How To Start Growing Weed

Table of Contents

1. Can I grow my own weed?
2. Is it hard to grow marijuana?
3. What do I need to grow my own cannabis?
4. Germinating my marijuana seeds
5. The growth stages of cannabis
6. What to look for in a pot seed provider
7. Buy the best weed seeds

Can I grow my own weed?

If you’re pondering how to start growing weed, changes are the first question you’ve asked yourself is whether it’s even possible. We’re here to tell you that, yes, anyone can grow their own weed, whether they live in a little studio apartment or own an acreage. But that’s probably not what you meant.

Lots of people grow cannabis plants where they’re technically not allowed – we won’t pretend they don’t. But at Growers Choice, we do encourage our customers to only germinate and plant their premium cannabis seeds if they’re actually entitled to do so, according to the laws of their region. (I know, big brother, right man?)

The good news is, cannabis is pushing more and more into the mainstream these days, and there might be more states with legal growing laws than you imagined. Sure, some limit growing your own weed to people with medical cards, but there are eight states that allow recreational marijuana gardening, and we can only assume more will join their ranks soon.

Here are the places you’re allowed to grow marijuana:

Of course, there are specifics to this list, and you can see them on our blog; we recently shared a post all about states with legal growing.

Is it hard to grow marijuana?

Growing your own marijuana doesn’t have to be complicated, despite the elaborate and intense set-ups you might have seen on growing blogs and Instagram. True, if you’re not growing outdoors (because you really don’t need any official equipment in that case), you do need a few specific pieces of equipment – it’s unlikely you’ll get a good medicinal harvest, for instance, without at least a grow light.

But, despite a few up-front purchases, it isn’t actually that tricky. You have to be alert and keep an eye on your plants, certainly, but we aren’t talking about hours a day here, at least not if you’re only growing a few little friends.

At Growers Choice, we classify our cannabis seeds as “easy” or “moderate”. This indicates the average growing difficulty. Of course, we always recommend that new gardeners choose an easy-to-grow strain. That’s simple enough – all our autoflowering strains are, by virtue of ruderalis, quite easy to cultivate. We have regular feminized strains as well, that are fairly easy to grow, including:

1. Mazar
2. Cinderella 99
3. Great White Shark

The big thing we’ll always suggest any first-time cannabis gardener do before even germinating their seeds is research. This might actually be the most time-consuming part of the whole process! We offer lots of helpful information in our grow advice section and in the specific product descriptions for each strain, but the simple fact of the matter is: you really need to talk to people who’ve grown before, or read about their experiences. Start haunting the forums, asking “obvious” questions, and picking the brains of those with more know-how than you. Lucky for you, the cannabis gardening community is generally a pretty welcoming and helpful one.

What do I need to grow my own cannabis?

You need cannabis seeds!

No, but seriously, you might as well decide on the strain or strains you want to grow right off the bat. That way, you can begin the aforementioned marijuana growing research with specific questions in mind. Not surprisingly, not all cannabis strains need the same attention and environment.

Maybe you meant what else do you need? Well, first of all – a dedicated growing space. Like we’ve said before in many an article, your grow “room” can be anything from a closet to a literal room, but it’s really ideal that your plant(s) be partitioned off from the rest of your home. This is mostly because you’ll want to regular temperature and humidity at least a little bit, and it’s much easier to do this with a small space rather than an entire house (plus, you probably don’t want to live in the ideal conditions of the cannabis plant).

All this is laid out in our Build The Best Grow Room article, but we’ll rehash a bit of it here.

• You probably want a space without carpet, since you might spill water, soil, or other stuff on the ground.
• You need access to electricity, so you can set up a light, maybe a fan, and perhaps a pump/air conditioner/humidifier – these are situation-dependent.
• If you’re growing more than one or two little plants in a tiny cupboard, you probably need ventilation, both to make sure your plants aren’t getting too much O2 or CO2 (we all know leaves absorb CO2, but did you know the roots actually “breathe” oxygen?), and to cut down on smell (if you can vent outside).
• You need light. LED and HID lights are ideal, but fluorescents can work, too. It can be good to have stands or some sort of adjustable rigging for these lights, since they need to be kept at a regular distance from the tops of the plants at all times and your plants are going to grow (hopefully!).
• You might need nutrients. This is up to the gardener, of course, but barring really good soil, you probably want to get an NPK mixture (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus). Your plant will need different ratios of this food at different points in its life.

This is far from everything you need to know, but guys – we can’t stress enough the importance of doing research! Check out these other articles for more details (but look beyond us, as well):

• The Vegetative Stage
• Harvesting Cannabis

Germinating my marijuana seeds

Once you’ve got your space all set up and your seeds have arrived, it’s time to germinate your cannabis seeds. And honestly – if the actual cultivation of cannabis plants is looking a bit daunting to you, rest assured: germination is incredibly easy.

At least, it’s easy if you follow our simple germination guide. Beyond just wanting to control everything you do, there is a good reason to follow the easy steps we’ve laid out: by doing so, you keep your seeds covered by our 90% germination guarantee. That’s right – if less than 9/10 of your seeds from Growers Choice germinate (sometimes there’s a dud; that’s nature for you), we will replace them!

Our guide is so straightforward and easy-peasy, we’re not even going to both hashing it out for you, here. Go forth and germinate!

The growth stages of cannabis

If you’re planning to start growing weed, one good thing to get your head around are the stages of growth you’re going to see during the tending of your cannabis plants. Here’s a basic breakdown, borrowed from the pages linked above:

The Cannabis Vegetative Stage

Depending who you ask, this stage begins as soon as your sprouted seed breaks through the top of the soil, or following a seedling stage, once the plant has begun developing leaves with 5-7 leaflets (though sometimes mature leaves can have as many as 11!).

The vegetative stage is vital to cultivation because this is when the plant develops the strength and structural integrity to support the flowers that will start to grow during the – you guessed it – flowering stage. A weak plant will either tip over or snap under the weight of its buds or, more likely, just fail to develop any impressive flowers.

During the vegetative stage, your plants will need 18-24 hours of light every day, and a nice helping of the NPK nutrient mixture we mentioned above. Once you deem your plant ready to start producing flower (again – research, research, research), you can begin encouraging it into the flowering stage.

The Cannabis Flowering Stage

As far as the gardener is concerned, the flowering stage begins when the lighting is changed to 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of dark. The exception, of course, if autoflowering plants, which don’t need any change in light at all – they begin the flowering stage all on their own about 2 weeks in.

During the flowering stage, your plants are unlikely to need nitrogen any longer, so you can cut way back on nutrients, stop completely, or switch to a “PK” fertilizer.

It’s at the end of this stage that you’ll want to flush your plants and get ready for the harvest!

What to look for in a pot seed provider

Once you’re ready to buy your pot seeds, you’ll want to make sure you choose them from a reputable supplier – otherwise, all your hard work preparing and researching will be for naught. Rather than pretending we’re unbiased when it comes to high-quality cannabis seed companies, let us tell you why it’s a great idea to get your seeds from us!

1. We aren’t a seedbank. That means our seeds come from just a few trusted breeders, not random Sams, Dicks and Harrys with goodness knows what kind of botanical backgrounds.
2. Our seeds are lab-tested, which means we’re as sure as we can be that they’re going to be viable and give you beautiful, thriving cannabis plants and medicinal buds.
3. Our seeds are feminized. You can learn all about feminized seeds here, but suffice to say you won’t be growing any male plants, so you don’t have to worry about weeding them out and leaving gaps, or accidentally pollinating your female plants (which makes for crappy bud).
4. We have that fancy 90% germination guarantee we already bragged about.
5. We really, honestly want you to succeed in your growing adventure – why wouldn’t we? Our website is packed with articles much more helpful than this overview, as well as details about medical research on marijuana and various conditions. Our customer service team is savvy, speedy, and really friendly, always happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have – wherever you’re at in your cannabis cultivation adventure.

So, really, the question becomes: why wouldn’t you want to buy your feminized cannabis seeds from Growers Choice?

Buy the best weed seeds

Growers Choice offers dozens of premium cannabis seed strains for you to choose from, and each one comes with a detailed product description outlining the basic growing properties and medical benefits of the strain. Once you place your order with our easy-to-use and totally secure system, your seeds are hand-packaged in medical-grade glass vials and delivered to your door discreetly. We ship from California (for our US customers), so our more western customers especially can rest easy knowing their cannabis seeds are just a couple days away.

There you have it – everything you need to know about how to start growing weed! Now get out there, and get growing!

Most Popular Cannabis Seeds