The 'Are You Ready to Start Growing Weed At Home' Checklist
- 1. Take an honest look at your economic stability
- 1. a. The costs involved in growing cannabis indoors
- 1. b. The costs involved in growing cannabis outdoors
- 2. Consider the physical space for your plants, the light, and temperature
- 2. a. Considerations concerning light
- 2. b. Concerning the weather and the temperature
- 3. Family and neighbors concerns
- 4. Time and effort: are you ready to commit?
- 5. In conclusion
There always comes a time in the stoner's life when one major idea comes into question: "should I grow my own marijuana plants at home?" And it's as soon as you get bit by this mosquito that all you can think about seems to be this precise question.
The benefits of growing marijuana at home are unquestionable, however, making such a decision can be quite scary at times, even more if it's the first time ever you're set to grow your own weed. The idea of facing a whole new world concerning cannabis cultivation terms, such as tools, techniques and nutrients recipes can all be too overwhelming.
Nevertheless, you shouldn't let such fears keep you from doing something you'd like to accomplish. Everything that's new in our lives can feel dazzling at some point but what's important is to make front to it and keep going forward. Just make sure you're ready to face any challenge that might come your way.
When it comes to growing weed, some checkpoints are essential to prove you're ready to start this journey. These involve topics such as:
- Economic stability;
- Spacial availability;
- Family and neighbors concerns;
- Time and effort, and more.
Make sure to read this full checklist to find out if you're ready and in conditions to start growing your own cannabis plants at home.
1. Take An Honest Look At Your Economic Stability
We hate to throw this one at you but one of the biggest pillars that can make or break your decision to grow cannabis at home is concerning your economic stability.
While in the long run growing cannabis at home will end up reducing many expenses, such as those that involve buying weed from someone else, a dispensary or coffeeshop, or the ones tied to the membership to take part of a cannabis club, when thinking about growing weed for the first time there are some major initial costs you'll need to consider.
In the first place, you'll need to buy some indispensable products, apart from the seeds, which, at this point, we believe you are already aware of by now. It all depends on whether you choose to grow cannabis indoors or outdoors.
The Costs Involved in Growing Cannabis Indoors
As you may or may not have heard already, when you compare which growing method costs more than the other, indoors cannabis cultivation tends to be slightly more expensive than doing it outdoors.
This is because, firstly, when you choose to grow weed indoors you'll have to spend much more money on equipment to arrange your grow room setup. This includes things such as lamps and light bulbs, extractors or filters, hangers, fans, measuring tools, and perhaps even a tent.
At the same time, you'll need to purchase pots, good soil to nurture your plants, and nutrients to cover any deficiencies that may occur along the growing process. And last but definitely not least, you'll need to take into consideration the raise that you'll surely notice on your electricity bill.
When you grow weed indoors, you have electric equipment running the whole day, 24/7 for at least 3 months, so make sure you can cover those costs before you make the decision to plant your seeds.
The Costs Involved in Growing Cannabis Outdoors
While growing marijuana outdoors may not involve the same costs as growing weed indoor does, it will still require you to spend some money on supplies as well. To cover the basics of growing cannabis outdoors you'll first need to buy the seeds, of course.
Then, depending on your ground soil, you may or may not need to buy soil specially for your future baby plants, although we do recommend you do so since ground soil tends to be slightly contaminated and could lead to future problems, such as pests, which brings us to the next expense.
The main difference between growing weed indoors and outdoors relies on the control you have over the whole process. Indoor cultivation provides more overall control than outdoors, which means you can dodge some issues concerning pests, that are rather unavoidable with outdoor plants.
So, if you are thinking about growing cannabis outdoors, keep in mind that you may and most likely will need to spend some money on pesticides or remedies to get rid of some common cannabis pests.
2. Consider The Physical Space For Your Plants, the Light, and Temperature
Another important aspect to take into consideration before you decide to grow cannabis at home is how much space you count with for your plants to grow.
If you have a green field in which you can plant your seeds, then as long as you have a couple of square meters, you shouldn't really worry much, your plants will be able to grow up as much as they need. But the situation is entirely different when you're planning to grow marijuana indoors or in a balcony.
We recommend choosing your seeds carefully since certain strains tend to grow bigger than others, so, if you count with a small space for your plants then definitely go for smaller plants to optimize the space to the fullest. At the same time, when you choose the space, you'll need to keep in mind the light.
Considerations Concerning Light
Not only you'll need a space big enough for your plants to grow freely up and sideways, but you'll need to ensure that, if you're not growing in a tent or an indoor grow room, that the source of light they receive is enough to support the whole growing process. This is essential when you're planning to grow your weed plants outdoors.
During the first stage of their growth, the vegetative stage, marijuana plants require between 18 and 24 hours of light (which is only possible in indoor grow rooms or during the summer in places such as Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Alaska, Finland, the southest point in Argentina or the northest in Canada).
| Vegetative Stage | Flowering Stage |
|---|---|
| Light Schedule: between 18 and 24 hours of light. | Light schedule: 12 hours of light. |
Later, during the flowering stage, your cannabis plants will need fewer hours of light, given they will start to produce the flowers that you look forward to smoking so much when they get more night time. Therefore, also keep in mind that if they get any direct lights, either from an artificial source, or the moon, when they're in this second stage, their buds production might be affected.
Regarding indoor grow rooms, when it comes to light you'll need to make sure you have enough space for the plant to grow up, to install the lights set up, and making sure that when the plants get bigger they can't reach the lightbulb and touch it, since this will cause your buds to burn.
Concerning the Weather and The Temperature
When you're ready and set to grow your weed plants outside, one last aspect that you'll need to ensure regarding the ideal growing conditions for cannabis plants is the weather.
The best time of the year to grow marijuana outdoors is undoubtedly summertime, given days are long and warm, exactly what these guys need. So, if you're going to plant cannabis seeds, we suggest you start germinating them by the beginning of spring. This will be perfect so that you can move them once they get bigger into the strong sunlight of summer just in time.
Also, don't forget to consider how much it tends to rain during this time of the year in your place of residence. Some rain can actually be good for your plants, but too much can cause mold to build up in your plantations and ruin most of your product.
3. Family and Neighbors Concerns
As much as we'd like to get rid of other people's prejudices concerning marijuana, sometimes this isn't the case, and we must respect the people around us. There is a famous saying regarding this:
A person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins.
This means, before you start planting your own marijuana plants at home, you'll need to ask the people you share a living with, whether it's your family, friends, or flatmates if they're okay with it. We know this can be something scary to do, especially when these people are against marijuana, but if you already have the no as an answer there is no real loss in trying.
Try approaching them in a way where you portray how much you can benefit from growing cannabis at home instead of buying it, enumerating the several pros involved in doing so, and explaining that you're going to take full responsibility for the whole thing. Good luck, and if it fails, you can keep trying!
Lastly, be careful about neighbors. Are your neighbors intrusive and do you consider they could have a problem with you planting cannabis or not? This is specifically important if growing marijuana isn't yet legal in your country of residence. We wouldn't want to have any trouble with the police, so let's try to dodge this bullet.
4. Time And Effort: Are You Ready to Commit?
The last, and in our opinion, most important aspect to consider before you jump into the pool of cannabis cultivation is your willingness to commit to the time and effort that planting weed requires.
Cannabis plants don't just pop up out of the blue, grow all by themselves and get harvested so that you can consume and enjoy them. In fact, these guys require a lot of care, you'll need to perform checks on a daily basis, water them, make sure that they're receiving the right amounts of nutrients, and so on.
So, take an honest look at yourself and think about whether you consider yourself capable of committing to the appropriate care that these plants require or not. Growing weed is a 3-month commitment, at least, so make sure you're not planning to go on holidays for that future time being, or that you have someone who can help by taking care of them while you're away.
5. In Conclusion
If you're considering growing marijuana, perhaps this article seemed slightly frightening to you at first, but hey, you have to face reality, and nothing will get as real as this that we're telling you.
All of the aspects mentioned above are essential parts of any type of cultivation, whether it's fruits, vegetables or marijuana. So make sure you meet the necessary and essential requirements before you engage in this process, or you might end up messing up and even wasting time and money.
Anyway, if you don't meet with these, this doesn't mean you can't pull some strings to achieve it. We can do everything we set our minds to, so if you truly want to grow weed, you'll find a way to make that happen.
