Cannabis is quite a hardy plant, particularly in warmer environments. One of its most common nicknames is weed, after all, and this nickname comes from its ability to grow unattended on the side of roads. The tricky part of cannabis growing is the creation of dense, sticky, and potent flowers that most consumers are focused on. And to be clear, growing these is not actually all that difficult either once you know what you’re doing. Many people who take up cannabis gardening haven’t grown a single plant before they begin their weed journey, and they manage to cultivate flowers just fine with a little bit of trial and error. The most important inputs for cannabis plants are light, heat and humidity, airflow, water, and nutrients. How much variation in each of these a plant can handle often comes down to genetics. Plants with indica and ruderalis genes are more likely to resist mold, pests, and neglect. Cannabis grown in a strictly artificial environment with very little care for the health and happiness of the plants was the normal state of growing for quite a while, especially in the black market during the prohibition era when the need for secrecy and production streamlining trumped the desire for quality crops of environmental sustainability. Now that the market is diversifying, growers are better able to take advantage of organic gardening techniques without risking their crops. What follows are some helpful tips for people who want their plants to thrive, not just survive.
Organically Grown Cannabis
It’s common knowledge by now that cannabis grown in organic and living soil, without the use of pesticides or artificially fortified nutrients, makes for better tasting crops. Organic gardeners can charge a premium, sometimes up to double what other growers can charge, for buds that are both potent and delicious. Folk wisdom has people believe that organic cannabis will be less likely to give users an edgy effect, though this hasn’t been verified by scientific studies yet. When growing large amounts of cannabis, growing organically is definitely more expensive than using hydroponics and nutrient salts. Using a living, organic soil is just the beginning of this kind of growing. Using inputs like bat guano, worm castings, oyster shell flour, crustacean meal, neem meal, gypsum, kelp meal, and rock dust will help give plants all the macro and micronutrients they need without having to resort to bottles of heavily processed liquid fertilizers. This is in addition to organic soil additives like peat moss, coco coir, activated charcoal, perlite, and vermiculite that can greatly assist soil in staying aerated and well-drained. Some of these soil amendments are more ecologically friendly than others, so check out the environmentally friendly growing recommendations below for more information on how to make your crops not only organic, but biodynamic and ecologically sustainable. All of this stuff can get very expensive, and whether or not it’s the right move for you will depend on a number of extenuating factors. Organic tastes better, but it literally comes at a cost.
Biodynamically Growing Marijuana
Biodynamic growth starts in the ground. Many horticulturalists who grow organically spend a lot of time making sure their soil is in tip top shape in order to encourage a host of beneficial microorganisms, like nitrogen fixing bacteria and root boosting mycelium, to grow there. Mulching the topsoil with scraps of plants like straw, comfrey, other cannabis plants, yarrow, clover, dandelion, hay, borage, and beans can be an excellent source of biodynamic nutrients down the line, and will also prevent soil loss and depletion by protecting it from the elements. Never use plants that are sick, moldy, or have been treated with pesticides, as this will affect microorganisms within the soil negatively. Organic cover crop seeds can also be utilized for this purpose, though it’s important to make sure your cannabis plants are taller than the growth before transplanting them to avoid competition between plants. Another component of growing biodynamically is keeping plants in conversation with other organisms around them. These include both other plants and insects that live around plants. Companion planting is especially helpful when growing in soil either indoors or outdoors. Marigolds are often used around the perimeter of a cannabis field to help tamp down on harmful insects, while vegetable plants like carrots, beets, and potatoes can be used to help keep soil well drained while also camouflaging plants. Aromatic herbs are also very popular for helping to mask that distinctive cannabis smell. Beneficial insects and microorganisms will go a long way in preventing infection by nefarious pests.
Enviro-friendly Cannabis Growing
At their most effective, environmentally friendly growing methods can help to make the world a better place. The most obvious example of this is the biodynamic and organic growing methods we’ve outlined above, which can help to rebuild soil that may have been depleted or contaminated earlier. Amending soil with organic inputs and using it continually, as one does with recycled organic living soils, can increase the health of cannabis plants as well as the health of soil and the other plants and animals within it. However, just because a method is organic doesn’t mean it’s necessarily more environmentally friendly. Peat moss is a very popular organic additive, as it adds acidity to cannabis soil. However, peat moss takes centuries to grow and use of it in gardening is threatening wild populations. Amendments like perlite and vermiculite are mined from the earth and heavily processed in order to become biodegradable and safe to use. Crustacean meal takes calcium out of the ocean, where it could be helping sea creatures to create new shells. Even charcoal is created by burning organic matter. Of course, it’s never going to be possible to grow plants without any kind of input from anywhere. Growing environmentally friendly cannabis is more about minimizing impacts than destroying them all together. Simple tricks like watering just after dark to avoid too much evaporation, using LEDs instead of traditional growing lights whenever possible, or using living soil and keeping it healthy, can do a lot towards making cannabis cultivation a more environmentally friendly pursuit.
Should You Grow Marijuana Indoors Or Outdoors?
Whether it’s better to grow in or out of doors will depend on many things, including what climate the growers live in, what access to resources they have, what methods they intend to use, what strain of crop is being grown, and the long-term goals of the cultivators. A grower hoping to cultivate an organic sea of fifteen foot tall Afghan Jamaican plants is going to want to grow outdoors or in a greenhouse. Cultivators who enjoy hydroponic indica growing should stay indoors. Sure, it could theoretically be done outdoors, but it would be a lot more trouble to light proof and switch the plants outdoors or in a greenhouse. People growing in more northerly climes, like in Alaska for example, will likely not elect to grow outdoors unless they are growing very resilient autoflowering plants in high summer, given the weather-related setbacks. Those who are blessed with a good climate but not a lot of resources, however, will want to grow outdoors regardless, given that indoor growing takes quite a bit of time and investment to get going. We suggest folks who are looking to grow just a plant or two investigate growing tents. These spaces can be smaller than nine feet squared, and growers can get everything they need to cultivate a plant or two year-round for only around four or five hundred dollars US. Aspiring cultivators in California or Hawaii, however, can easily succeed with just a three-gallon fabric pot on the balcony.
The Benefits Of Growing Cannabis Indoors
Growing indoors is an ideal option for folks in colder climates, those living in urban areas, and people who like to have a lot of control over their environmental conditions. Places further north in America don’t always have the most ideal climates for growing organic cannabis using natural heat, humidity, and sunshine. Indoor growing can replicate these conditions for those willing to put the work in to create a secure growing space, with the added benefit of being able to maintain these conditions year-round. Those in urban areas will find growing their crops indoors infinitely more secure than growing outdoors, where just about anyone walking by will be able to see or smell the crops. Indoor growing spaces can be equipped to supply urban areas with high quality bud on a consistent rotating basis. Thanks to the legal market, entrepreneurs can equip loft spaces or small warehouses with growing equipment to create boutique crops that serve a local market. Across the board, growers often switch from outdoor to indoor growing to have better control over the outcome of their crops. LED lights and artificial heat and humidity controls have revolutionized growing in the last fifty years and made inconsistent and unpredictable harvest outcomes a thing of the past. There’s no need to worry about light proofing outdoor flowering plants, no worries about whether the temperature will get too cool at night, and no concern over sudden rainstorms when growing indoors. When taken into consideration with the added security it provides, there’s no contest.
The Benefits Of Growing Cannabis Outdoors
Growing outdoors is ideal for those who live in climates that can support plants, especially those in lower regions of America where the weather stays nice for months at a time. Using natural light and good weather to grow crops is a real no-brainer when considered against the complicated process of setting up an indoor growing room. There’s really no point in spending a lot of money and time putting together an indoor growing room when you can let Mother Nature do most of the work. Not only is it easier, but it’s also cheaper to let the sun and some good summer weather raise plants for you. Indoor growing can create more control, but outdoor growing can help plants reach their full potential. Especially when compared to hydroponic crops grown with inorganic nutrients and pesticides, cannabis grown outdoors using organic living soil and natural light has a reputation for being more delicious by leaps and bounds. When planted with other crops, cannabis can be a great companion that helps vegetable gardens access nutrients better. Especially when grown from seed, the long taproots of cannabis plants can access nutrients from places that other plants with shorter roots are unable to reach. Growing in soil along with other plants can also reduce the risk of massive insect infestations and mold, since the community is diverse enough to help fight off predators. This is especially true at the soil level, which is an incredible advantage over indoor monocropping where one bad bug can wreck a whole harvest.
Using Nutrients and Supplements When Growing Weed
All nutrients are not created equal. Most growers swear off things like Miracle Gro and other pre-fertilized soils. Many of their potting mixes also have a wide variety of pesticide treatments added to them as well which can give plants an extra bump of that gross, chemical flavor. Instead, it’s suggested that growers using soil add a variety of different soil supplements and organic fertilizers to their potting mix. Worm castings are an excellent source of nitrogen early on. Bat guano is also high in nitrogen, with added phosphorus that makes it suitable for plants who are part way through their growing cycle. These two fertilizers need to be eaten by bacteria or worms in the soil to make their nitrogen more accessible to plants, causing the release time to be much slower than inorganic fertilizers. This can help prevent nutrient burn and make it so that plants don't have to be fed as often. Some people swear by the veganic method, a portmanteau of vegan and organic that uses a combination of grass cuttings, compost tea and aged solid compost to feed plants, similar to the biodynamic techniques described above. Kelp meal can be used in this method. It contains dozens of important and accessory nutrients that plants need to stay healthy. Neem meal will help keep soil free to pests while strengthening the root system of plants, while adding gypsum and rock dust to soil can help to add micronutrients like calcium and sulfur while also helping plants to uptake more potassium.
Weed Pest Prevention
Pest management looks very different depending on the pest, but is always a vital part of cultivation. Some pests, like nematodes, are invisible and need to be treated from the soil up. Others, like aphids, can be prevented using non-invasive methods. It’s vital for the flavor and health of your crop to never spray pesticides or any other chemicals onto cannabis plants while they’re flowering, especially in the later stages when there is much less time to flush the plants. This is less important in the vegetative phases, though heavy-duty pesticides can still seriously affect the taste and smell of crops weeks after they’ve been used. Remember that even food safe pesticides can turn into much more harmful chemicals when exposed to fire. The less you’re forced to resort to using chemical deterrents sprayed directly onto the plant, the better. In all cases, a gram of prevention is worth several pounds of cure when dealing with cannabis pests, and growing your plants in a biodynamic environment using living soil can fill the space with so many beneficial friends that pests won’t stand a chance. The diversity of tactics used by various individuals in these communities can keep all kinds of pests away, even if they are not deterred by one method. One of the most popular ways to deter pests is to encourage, or even import, populations of green lacewings and American ladybugs to live in and around cannabis plants. These helpful friends will eat aphids and spider mites by the dozens.
Controlling Temperature and Humidity For Cannabis
If it’s too cold or too moist, plants will be unable to complete their metabolic processes, causing them to wither and die. Too hot and not humid enough, and plants will turn brown and crispy and die. The Goldilocks zone, where both humidity and temperatures are just right, is generally between fifty-five and eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of between thirty and sixty percent. This will vary greatly depending on the strain and the plants’ time of life. A seedling that can’t uptake water through its roots will need a high relative humidity in order to exchange water vapor molecules with the air. A plant full of robust and resinous flowers will need a much lower humidity to prevent it from rotting due to excess humidity. But how can these two variables be controlled? When growing indoors, humidifiers and dehumidifiers plus heaters with automatic thermostats will do the majority of the work. When growing outside or in a greenhouse where turning down the heat isn’t possible, growers can use things like shades and increased air flow to keep temperatures lower. Remember, though, that direct and intense light is important for healthy plants. Open buckets of water can be helpful in raising humidity, though outdoor growers may want to be on the lookout for mosquitoes in standing water. Increasing air flow helps wicks away excess moisture quite quickly from plants in danger of molding. Initial placement of the garden can go a long way in maintaining a perfect temperature and humidity, so choose wisely.
