
Now we come to the question of intensity. Both the standard
and wide spectrum lamps come in three intensities: regular
output, high output, and very high output. You can grow a nice
crop of plants under the regular output lamps and probably be
quite satisfied with our results. The difference in using the HO
or VHO lamps is the time it takes to grow a crop. Under a VHO
lamp, the plants grow at a rate that is about three times the
rate at which they grow under the standard lamps. People have
been known to get a plant that is four feet tall in two months
under one of these lights. Under the VHO lights, one may have to
raise the lights every day which means a growth rate of ate least
two inches a day. The only drawback is the expense of the VHO
lamps and fixtures. The VHO lamps and fixtures are almost twice
the price of the standard. If you are interested in our opinion,
they are well worth it. Now that you have your lights up, you
might be curious about the amount of light to give you plants per
day. The maturation date of your plants is dependent on how much
light they receive per day. The longer the dark period per day,
the sooner the plant will bloom. Generally speaking, the less
dark per day the better during the first six months of the
plant's life. The older the plant is before it blooms and goes
to seed, the better the grass will be. After the plant is
allowed to bloom, its metabolic rate is slowed so that the
plant's quality does not increase with the age at the same rate
it did before it bloomed. The idea, then, is to let the plant
get as old as possible before allowing it to mature so that the
potency will be a high as possible at the time of harvest. One
relatively sure way to keep your plants from blooming until you
are ready for them is to leave the lights on all the time.
Occasionally a plant will go ahead and bloom anyway, but it is
the exception rather than the rule. If your plants receive 12
hours of light per day they will probably mature in 2 to 2.5
months. If they get 16 hours of light per day they will probably
be blooming in 3.5 to 4 months. With 18 hours of light per day,
they will flower in 4.5 to 5 months. Its a good idea to put your
lights on a timer to ensure that the amount of light received
each day remains constant. A "vacation" timer, normally used to
make it look like you are home while you are away, works nicely
and can be found at most hardware or discount stores.
The ideal temperature for the light hours is 68 to 78 degrees
fahrenheit and for the dark hours there should be about a 15
degree drop in temperature. The growing room should be relatively
dry if possible. What you want is a resinous coating on the
leaves and to get the plant to do this, you must convince it that
it needs the resinous coating on its leaves to protect itself from
drying out. In an extremely humid room, the plants develop wide
leaves and do not produce as much resin. You must take care not
to let the temperature in a dry room become too hot, however,
since the plant cannot assimilate water fast enough through its
roots and its foliage will begin to brown out.
Proper ventilation in your growing room is fairly important.
The more plants you have in one room, the more important good
ventilation becomes. Plants breathe through their leaves. The
also rid themselves of poisons through their leaves. If proper
ventilation is not maintained, the pores of the leaves will become
clogged and the leaves will die. If there is a free movement of
air, the poisons can evaporate off the leaves and the plant can
breathe and remain healthy.
In a small closet where there are only a few plants you can
probably create enough air circulation just by opening the door to
look at them. Although it is possible to grow healthy looking
plants in poorly ventilated rooms, they would be larger and
healthier if they had a fresh supply of air coming in. If you
spend a lot of time in your growing room, your plants will grow
better because they will be using the carbon dioxide that you are
exhaling around them. It is sometimes quite difficult to get a
fresh supply of air in to your growing room because your room is
usually hidden away in a secret corner of your house, possibly in
the attic or basement. In this case, a fan will create some
movement of air. It will also stimulate your plants into growing
a healthier and sturdier stalk. Often times in an indoor
environment, the stems of plants fail to become rigid because they
don't have to cope with elements of wind and rain. To a degree,
though, this is an advantage because the plant puts most of its
energy into producing leaves and resin instead of stems.
Cannabis that grows in a hot, dry climate will have narrower
leaves than cannabis grown in a humid atmosphere. The reason is
that in a dry atmosphere the plant can respirate easier because
the moisture on the leaves evaporates faster. In a humid
atmosphere, the moisture cannot evaporate as fast. Consequently,
the leaves have to be broader with more surface area in order to
expel the wastes that the plant put out. Since the broad leaves
produce less resin per leaf than the narrow there will be more
resin in an ounce of narrow leaves than in one ounce of broad
leaves. There may be more leaf mass in the broader leafed plants,
but most people are growing their own for quality rather than
quantity.
Since the resin in the marijuana plant serves the purpose of
keeping the leaves from drying out, there is more apt to be a lot
of resin produced in a dry room than in a humid one. In the Sears
catalog, dehumidifiers cost around $100.00 and are therefore a bit
impractical for the "hobby grower."
If you live near a clear mountain stream, you can skip this
bit on the quality of water. Most of us are supplied water by the
city and some cities add more chemicals to the water than others.
They all add chlorine, however, in varying quantities. Humans
over the years have learned to either get rid of it somehow or to
live with it, but your marijuana plants won't have time to acquire
a taste for it so you had better see that they don't have to.
Chlorine will evaporate if you let the water stand for 24 hours in
an open container. Letting the water stand for a day or two will
serve a dual purpose: The water will come to room temperature
during that period of time and you can avoid the nasty shock your
plants suffer when you drench them with cold water. Always water
with room temperature to lukewarm water. If your water has an
excessive amount of chlorine in it, you may want to get some anti-
chlorine drops at the local fish or pet store. The most important
thing about watering is to do it thoroughly. You can water a
plant in a three gallon container with as much as three quarts of
water. The idea is to get the soil evenly moist all the way to
the bottom of the pot. If you use a little water, even if you do
it often, it seeps just a short way down into the soil and any
roots below the moist soil will start to turn upwards toward the
water. The second most important thing about watering is to see
to it that the pot has good drainage. There should be some holes
in the bottom so that any excess water will run out. If the pot
won't drain, the excess water will accumulate in a pocket and rot
the roots of the plant or simply make the soil sour or mildew.
The soil, as we said earlier, must allow the water to drain evenly
through it and must not become hard or packed. If you have made
sure that the soil contains sand and pearlite, you shouldn't have
drainage problems. To discover when to water, feel the soil with
your finger. if you feel moisture in the soil, you can wait a day
or two to water. The soil near the top of the pot is always drier
than the soil further down. You can drown your plant just as
easily as you can let it get too dry and it is more likely to
survive a dry spell than it is to survive a torrential flood.
Water the plants well when you water and don't water them at all
when they don't need it.
If you can avoid getting bugs in the first place you will be
much better off. Once your plants become infested you will
probably be fighting bugs for the rest of your plants' lives. To
avoid bugs be sure to use sterilized soil and containers and don't
bring other plants from outside into your growing room. If you
have bets, ensure that they stay out of your growing room, since
they can bring in pests on their fur. Examine your plants
regularly for signs of insects, spots, holes in the leaves,
browning of the tips of the leaves, and droopy branches. If you
find that somehow in spite of all your precautions you have a
plant room full of bugs, you'll have to spray your plants with
some kind of insecticide. You'll want to use something that will
kill the bugs and not you. Spider mites are probably the bug that
will do the most damage to the marijuana plants. One of the
reasons is that they are almost microscopic and very hard to spot.
They are called spider mites because they leave a web-like
substance clinging to the leaves. They also cause tiny little
spots to appear on the leaves. Probably the first thing you'll
notice, however, is that your plants look sick and depressed. The
mites suck enzymes from the leaves and as a result the leaves lose
some of their green color and glossiness. Sometimes the leaves
look like they have some kid of fungus on them. The eggs are very
tiny black dots. You might be wise to get a magnifying glass so
that you can really scrutinize your plants closely. Be sure to
examine the underside of the leaves too. The mites will often be
found clinging to the underside as well as the top of the leaves.
The sooner you start fighting the bugs, the easier it will be to
get rid of them. For killing spider mites on marijuana, one of
the best insecticides if "Fruit and Berry" spray made by Millers.
Ortho also produces several insecticides that will kill mites.
The ingredients to look for are Kelthane and Malatheon. Both of
these poisons are lethal to humans and pets as well as bugs, but
they both detoxify in about ten days so you can safely smoke the
grass ten days after spraying. Fruit and Berry will only kill the
adult mite, however, and you'll have to spray every four days for
about two weeks to be sure that you have killed all the adults
before they have had a chance to lay eggs. Keep a close watch on
your plants because it only takes one egg laying adult to re-
infest your plants and chances are that one or two will escape
your barrage of insecticides. If you see little bugs flying
around your plants, they are probably white flies. The adults are
immune to almost all the commercial insecticides except Fruit and
Berry which will not kill the eggs or larva. It is the larval
stage of this insect that does the most damage. They suck out
enzymes too, and kill your plants if they go unchecked. You will
have to get on a spraying program just as was explained in the
spider mite section.
An organic method of bug control is using soap suds. Put
Ivory flakes in some lukewarm water and work up the suds into a
lather. Then put the suds over the plant. The obvious
disadvantage is it you don't rinse the soap off the plant you'll
taste the soap when you smoke the leaves.
We have found that pruning is not always necessary. The
reason one does it in the first place is to encourage secondary
growth and to allow light to reach the immature leaves. Some
strands of grass just naturally grow thick and bushy and if they
are not clipped the sap moves in an uninterrupted flow right to
the top of the plant where it produces flowers that are thick with
resin. On the other hand, if your plants appear tall and spindly
for their age at three weeks, they probably require a little
trimming to ensure a nice full leafy plant. At three weeks of age
your plant should have at least two sets of branches or four leaf
clusters and a top. To prune the plant, simply slice the top off
just about the place where two branches oppose each other. Use a
razor blade in a straight cut. If you want to, you can root the
top in some water and when the roots appear, plant the top in
moist soil and it should grow into another plant. If you are
going to root the top you should cut the end again, this time with
a diagonal cut so as to expose more surface to the water or
rooting solution. The advantage to taking cuttings from your
plant is that it produces more tops. The tops have the resin, and
that's the name of the game. Every time you cut off a top, the
plant seeds out two more top branches at the base of the existing
branches. Pruning also encourages the branches underneath to grow
faster than they normally would without the top having been cut.
Well, now that you've grown your marijuana, you will want to
cur it right so that it smokes clean and won't bite. You can
avoid that "homegrown" taste of chlorophyll that sometimes makes
one's fillings taste like they might be dissolving. We know of
several methods of curing the marijuana so that it will have a
mild flavor and a mellow rather than harsh smoke.
First, pull the plant up roots and all and hang it upside
down for 24 hours. Then put each plant in a paper grocery bag
with the top open for three or four days or until the leaves feel
dry to the touch. Now strip the leaves off the stem and put them
in a glass jar with a lid. Don't pack the leaves in tightly, you
want air to reach all the leaves. The main danger in the curing
process is mold. If the leaves are too damp when you put them
into the jar, they will mold and since the mold will destroy the
resins, mold will ruin your marijuana. you should check the jars
every day by smelling them and if you smell an acrid aroma, take
the weed out of the jar and spread it out on newspaper so that it
can dry quickly. Another method is to uproot the plants and hang
them upside down. You get some burlap bags damp and slip them up
over the plants. Keep the bags damp and leave them in the sun for
at least a week. Now put the plants in a paper bag for a few days
until the weed is dry enough to smoke. Like many fine things in
life, marijuana mellows out with age. The aging process tends to
remove the chlorophyll taste.
Editor's Note and Important Warning:
This pamphlet was written about 8 years ago. While the
facts, figures, and methods described here are still valid, an
important note must be added concerning the purchasing of
equipment and supplies. The information age is upon us and and
increasing amount of data is being kept about all of us whether
we realize it or not. With the war on drugs in full effect, the
D.E.A. is using this information at every possible opportunity.
When you make a purchase with a credit card, every last bit
of information regarding that purchase is filed away into a
database, both at the store and with your credit card company.
Not only the price, but the exact date, location, and items
purchased are recorded and stored away. Many stores and credit
card companies routinely sell their databases of customers and
transactions to anybody who can afford it. The D.E.A can
certainly afford it. After all, they're using your tax dollars.
The D.E.A. as well as other government agencies DO purchase
these databases for their own uses. They feed them into their
computers and the computers spit out a list of anybody with
"suspicious" purchases. Any purchases that could be associated
with drug production, use, or selling could be flagged for
further investigation. These "suspicious" purchases include
unusual chemicals, medical supplies such as syringes, lights and
timers, and even potting soil and fertilizer.
The point is, if you are planning on purchasing supplies to
grow marijuana don't take any chances. While the average home
grower, who is simply growing enough for his own use, would
probably never be flagged by the computers, you never know. If
you are purchasing equipment or supplies, PAY CASH! In addition,
many supermarkets and discount stores now have some sort of
"Preferred Customer" cards. When you buy something, regardless
of how you pay, you give them your card to scan and all of your
purchases are recorded. They then send you some sort of coupon
depending on what and how much you purchased each month. It
sounds like a good deal, but you wind up having all of your
purchases recorded and sold just like with the credit cards.
DON'T use one of these cards when you are purchasing anything
that might be deemed suspicious. For that matter, don't use them
at all. They just result in a ton of junk mail and a lot of
people knowing exactly what you buy and when you buy it.
