6 minute read
Grow and Enjoy - Growing Your Own
When you are a marijuana user, sometimes going in to get your products from the dispensary can feel rather monotonous. Sometimes dispensaries only have the same sativas, indicas, or hybrids every time you go. It can all be a lot of the same thing. To remedy this problem, many patients and recreational users have begun to dabble in growing their own plants. If you are one of these people or are simply wondering if you should start to grow on your own, there are a few things to know before you just go out and buy a plant or some seeds from your local dispensaries.
First and foremost, you have to check if you are allowed to have a plant in your home and, if you can, how many you should have. In Oklahoma, if you are a medical marijuana patient, you can have up to 12 plants in your home, 6 mature and 6 immature. There are other rules to this as well, for example, you must own the property where you are growing or have written consent from the landlord.
The consent from the landlord can be in many forms a letter, an email, or an addendum to the lease stating that you have permission to grow marijuana on the premises. Additionally, there are municipalities that have zoning laws that you must abide by, some areas have rules where marijuana cultivation is only allowed in industrial areas. (Most places that people live in are going to be residential areas and therefore cannot grow in their homes. Be sure to check this too!) Oklahoma’s amount of plants is not the case for all states with marijuana laws, in Colorado and Connecticut residents are allowed to have up to 6 plants, 3 mature and 3 immature.
In Oregon, residents are allowed to have up to 4 plants. This is crucial to know before you start planning your home grow, while marijuana is legal to have there are always stipulations on the amount one can have in their home or on their person.
Secondly, you must plan your space to grow and also get all your supplies to take care of your plants so they produce good quality and a good quantity of marijuana. Before going to the store, it is imperative for you to be sure of where you want to place your plants, you will need room to grow. Ideally, it is recommended to have a window or vent in the room as growing marijuana obviously has a pungent smell and can be overwhelming. It is also possible to use a tent to keep everything together and kind of muffled. The area will also need to be climate controlled. This also helps with the fact that plants need air circulation to grow, they live for some good CO2!
The trip you’ll need to make to the store will have a long list but it shouldn’t be too hard to find all the supplies. Lights are one of the most important items to get and the popular type to get there are the two main types of HID (high-intensity discharge) lamps to use: metal halide produces light that is blueish and is typically used for vegetative growth and high-pressure sodium produces a more reddish color for use during the flowering stage. These light setups will require a ballast and hood for each light, many newer designs can be used with either type of light. There are other types of lights that can work well like LED and fluorescent grow lights. Another part of the supply list is getting some good quality soil for the plants. Some places actually recommend for first-time growers make their own soil. (Sounds excessive, I know, but it’s not that hard to mix up some dirt.) According to Leafly, you should try to combine the soil and let it sit for a few weeks to get nice and full of nutrients. Some of the ingredients would be worm castings, bat guano, biochar, peat moss, fish meal, compost, glacier rock dust, and more. If this is too much, you can always buy regular soil then fill in the gaps yourself with the nutrients you feel best fits your plants.
You will also need some good pots, ones with quality drainage, oxygen, and enough space for the plant to expand its roots. Each type of pot has its pros and its cons, plastic, fabric, and ceramic, are each good in their own way.
For this, it is good to do your own research and check which type would fit well into your home growth. The last supply you’ll need is further education. For your plants to grow as well as you want them to, make sure you know what to look for when it comes to mold, pH levels, pruning, and potential pests.
After collecting your supplies, the third task is to find a strain of marijuana that you enjoy because you may get quite a bit of flower from just one plant. Whether you want to get an indica, a sativa, or a hybrid, one marijuana plant will likely produce up to 150 or even 300 grams (experienced grows have gotten up to 600 grams from one plant, if that isn’t a reason to practice I’m not sure what is). When you have that much yield it might be a good idea to learn how to make edibles, maybe even buy one of those infused butter makers.
Lastly, and most importantly, relax and enjoy what you are doing. I’ve heard it said before that you can grow marijuana if you can grow tomatoes; tomatoes are not hard to grow, they just need care and some extra love sometimes. So when trying to grow your own marijuana, be sure to remember you are helping something live and thrive so that you can also live and thrive. Helping a plant grow is often cathartic and can help with depression and things like needing to feel useful.
