Cannabis can be grown both indoors and outdoors. Indoor growth, however, gives you total control over the growth of your cannabis. By growing your cannabis indoors, you can plant your seeds at any time of the year and grow them all year round.
Benefits of Indoor Growth
High-quality weed
Since growing marijuana plants indoors means you can control all of the aspects of its growth, you can grow the best quality cannabis. While indoor growth requires more resources and attention than outdoor growth, the results are well worth the extra effort invested.
Adaptability
Growing your cannabis indoors means you are not restricted to seasons or even the climate. An indoor marijuana garden allows you to grow any strain of marijuana you choose regardless of the growth requirements.
Multiple harvests
Indoor growing means that you can control the stages of cannabis growth. By changing the amount of light received by the plant, you can control when your plants flower as well as when to harvest. You can even have multiple harvests within a single year.
Privacy and security
Despite the legality of cannabis in several US states, you may still want to keep your cannabis plants behind locked doors to keep them from the eyes of judgemental neighbors or away from the sticky fingers of thieves.
What You Need To Grow Cannabis Indoors
A grow room
You do not need a huge space to grow cannabis plants. You can make use of anywhere from a tent to a spare room or a basement. An ideal space for a grow room is one with windows through which you can vent the room. This is needed because cannabis plants smell, especially during the flowering stage.
The Seed-to-Seed Guide to Growing CannabisA window will help you direct the smell out of the grow room. When you choose a grow room, you also have to take into account all of the equipment and fixtures that will need to be installed. You have to make sure your grow room is sealed though, as light seepage will ruin your efforts to control the amount of light the cannabis plants receive.
Lights
A good light setup is very important when you grow cannabis indoors as the amount of light the plants receive has a big impact on the quality of your harvest. Cannabis plants in their vegetative stage require about 18 hours of light while the plants receive about 12 hours of light in their flowering stage.
This change in the amount of light received by the cannabis plant is what triggers the flowering stage in the plants. Although there are auto-flowering cannabis plants that flower based on their age, most regular seeds need this change in lighting to flower. There are four major types of lights you can choose from when you grow cannabis indoors.
- LED lights: These lights are the choice option for marijuana growers with a large pocket. They are extremely efficient and produce bright light without getting hot. They can however be much more expensive, up to 5 times more, than other types of light.
- Induction light: These lights are a very rare choice for marijuana growers. They produce bright lights with little heat and are also cost and energy-efficient.
- HID lights: These are the most common lights used for growing marijuana. They are very efficient in terms of both cost and energy. They however produce a lot of heat and require additional fixtures to expel the heat they generate. TAnd they also require additional accessories for them to work correctly which can end up ramping up the total installation cost.
- Fluorescent lights: These are the best option for amateur marijuana growers who have only a few plants as they are inexpensive and do not require a lot of additional accessories. They however produce a weak light compared to the other options and are not suitable for large-scale cannabis growth.
Air circulation
You will need a constant circulation of air for your cannabis plants. This can be achieved quite easily with the use of fans. Strategically placed fans will help you achieve the desired ventilation. Intake fans should be placed low while exhaust fans should be mounted high. This is the best configuration since warmer air rises.
Dehumidifiers and Air conditioners
Depending on the strain of marijuana you are trying to grow, you may need to regulate the amount of humidity you have in the environment. An AC will help you regulate the temperature of your setup especially since dehumidifiers tend to increase the temperature of the environment.
Control and monitoring system
You’ll need to have a system that controls all of the lights, fans, and other equipment you have in your indoor weed garden. A control system will consist of timers for your lights, thermostats to keep the temperature constant, and possibly a pH meter to check on the soil and water quality.
Containers
Once you have your space set up, you’ll have to decide what containers you want to grow your plants in. The size of your marijuana plant will often determine the size of pots to grow in. The amount of space you have available can also influence the size of grow pots you will choose.
You will also have to get good soil to plant your cannabis in. Super soil is ideal for cannabis growth as it may not require the addition of nutrients throughout the growth period of your plants. Regular soil will however need to have nutrients added to them over time. When applying nutrients to your soil, you have to carry out adequate research to find out what nutrients are best for
the strain you grow as well as how much nutrients should be applied to the soil.
Seeds
All that’s left is to choose what strain of marijuana you would like to plant. Herbies shop has a collection of indoor marijuana seeds that are particularly suitable for growing indoors. These indoor marijuana seeds do not grow too tall as indoor spaces often have a height limit.
Conclusion
While se indoors can be quite challenging, it is also a very interesting experience. You will also get to learn a lot about cannabis plants and will continue to learn more with every harvest. Growing cannabis is an experience that is completely worth the effort.
