Cultivating The Herb
Cultivation can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be. I'll try to keep it simple so that anyone can start growing their own.
I. Seed selection.
If you're lucky enough to have access to professional seeds definitely use them but if not your best bet is to keep seeds from the best bags you smoke. A good seed will be brown or slightly green in color with black striations (lines) on it. Seeds that are very dark in color or have cracks are inviable.
II. Pick an area.
Even apartment dwellers can grow excellent crops in very small spaces. My first garden was a shelf that was barely one foot by two, I had room enough for about three or four plants. In spite of the fact that I couldn't let them get very large I was successful, in fact one of the plants I grew is still to date the best smoke I've ever had. Consequently I still use seeds from her for my gardening.
If possible your space should be as large as you can spare. A good starting garden would fill an area approximately five feet by three feet. In a space this size you will have room for up to twelve plants depending on the size of container you use. My preference is a three gallon nursery pot available at many home centers or mega-garden centers.
III. Lighting.
Lighting is the most important part of an indoor garden. If you can afford it get as large a light as your space will allow, one 1000w HPS light will more than take care of a 5x3 space. If you can't get an HID (High Intensity Discharge) light then go with flourescents. If you DO use flouro's then get at least three four foot fixtures and use a combination of (all 40w) warm, cool and full spectrum bulbs. These bulbs cost somewhere around 2 to 5 bucks. A good combination would be two of each.
If your space doesn't allow this many fixtures get as many as you can, with Cannabis the more light you have the better. Another flouro option is to use the circular bulbs that screw into standard fixtures, these give off a good amount of light and allow you to get quite a few in a smaller area.
IV. Soil.
You can opt for a professional potting mix but I have always had good results with plain old Hyponex that you can get from K-Mart. If you'd like you can use the pro mixes, one of the best is Black Gold. It has worm castings and other amendments mixed in, it is a bit pricey but go with what you feel comfortable. I've tried many different types and still go with the cheap stuff.
V. Fertilizer.
Here again it is a matter of preference but Schultz is excellent for soil growing. They have a full line of products for vegging, flowering and cloning. Also Peters 20-20-20 is good to give on an alternating basis as it has more micronutrients than Shultz'. Don't give too much fert, as a matter of fact your first six weeks you should use LITTLE or no fert at all.
VI. Doing the growing.
Start by planting your seeds. Do this by placing them on the surface of the soil and lightly covering them up. If you want you can germinate the seeds first, an easy way to do this is to put them in a container of water with a small drop of bleach (this keeps the water from stagnating) and wait until you see a small white root start to poke out. Do not handle the seeds at this point, use tweezers to put them on top of the soil then cover them lightly just like if you were planting them without germination.
Depending on the seeds you could start to see seedlings in as little as three days, the average is about a week though. Keep the surface moist but not wet at this stage and be careful that the force of the water doesn't dislodge the new babies. The other concern to keep in mind is overwatering, although Marijuana requires a lot of water overwatering is the common demise of the plants.
At this point the seedling don't look much like Herb, the first set of two leaves is smooth. These are called the cotlydons or embryonic leaves, soon after these unfurl the next set of two leaves comes in. These will have the jagged edges of the mature leaf. The next set will start the multiple bladed leaf, the progression is three, five, seven, up to eleven in some strains.
The third set will happen around three weeks. At this time you will need to start watering more, a soaked pot will should hold enough moisture that you won't need to water it except for the pre-seedling stage where you need to keep the surface moist. The amount of water you give your girls will vary according to strain, growing conditions, etc.. Usually at three weeks Im using a gallon per five plants in three gallon containers. Let the soil dry between waterings. A good rule of thumb, index finger actually, is to stick your finger in the soil and don't water until it's dry past the first joint.(your finger but feel free to HAVE a joint while you do it.)
You should start fertilizing at about a month, start with about a half strength mix every other watering. This can vary greatly depending on the plant, if you notice any deficiencies, (See the lists for links to help you recognize the different types). Some plants will need more or less food or no food, it just depends on how healthy she is.
VII. Flowering.
How long you let your ladies vegitate is up to you but if you can wait a while it will help to improve the potency. If you don't have much overhead space you can start flowering as low as twelve inches, the plant will double or triple in size during flowering so plan accordingly. If you are height limited you can use the ScrOG method, Screen Of Green enhances the side growth instead of the top growth thus producing essentially a top cola on each of the side branches.
Make a screen out of chicken wire or twine and suspend it about a foot or two above the plants depending on how high you can grow. Once she starts trying to grow through the screen train the top sideways. This will cause the side branches to try to become the new top cola (this is due to the fact that in the top cola a chemical is produced that inhibits or influences the growth of the plant). In effect you'll be creating many side colas with the same THC content as the previous single top cola. It takes some work and patience because you must train the new growth daily but it is worth it.
Either way you go you will have to decide when to start flowering the plants. The flowers are what make up the buds for smoking. Whenever you decide to flower depending on your grow room you will have to get a timer to control the amount of light to the plants. This is critical, if a plant receives ANY light during flowering it will stop and revert to vegetative state thereby delaying your harvest. Twelve hours of light and twelve hours of complete dark are what it takes to start making buds. Usually the males appear first, the male flowers look like a tiny bunch of grapes. When you are sure you have a male remove it immediately and destroy it unless you have a secondary area for pollination (that comes later). The first time I'd recommend just killing males and concentrate on the females, once you have a harvest or two under your belt you'll be better able to work on cloning, pollinating and eventually homogenizing your own personal strain of Cannabis.
Another important thing is that when you decide to start flowering you should switch to a fert with a high middle number like 10-50-10. The numbers are respectively, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium and to help in the production of flowers Cannabis will use larger amounts of Phosphorus. Also remember, stop fertilizing all together three or four weeks before you harvest so that all the nutes are flushed out and don't ruin the flavor. Residual nutes taste like shit, you'll only make that mistake once.
Flowering can take up to two months depending on the strain and whether you are growing sensimilla (spanish for 'without seeds'). When the small hairs from the flowers start to turn colors it is an indication that the plant is reaching time for harvest. Depending on your tastes wait until about 75% of the hairs turn red, if you harvest sooner it tends to give more of a cerebral high as opposed to melting into the couch. With time you will develop an understanding of your ladies, you will know the right time to pull the colas.
The first time you do this you can take samples during different periods of flowering and discover the variation in taste, smell and effect. That way you can decide at which point to harvest to attain the exact qualities you prefer.
VIII. The End.
There is much I left out of this guide for the sake of simplicity, I'll add links to different sites that have more detail on various aspects of growing. If you follow this simple text though you will most likely produce a decent crop of Herb, a lot depends on your luck with plants and how serious you are about the care of your babies. I hope this helps, if nothing else act as a springboard into your love of Cannabis. It can reach a spiritual level for some, in my case what I do is all in the service of Shiva and her greatest gift Marijuana. Before I started growing I didn't recognize anything as spiritual, I had no god or need for one to hold my hand so I wasn't afraid of the dark. With time watching the babies grow I came to know a certain centering of self and an attainment of the knowledge that there is a goddess and she really does love us all no matter what (any questions or complaints about the spiritual side of Herb just
e-mail me.)
Help for growing.
Any questions? Ask me and I'll do what I can.
Home of Da Weed King
Good online site for grow supplies.
A-1 newsgroup for in-depth grow advice.
Email: rev_John@netzero.net
