By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

While many marijuana growers are most concerned about maximizing the yield and getting the most buds out of each marijuana plant, the taste and smell of the end product are also critical factors that can be influenced during your marijuana plants’ lives. In this article, we will discuss how to maximize the smell and improve the taste of your marijuana buds

Taking your time to learn the basics

A surprisingly overlooked way to improve the smell and taste of marijuana is simply to learn how to better grow and care for marijuana plants. If you are someone who just picked up the basics of how to grow marijuana on the fly, then this piece of advice is for you. It is very easy to grow marijuana well enough but maximizing the yield and potency of the buds, as well as the flavor and aroma, takes a few more steps of learning.

It is as important to know how to grow your marijuana plants properly at the beginning of their life as it is at the end of their life. In other words, the harvest is important. You need to know when to harvest your plants to ensure that you are getting the most out of your buds.

After that, the basics of drying your buds comes into play and can make a big difference in terms of how strongly your marijuana smells and tastes. Once you have mastered how to properly do these things, you will already be well on your way to improving the taste and smell of your marijuana buds. That being said, there are also some more detailed steps you can take for ensuring your buds potency in both smell and taste.

In-depth ways of improving the taste and smell of marijuana

There are a number of more complex and detailed ways for making the smell and taste of your marijuana even better. This is, of course, in addition to taking good general care of your marijuana plants, and cannot serve as an adequate substitute for any of the basics.

Let’s look at some of the more specific ways you can improve the taste and smell of your marijuana.

Maximize the terpenes and terpenoids
Terpenes are a somewhat little-known chemical contained within all marijuana buds. Marijuana that has more terpenes is going to have a more potent characteristic smell and taste. In other words, more terpenes are exactly what you need to increase the smell and taste of the buds. Within each terpene, terpenoids are contained. They are also responsible for improving the smell and taste of your marijuana.

In fact, terpenes and terpenoids generally take care of the aroma of your marijuana plants — as well as a myriad of other types of flowers too. Therefore, the best way to get your marijuana to smell better and stronger is to encourage the making of terpenes and terpenoids in its’ buds.

It is important to remember that with every strain has a slightly unique scent. For that reason, you cannot expect all marijuana to smell the same. When you maximize the amount of terpenes in the marijuana buds, however, you will be strengthening the scent of whatever is natural to that particular strain.

How to increase terpenoid content and get more terpenes
To get your plants to produce more terpenes and terpenoids than usual, you will need to stress them out a tiny bit. Please note: this should only be undertaken if you have been growing marijuana for a long time and really know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you could end up with a plot full of dead plants that weren’t even stronger smelling after all your deadly work.

The reason you should have experience before trying out this process is that just the right amount of stress needs to be applied. If you apply too much stress to your vulnerable plants, they could get overly stressed out and either die or end up having a much smaller harvest than they would have had otherwise.

The key is, therefore, to apply a small amount of stress consistently and over a longer period of time rather than all at once. This is best done during your plants’ flowering stage of life, in particular towards the middle or end of it. If you do it just right, within two weeks of the time you are going to harvest the buds, then you will end up maximizing the scent of your buds by increasing the terpene production as well as the trichome level (which affects the potency of buds).

So how do you stress out your plant in a “good” way? You can start by bending or moving the stems without using too much pressure, often referred to as low-stress training (LST). Just be sure that when you do, you are not making physical contact with the buds themselves.

If you would prefer a slightly more active and bold approach, super cropping is an option for you. It is done by breaking certain parts of your marijuana plants’ stems from within. In other words, you are creating breakages without having any exterior damage. Although it is tricky, it is possible and can lead to surprisingly high benefits.

Some growers prefer to actually remove the leaves around the buds on their marijuana plants. This is to give the buds and the surrounding area more exposure — but please proceed with caution here, because not every type of marijuana will end up getting positive results from such a method. Therefore, it is always best to start off quite slow and then build as you start seeing concrete positive results. Some growers prefer to even go one step further and do something called extreme defoliation — but this is not necessary nor recommended for beginners.

Whatever method you choose, be sure to keep the humidity down to a lower level than you would have during the vegetative or seedling stages of your marijuana plants. This will increase the number of terpenes contained in your marijuana buds, and it should also make the potency and number of trichomes go up. If you are having trouble with humidity due to the natural climate of your area, invest in a dehumidifier and keep it at or below 20% humidity for the final 14 days of the flowering stage. Additionally, make sure your marijuana plants receive plenty of darkness for a few days before you harvest — total darkness for two to three days should do it.

For an extremely advanced approach, you can try stressing out the plants right at their roots. Do this by drying them out a bit more than they would “like” during the flowering stage. If this is done incorrectly, however, the buds will be damaged not only in potency but also in aesthetics. So be careful!

Further methods of stress
The list of ways to stress out your marijuana plants is practically endless. But which ones are good for increasing the potency of taste and smell? Let’s look at the options below.

First, restricting nutrients can have a strong (and positive) effect if it is done correctly and at the right time. The best time to carry out this method of stressing your plants is by reducing the amount of nutrients given in the last two weeks or less before you harvest your marijuana buds. What nutrients you do feed to your plants should be mainly designed for the flowering stage of marijuana; otherwise, you might end up overfeeding some nutrients and underfeeding others.

Reducing temperatures can have a similar effect. During the flowering stage, keep the temperature of your grow room at least below 80 degrees. Believe it or not, high temperatures can actually cause thermal damage to the terpenes that might already have been produced in your marijuana buds. Therefore, the hotter the room, the blander the taste of your buds. Since terpenes begin to generate in greater numbers starting in the sixth or seventh week into the flowering stage, this is when the temperature definitely needs to remain lower.

In the same strain of thinking, reducing temperatures elsewhere can have a strong effect. This involves dropping the coolest temperatures (in other words, the nighttime temperatures) to slightly below what you usually would want. That being said, never drop it so the air is freezing cold. But a solid difference of about ten degrees between the nighttime and daytime temperatures should do the trick. The beauty of this trick is that it also helps the marijuana look much better once you have harvested it — more colors like purples and reds are going to appear, assuming that the genetics of your seeds allow it.

For people who are growing their marijuana in soil, you are actually already in luck! According to studies, marijuana grown in soil-based mediums have a greater variety and number of terpenes. This especially applies to marijuana plants that were grown using composted super soil. Hydroponics systems, on the other hand, don’t always have the same number and variety of terpenes as soil-grown marijuana does. That being said, it is probably not enough of a difference to make you throw out your hydroponics system altogether.

General tips for success

There are all sorts of unique methods as well as pieces of advice for what not to do to grow some huge, potent, aromatic marijuana plants. However, how about some of the good things many growers are doing? Here are some of these tips:

Light matters
For outdoor marijuana plants, many growers assert that as much sunlight as possible during the flowering stage of their plants leads to a greater potency in smell and taste in them. The theory is that terpene production is stimulated by sun exposure, but, of course, more research needs to be done.

For indoor growers, supplementing the lights that you already have installed could do the trick. In particular, LED lights should be used as this supplement. This is because LED lights cover a broader spectrum of light colors, and therefore are more likely to cause your plants to produce more terpene. LED lights are the next best thing to the sun itself.

Plenty of growers who use HPS lights for the most part during their marijuana growing season will also add an LED light or two to ensure that their flowering marijuana plants are getting all of the light that is possible and that the end result will be potent and delicious. This is particularly a good idea in the last few weeks before harvesting.

Gentleness is important
It may seem like a minute detail, but being gentle with your plants consistently can work wonders for the final potency, aroma, and taste. The temptation is, of course, to reach out and begin touching all the buds that are surrounding you on your plants in your garden. But you must not do that because it destroys terpenes, and therefore has an adverse effect on your buds’ aroma.

Drying and curing

Plenty of growers will tell you the same: the way you dry and cure your marijuana will determine a lot more about its potency and flavor than the actual growing that you did with these marijuana plants. Once you have obtained the plant matter, you will need to hang it upside down for a minimum of one week — preferably ten days.

Depending on your climate, you may be living in a place where things dry extremely quickly. Marijuana is no exception, and this also does not bode well for you if you live in such a place — you need to dry the marijuana slowly, over a longer period of time. For that reason, if you already know that your plant matter will be at risk for drying too quickly, you should not remove or trim the leaves around and on the buds so that they actually dry more slowly, given the extra layers of moist plant matter. Of course, come mentally prepared with some patience because handling the leaves on the buds after they have already dried is a huge pain.

Before you begin to cure your buds, there are a few key things to remember. First, remember that your dried product should not be perfectly dry. It will need a certain amount of moisture to cure properly. You can rest assured knowing that the jarring (curing) time has come when the plant matter that has been hanging upside down feels dry to the touch on the outside of it.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more growing tips

Whatever you do, don’t try to speed up the drying process. This will lead to disappointment reaching you faster rather than you simply being patient to begin with. If you feel some dampness on the outside of the buds, the time to cure has not yet come. If you did attempt to cure the marijuana at this point, then certainly mold and other contaminants could develop, causing the product to eventually taste and smell awful.

In the final few weeks before you are going to harvest your marijuana plants, be sure to flush out all the nutrients that you had been feeding them before. Do this by feeding them plain water with a neutral pH level for a minimum of several days and as many as several weeks before you decide to harvest your buds. Although it is likely you have already lessened the amount of nutrients you were feeding your plants during this stage of their lives, it is still a good idea to do the neutral water flush.

If you have any doubts about how much nutrients you fed your plants, you should absolutely do the water flush. If there is a possibility of any buildup of any of the nutrients you have been feeding your plants throughout their lives, flush the system out. Or if you are simply a meticulous grower who prefers to do everything right and is willing to work for it, then do this just to be safe.

Mistakes made with marijuana smell and taste

Unfortunately, it is relatively easy to completely ruin the way your marijuana will smell and taste.  Below are some things you should not do, unless you like taking massive risks.

Some people try spraying an air-freshening spray or mist on or around their marijuana plants, but that is not a good idea — especially if it occurs during the flowering stage. In fact, anything with a clean scent at all should be thrown away or at least left far away and never used, as it could cause a number of issues.

First and foremost, the fact that your plant has been exposed to air that is also wafting chemicals can be a problem. If you do let it happen, the smell and taste will inevitably be compromised in those marijuana plants. Of course, if you make the mistake of doing it once, you likely won’t have massive issues — the real problems arise when a product like this is used consistently over a longer period of time.

Other types of odor neutralizers are also dangerous in terms of ruining the taste and smell of your marijuana buds, so it is better to avoid them altogether unless you are deliberately trying to get a bud that can’t even be recognized as marijuana (which is unlikely).

A much more dangerous problem that can arise with marijuana plants during their flowering stage is mold or mildew. Any bud that has mold, mildew, or bud rot is going to need to be discarded immediately because its very presence will endanger the rest of your harvest as well. Mildew and mold can spread very quickly, and sometimes they even are never seen and go right into the product you want to smoke.

If you do ever smoke a marijuana product that has mold or mildew in it, you will notice a significantly more irritating, harsher feeling when you inhale. It can also cause other, longer lasting effects such as the development of a cough or throat discomfort. For this reason, you should also look through every bud you have slowly and thoroughly to ensure they are safe to smoke. Throw away anything that has mold or mildew on it.

Choosing the right strain

Despite all these other tips and tricks, it’s important to remember that the marijuana with the most potent smell and flavor is likely a type of marijuana strain that is already prone to a strong smell and taste to begin with. Selecting the right strain is how you can start maximizing the smell and taste of your marijuana plants before you have even started to grow and take care of them.

Be sure to do your research on which strains are the best in terms of smell and taste, and read the reviews for those particular seeds to ensure that the description and information provided by the seed provider is accurate. Of course, not all aromas are created equal: some are highly unpleasant while others are incredibly easy on the nose. Therefore, read about the type of scent as well.

There are a number of strains of indica dominant strains, hybrids between sativa and indica plants, and sativa dominant strains that will help you meet your goal of getting stronger smelling and tasting marijuana. Although these are the most common types of strains to be found, autoflowering marijuana plants are also an option for certain grow setups or types of people who are looking for that.

Whatever you do, just make sure that you are choosing a strain that will work in your environment, will have the potency, smell and taste you desire, and will be easy enough to grow for your own personal level of experience. Don’t skimp on prices here, because it will have a lasting effect on the final result of your marijuana harvest.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.

The post Maximizing The Taste And Smell Of Your Marijuana appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

If you are thinking about growing marijuana yourself, you are likely unsure or indecisive about how to begin. The first step, of course, is deciding what kind of setup you prefer. Are you going to grow outdoors or indoors? Will you grow just one plant or many? What strain should you buy, and what equipment do you need? We will cover all this and more below.

When people are first looking at growing their own marijuana plant for the first time, they generally end up reading articles and guides about how to set up a big, successful operation. While success is certainly something you should be looking for, the fact is, that growing marijuana for only yourself does not need to be a huge endeavor. Why not start out with just one plant.

In the United States more and more people are becoming interested in growing their own marijuana. Whether this has to do with the changing legality of it or if it is simply a trendy thing to do at the moment is irrelevant. The point is, people are getting sick of needing to buy sub-par marijuana to enjoy it. Therefore, they have decided it is time to grow their own.

Growing your own marijuana can have a lot of positives to it. You will know exactly where your weed comes from this way, and how the plant was treated. There will be no question of whether residual chemical fertilizers are in the product, or if it is really as high quality as the seller claims, and so on. It juts simplifies things in that it removes any room for confusion or mistrust.

Of course, growing your own marijuana can also have its downsides. It is, after all, still illegal in most places, even in those that allow some amount of marijuana consumption. That being said, it is safer for your personal health because you won’t need to deal with someone else you don’t know to provide you with marijuana. Like growing any consumable plant, it is also highly rewarding. When you finally get to consume the end result after months of work, you will enjoy not only the product itself but also the great feeling of accomplishment that comes with it.

Why grow only one marijuana plant?

There are a number of reasons why growing just one plant can be extremely beneficial. First of all, with only one plant you are better able to focus your efforts, making it more likely that the one plant will grow better than the individual plants in a plot of more than one marijuana plant.

Additionally, security is better with just one plant. While authorities are known for busting people who have a large-scale growing operation contained within their home, who has ever heard of someone growing just a single plant having their house raided? The fact is, law enforcement has bigger fish to fry. Even if they did want you and your one plant, one plant is far easier to hide, making it unlikely anyone would notice it anyway.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

Even better, growing only one plant is going to be extremely inexpensive when compared to other grow setups that generally include more plants and therefore more expensive equipment and resources. One plant only needs the bare minimum, so whether it’s seeds, soil, nutrients, lighting, or even water, you just don’t need as much. Growing one plant is the perfect way to try your hand at growing marijuana without investing a huge amount of money and time, making it much more low-risk than if you were trying it with many plants.

Getting started

Now that you have decided you are going to try growing just the one plant at home let’s get into the details of how to actually do it. First of all, don’t get tied down with the stress of how difficult you think it might be. It simply isn’t as hard as it sounds — after all, there’s a reason marijuana has the common nickname “weed.” Like any weed, it is able to grow just about anywhere.

One thing you should know about growing weed is that it is a flowering plant. In case you haven’t gardened before, this means that it will grow buds just once per year naturally in the fall. It “knows” when to start growing buds when the sunlight begins to dwindle below a certain point.

Although you will be growing your marijuana plant indoors, this is still an important fact to know because it will affect how you set up your lighting and schedule the lighting for your plant. Unless your plant has more than 12 hours of light exposure every day, it will begin to flower — and a plant that flowers too early is going to have a much smaller harvest than if it flowers on time. And when you’re growing just one solitary plant, the size of that plant’s harvest becomes critical.

As a good rule of thumb, make sure your plant has grown (in its middle “vegetative” stage) for a bare minimum of one month to a month and a half before you even attempt to have it enter the flowering stage. While growing in its vegetative stage, make sure your plant is getting between 16 and 20 hours of sunlight (or other kinds of light) per day — the higher, the better. Buying a lamp is going to be necessary for growing it indoors.

Lighting

Even if your plant has a nice window that exposes it to lots of sunlight, it is still going to need to be helped along with an actual lamp. This lamp cannot be any desk lamp or floor lamp; it needs to be a lamp designed specifically for growing plants.

Luckily, lighting doesn’t have to be expensive — and it certainly can be kept at a lower cost when you only have one plant. Also, keep in mind that lighting is the most expensive piece of equipment that you are going to need to buy, so even if you aren’t happy with the price, it is the only item that will cost as much.

The kind of light you buy will depend on the situation you have in your house. If your plant will be next to a window that provides excellent light exposure already, for example, then buying a fluorescent light bulb will be your best bet as it just will add on some extra lighting hours after the sun goes down. Try buying a T5, a T8, or a CFL to get the minimum amount of light your plant will need.

This, however, is not going to maximize the amount of light your plant is getting. The more light, the better when it comes to growing a marijuana plant, so if you really want to get the best results then just going for the minimum isn’t going to cut it.

If you don’t have a window setup, try a 250-watt HID light bulb instead, which includes both HPS bulbs and MH bulbs. These can cost less than $30 although the bulbs don’t fit in a regular bulb fixture so you will need to include the more expensive cost of an additional fixture. The best lighting option for a marijuana plant is a 250-watt HID lamp so it may be worth it nonetheless.

If your plant is not receiving enough light, you will clearly know because it will begin stretching and reaching upwards, having more upward growth than outward growth. This is not good for a marijuana plant because bushy plants are the ones that are capable of growing huge, potent buds that every marijuana user dreams of.

Additional lighting information
When you get into the more minute details of lighting, things can get a bit complicated. If you really want to maximize how much light you are exposing your plant to, however, it is a good idea to really understand what you are dealing with.

Although all the lamp options will likely be good enough to grow a healthy plant and get a decent yield, different kinds of lamps can achieve different results. If you go with a VHO lamp, for instance, your plant will probably grow as much as three times as fast as a plant that is growing underneath a more “standard” type of lamp. With a VHO light, you can expect to need to keep raising the light up more and more every day because the plant will be growing so fast.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

That being said, a VHO lamp may be out of your price range. Additionally, you might not have the physical space for growing a plant that big. It is, therefore, important to consider all the aspects before deciding on a lighting system for your plant.

One of the best timers you can use for whichever type of lighting you go with is a vacation timer. These timers are intended to be used in regular household lights to make it appear as if you are home when you are really on vacation. Although they were not created with the purpose of setting a timer for growing marijuana plants, they nonetheless work wonders. It is a good idea to use a timer anyway because it will keep things extremely consistent, and it will be easy to remember how you treated your plant during one grow “season” when you need to consider how to change this treatment for your next plant that you grow.

Temperature and humidity

The key factor to remember with the temperature and humidity surrounding your plant is the fact that it should be different during the day (or during the artificial “day” created by your lighting technique) and the night. When the lights are on, the temperature should be between 68 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit. This should drop down by about 15 degrees for the nighttime temperature.

Generally speaking, keep the area around your plant relatively dry. This encourages more resin to coat the surfaces of your plant, as an excess in humidity will instead keep the leaves dry and fairly resin-free. That being said, be sure the temperature is not too warm when you have a dry environment because this could lead to an unhealthy amount of drying out of your plant altogether. It will start to turn brown, and its roots won’t be able to take in the proper amount of water to keep your plant healthy.

Another reason you need to keep the humidity down is that humid areas cause plants to have broader leaves. This is because, in dry climates, marijuana plants are able to respirate easily and quickly — in other words, the moisture is pulled off of their leaves in a dry climate more easily. Therefore, marijuana plants growing in humid climates grow broader leaves to be better able to respirate despite the humidity. Broader leaves are bad for the consumer of marijuana, however, because they will have a lower resin to leaf surface area ratio. Since you are only growing one plant, these seemingly small details can make a big difference in your final product and how much you get out of that plant.

If your grow room (or, rather, the room where you happen to be growing your new favorite potted house plant) is too humid, you will need to employ some sort of method to dehumidify it until it is down to a healthy humidity level. That being said, you should only use a dehumidifier if you already own one or if you are not worried about the extra cost. Generally speaking, investing $100 or more in a new dehumidifier is a bit overkill for just one potted marijuana plant, so decide for yourself if it is a good idea.

Ventilation

While connected to humidity and temperature, ventilation is a separate aspect that needs to have as much consideration as the other aspects of growing your marijuana plant. Ventilation is a preventative measure against things like mold, fungi, and other unhealthy issues that could develop for your plant. While it is perhaps more important for a room filled with marijuana plants rather than just one marijuana house plant, it still should be taken into consideration.

A lack of proper ventilation can cause the pores in the leaves of your marijuana plant to start to clog, causing that leaf to eventually die off. If there is too much leaf death, eventually your plant itself could die. More likely is probably just the fact that your plant will be losing some valuable resources since its leaves are responsible for absorbing the energy of the sun and using it for faster and better growth.

This is probably going to be more important if you are growing your marijuana plant inside of a small closet or cupboard. Since you will likely need to enclose it this way just before and during its flowering stage, however, you should probably plan ahead and make sure there is enough ventilation before you even start growing your plant in there.

Ventilation is perhaps the most important during the flowering stage of your plant’s life, because, without enough air movement and fresh air in general, the thick, juicy buds are prone to developing mold. Moldy buds are completely unusable, so this would be completely devastating to your plant and to your final yield.

If you have set up the closet or cupboard (or other enclosure) and are in need of a source of ventilation, try putting in a fan. If you can set it up in a way that the fan is pulling fresh air in from the outside, then it will be perfect. If not, a fan that even just moves the air around can be very helpful. Using a fan from an early age of your plant has the additional benefit of encouraging it to grow a thicker stalk, as it registers this as potentially harmful wind and therefore grows stronger to counteract it. The thicker and stronger your plant is, the better.

Watering

Watering is important for marijuana plants for obvious reasons. What may not be so obvious, however, is that the quality of the water is equally important. It makes a big difference what city you are living in and how your city specifically treats its water. There may be more chemicals in your water than in a neighboring city’s water, for instance.

Regardless of where you are located, you will likely have some chlorine in your water. (All water in the United States is treated with at least some amount of chlorine, for example.) It isn’t a very healthy additive to marijuana plants.

Luckily, chlorine is quite easy to get rid of. You simply need to let the water sit for 24 hours or more, with the container holding the water open to the air around it. This will also ensure that the water becomes the same temperature as the room. Watering plants with water that is room temperature is definitely healthier for them than shocking them with ice-cold water, so this process kills two birds with one stone.

If your particular city adds more chlorine to its water than most other cities, then buying anti-chlorine drops may be a good idea. These drops can be found at any pet store because they are used to prepare an aquarium to support fish (which can’t survive with chlorinated water either).

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

The next thing to consider is the quantity of water you are feeding your plants. If your plants are growing in a container that holds three gallons of soil, then up to three quarts of water can be given to them. The key is to observe how the soil is in terms of its moisture. You want the entire soil to be moist evenly — this is why it is better to water a larger amount once in a while than to water a small amount more often. If you only give your plant a little amount of water, the water won’t make it all the way to the bottom of the soil (and therefore the roots at the bottom won’t get any water access).

That being said, before watering your plant in any amount you need to be entirely sure that its container has proper drainage holes at the bottom. You should see the water coming out the bottom when you water your plant. If this doesn’t happen, it either means that you aren’t feeding it enough water to reach the bottom or somehow the water is getting caught inside the soil — and that can lead to significant health problems. As long as the soil has sand and perlite in it, however, it is unlikely that it will have drainage issues.

To check for the correct time to feed your plant its dose of water, check the soil to see if it feels moist. If it does, don’t water it yet — wait for one to two days before watering again, because even when the top feels dry, the bottom of the soil may still be moist. Never water your plants when they don’t clearly need to be watered, as that can lead to a myriad of overwatering issues.

Germinating the seed

Once you have purchased all the supplies and equipment you need, including the seed itself, it is time for germination to begin the growing process. There is not one perfect or right way to germinate, but it certainly can be kept simple and effective.

First, put the seed about a quarter inch to a half inch into the soil, covering it completely. The soil should remain moist but never get truly wet, and should stay at a nice, warm 75-degree temperature. All you have to do after that is wait to see the tiny sprout beginning to appear in 3 to 7 days (which can vary according to the strain and a number of other factors).

An additional option for germinating the seeds is to put the seed inside several moist paper towels. You can also use a damp sponge for this. Then keep the paper towels or sponge moist (but not wet, much like with the soil method above) until you see the seeds sprouting. They could sprout in as little as 24 hours or as long as a week.

After germinating the seed(s) this way, you should plant it into the soil. This should be done as soon as you have seen the seed cracking open to allow the tiny sprout to emerge. Keep the soil moist but not wet, and make sure it is covered on the top.

Be sure to give your new plants plenty of light once they are planted in the soil. The lights should be only about two inches away from the soil, and should not be moved upwards until the seedling has grown a decent amount. Some people provide their young seedlings with 24/7 light for maximum growth, but this part is up to you.

The vegetative stage

The “middle” stage of your plant’s life is its vegetative stage when it will grow the most in its leaves, branches, and height. Its stem will be getting thicker and stronger, and it should be growing many new leaves at an increasingly fast rate. The vegetative phase is crucial for your plant being able to absorb as much energy from the sun as possible (as the leaves absorb this energy), and therefore will contribute to a healthy flowering stage later using all the energy it had acquired. A larger plant means more and bigger buds, so you should take the vegetative stage seriously.

That being said, you can only grow your marijuana plant to use as much space as you have in your home. If you just want a small plant for personal use of marijuana, then just 30 days of the vegetative phase should do the trick. Some people even go as short as two to three weeks of the vegetative phase and still get everything they need from their plant.

Some growers (especially experienced ones) use training methods to get their plants to grow outwards rather than upwards, thus maximizing the amount of growth without growing too huge for the indoor space that they have.

The flowering stage

With indoor marijuana plants, you are responsible for everything. The soil, the water, the nutrients, and even the “sun” all come from you. Because marijuana plants respond to the amount of light they are receiving, you will need to change the number of hours of light that your plant is exposed to — in fact, it’s actually the number of hours of darkness that triggers their transition to the flowering stage, but the same rule applies.

To trigger the flowering stage (which should be done after your plant has had ample amount of time to grow and develop), you will need to expose it to 12 hours of “sunlight” (or lamp-light, as it were) and, more importantly, 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Make sure the darkness is complete and does not have even one instant of light, as this will cause the plant to stop entering the flowering stage. Additionally, the 12 hours of light your plant does receive should be as strong as possible, so be sure to keep using your lamp.

The beauty of growing one indoor potted plant is that you can move it to wherever you want it, whenever you need to. In this case, before you start triggering the plant to enter the flowering stage you should move it to some sort of enclosed location, such as a closet or cabinet. There, set up your lighting so that you are able to expose the plant to its 12 hours of lighting and 12 hours of darkness perfectly. Using an outlet timer is probably your best option because it leaves out any room for error.

Remember, make sure the 12 hours of darkness are total and entirely uninterrupted. If there is any light that gets into the enclosure (i.e. if you accidentally open the door during the 12 hours of darkness), even for a second, your plant will start getting stressed and confused about the seasons. This stress can cause all sorts of problems, not least of which would be it developing into a hermaphrodite, or else it may simply have a lower quality and lesser quantity yield at the end.

The flowering stage usually lasts between 8 and 10 weeks, and it will remain in this phase until the harvesting time has come.

Harvesting and curing

After you harvest the plant (by removing the buds and the leaves curling around them), you will need to cure the plant matter in a way that makes it smokable (and enjoyable). After drying the plant matter by hanging it upside down in a cool, dry room for days at a time, store the dried plant matter in clean glass jars, closing the lid tightly. Leave some extra room in the jars because the extra air will be helpful in the curing process.

Your main concern when curing marijuana is the development of mold. This will only happen if the plant matter is too moist when you start storing it in jars, so be sure it is quite dry before doing so. Open the jars every so often (first once per day, then once every few days) for several weeks until the aroma and texture seem just right. After that you will be able to smoke the product to your heart’s content — just make sure to store them properly (in a cool, out of the way location).

Other aspects to consider

There are a variety of other aspects to consider when you are growing any number of marijuana plants. For instance, what type of container will you grow your plant in? And what type of soil should you put into that container?

Containers and transplanting

When choosing a container for your plant, you can buy a breathable pot of some sort and rest assured knowing it is the best option for growing a marijuana plant. One good type of breathable pot is a fabric pot. Other pots are fine as long as they have drainage holes with something beneath to hold the water that trickles down and out. Try to avoid letting this water sit for a long time, as it could spark the interest of unwanted visitors such as mold or insects. As a general rule of thumb, the first container you use should be about six inches across or less. If you don’t use a fabric pot, a clay or a plastic one should be fine.

Another aspect of the container that you need to consider is how big it is. This will depend on how fast your plant is growing as well as how big the marijuana plant is in general. If you didn’t already know, it’s important to note that transplanting will absolutely be necessary at some stage — probably more than once. Transplanting is a tricky process, even when it is done perfectly. It always causes some amount of shock to the plant, which means it slows down the growth inevitably to a certain extent.

Transplanting is nonetheless important because otherwise you would need to start growing your seedling in a giant pot. While this may sound harmless to the new grower, it is in fact very dangerous because it is easy to overwater a plant that is growing in a pot too large for it. If you overwater your plant, all sorts of health issues can arise — mold and root rot can easily occur because of the excess of unabsorbed water, and the lack of oxygen can cause big problems for the plant.

One of the most common problems that happen with new growers is overwatering, as it is easy to misjudge exactly how much your plant needs and the prospect of underwatering is perhaps more daunting to many new growers. To help avoid this problem, simply don’t start growing your plant in a pot that is too large for it — begin it in a small one and have larger pots that increase incrementally as your plant grows. In other words, plan on transplanting.

The way to transplant your marijuana plant is simply in theory, but rather touchy in practice. First, get the larger container ready for the plant by filling it with soil and creating a hole for the plant. Then take the pot that contains your marijuana plant, tip it upside down, tapping the bottom until the plant and the soil pops out. There should be a chunk of soil with the ball of roots coming out without any physical effort, then place the entire chunk into the hole in the new container. Water the plant plenty and baby it a bit more than usual, as the process can be shocking.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of transplanting your marijuana plant, an alternative option is to use a Jiffy-Pot or a similar product. A Jiffy-Pot is a container made of peat moss that has been compressed. It helps with any potential transplanting issues because it protects the roots until the plant has been transplanted into a bigger pot. Once in the new soil, it will start decomposing and allowing the roots to break through it, making for a smooth and protected transition to the new pot. If you do use a Jiffy-Pot, make sure that the larger pot has at least 3 gallons of soil.

The key with transplanting marijuana is to always plan ahead. Depth is perhaps more important than width, so if you are going to grow a large plant, be sure that the pot is correspondingly large in volume. The last thing you want is for your plant to become rootbound in a container that is too small. A rootbound plant is one that has its roots grown around the outside of the pot, forming a sort of wall. When this happens it either doesn’t allow water in or out, meaning it will be thirsty all the time or will invite root rot or other health problems. Even if you change pots, the effects of being rootbound can last for a long time afterward.

Soil

For your growing medium (or the soil), the solid choice is always an organic potting soil. You could also look for mediums that are peat, coco, or sphagnum based, as they work quite well for growing marijuana as well. The key is to choose a soil or medium that is airy enough for oxygen to reach the roots.

You can buy a medium that already has a certain amount of nutrients contained in it — organic soils are generally this way. This means you won’t need to feed nutrients to your plant much or at all until the flowering stage. When you do feed nutrients to your plants, go the organic route whenever possible as it is less likely to cause a nasty “nutrient burn” to your plant. Anything that has lots of salts is a bad idea (Miracle Gro, for example).

The quality of your soil is almost as important as the quality of the seed that you buy — in other words, it is vital. You need to make sure that any soil you use is sterilized to avoid the presence of parasites or other annoying and harmful critters. Luckily, high-quality soil can be found just about anywhere — your local garden center and even stores like Walmart or certain grocery stores will have it.

Besides having an airy quality (which also allows the soil to drain properly — another important way to avoid the development of mold or fungus), good quality soil should also have a balanced pH level (between 6.5 and 7.5). If the soil is too acidic, then the marijuana plant will not thrive and has a higher chance of being male (which, if you know anything about marijuana plants, you know is not ideal). In addition to being airy enough for draining and oxygen access, the soil should also have humus in it because it does need to retain the water and nutrients you feed it to a certain extent.

Some growers prefer to form their own soil so that they can ensure it is exactly the mixture that they want. If you are interested in making your own soil, the best way to do it is by mixing together sand and moss (with a 1:2 ratio) as well as another part of either sponge rock or pearlite and soil (a 1:4 ratio). Always make sure the pH level is balanced — use a pH testing kit or litmus paper to do this. If the pH level of your soil (whether homemade or store-bought) is too low by one point, add half a pound of lime per each cubic foot of soil.

If you want to use your own soil from your backyard, you will absolutely need to sterilize it. To do this, moisten it and then put it in the oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for sixty minutes or so. Warning: it will smell terrible. After that, put in some of your fertilizer of choice — one tablespoon per every gallon of soil should do the trick. Make sure it is mixed in completely.

Fertilizers and nutrients

Another mistake that many new growers make is adding too many nutrients to their young, vulnerable plants. If you do it, you will end up burning your plants. Nutrient burn can have some major negative health effects, so it’s best to avoid causing this at all costs.

A good thing to keep in mind with nutrients and marijuana plants is to always start off slow. If you aren’t sure of how large of a dose to feed your plant, give it less than you would expect. Also, remember that you should not feed your marijuana plant any nutrients at all until it is at least three weeks old.

One good way to introduce your young plant to your fertilizer is to dilute it quite a bit, then slowly increase the amount of fertilizer within your fertilizer and water mixture. If you need a recommendation for what brand to try for your marijuana plant, go for either Eco-Grow or Rapid-Gro, as they are both commonly used in the growth and care of marijuana plants. Because adding a fertilizer generally always has some effect on the pH level of the soil, be sure to continue testing your growing medium for its pH level to ensure that it remains at a good value.

More often than not, feeding your plant fertilizer will cause the soil to become more acidic (or a lower pH value). If this goes untreated, it will eventually start having adverse health effects on your marijuana plants. It will lead to poor performance in terms of how well your roots are able to absorb the nutrients they need, simply because salts are the result of the fertilizer breaking down in the soil. When these salts accumulate, your plant will start to have these problems.

Some growers employ a method call leaf feeding, which should not be done until your plant is at least a month and a half old. It involves taking your fertilizer and dissolving it in warm water, then putting it into a (clean) spray bottle of some sort. Then simply spray the leaves of your marijuana plant with the solution and they will absorb the nutrients they need.

As long as you increase the amount of fertilizer given to your plant in a gradual way, you should be able to get away with feeding it quite a bit of fertilizer in the end. Marijuana plants are very hardy plants, after all, so you just need to do things that make sense to them and work for their mechanisms.

Before your plant is three months old, only feed it once every few days. Then, once you are getting ready to spur the flowering stage to begin, lower the amount of fertilizer you are feeding your plant. Most importantly, you need to flush out the fertilizers completely one or two weeks before you harvest it so that you can safely consume the product later. Certainly don’t add any fertilizers in the last few weeks of the flowering stage.

If you are someone who is interested in keeping things as organic as possible, you may want to look into using worm castings instead of chemical fertilizers. Organic worm castings, although expensive, are certifiably organic in every way. They are fed with all natural materials, and their castings are incredibly rich and healthy for marijuana plants. If you are willing to bear the extra expense, the results should be highly positive.

Pruning

Pruning is generally an optional endeavor, although some growers absolutely swear by it. It can work wonders for a plant that you want to grow wide instead of tall, however, so for an indoor plant, it may be a good idea to look into the methods of pruning.

That being said, try choosing a strain of seed that won’t need pruning to begin with. Check the description and reviews to see that it is a shorter and bushier strain so you won’t have to deal with a monster plant. Otherwise, you will need to babysit your plant quite a bit more, and after a certain point, you just don’t want to dedicate so much time to one house plant.

If you do start seeing your plant growing taller than you would like, it’s time to get into pruning. Simply cut off the top of your plant, right where the top two branches meet. It should be done with a razor sharp blade, cutting straight across. This method (called “topping”) will also serve the purpose of increasing the resin amount of the new growth, as tops always produce more resin. Topping also helps with the speeding up the growth of branches that are further towards the bottom of the plant, which wouldn’t happen without this pruning method.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.

The post How To Grow Just One Marijuana Plant At Home appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For this recipe you’ll need:

• 2 medium bananas, sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup marijuana butter (or margarine if vegan), melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs (egg-replacer or one cup applesauce if vegan)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Marijuana-infused banana bread is loved by many. It is delicious, not overly rich and sweet.

The best way to make banana bread is to use cannabutter, however it can also be made using extremely finely ground Cannabis.

This recipe for the moistest marijuana banana bread that you’ve ever tasted. It’s also very easy to make! This recipe makes 1 – 9×5 inch loaf

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, stir together the melted marijuana butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the marijuana butter mixture until smooth. Finally, fold in the sour cream, walnuts and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Then cool the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.

Want to start growing marijuana yourself? It begins with quality seeds. We have selected some of the best strains for you. Get our top selections of autoflowering and feminised cannabis seeds right here in the seedshop.

The post Marijuana Banana Bread Recipe appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, IloveGrowingMarijuana.com

For marijuana growers in the northern hemisphere August is the last chance to start an outdoor grow. Autoflower marijuana seeds are special seeds that grow within 10 weeks from seed to mature plant despite the light schedule. August and September are often very sunny months so your plants get plenty of light to create some big fat quality buds.

How to get  a pound of cannabis in the next 10 weeks

Regular marijuana plants grow when they get 18 hours of light (summer) and flower when they get 12 hours of light (fall). As the amount of light starts to decrease the plant understands that winter is coming and starts to produce buds and seeds to reproduce. Marijuana is an annual plant that does not survive the winter.

Autoflowering marijuana plants start flowering immediately and also grow for only a month. This gives you a nice sized plant that can produce some quality buds. Because they create little side branches you can easily put a lot of plants close together. 10 plants in 4 gallon pots on 10 ft2 can produce a pound of marijuana. In just 10 weeks!

Make sure you order your autoflower marijuana seeds today from ilovegrowingmarijuana.com and surprise yourself and your friends with some nice home grown marijuana in only ten weeks. Autoflowers are available in the strains Amnesia Haze, White Widow, Super Skunk, Northern Lights, Blueberry and AK47. All beautiful Strains. This week we have a special offer on White Widow Feminized Autoflowers; all orders are doubled! So buy 10 seeds and get 20! Click here for the white widow offer

White Widow feminized autoflowers are one of the most popular strains because it is a very strong plant that is suitable for both beginners and advanced marijuana growers. The yields are always very high and of good quality. Also among medical users it is one of the most popular strains. The seeds will only produce female plants that will not focus on the creation of seeds for reproduction but only on the creation of THC.

For tips on how to grow autoflower marijuana seeds you have to download my free grow guide at this link. Make sure to order some some high quality marijuana seeds at this link here. We ship seeds to the US, CA and many other countries.

The post August Is Your Last Chance To Start Growing Marijuana Outdoors! appeared first on TheJointBlog.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

Autoflower is a newer development in the cannabis market, and it has really exploded the last few years – even Google knows it. Searches for autoflowering marijuana has doubled over the last single year. People are getting increasingly excited, interested, and curious about it. There is a good reason for all this excitement. This isn’t a typical marijuana trend; it could be a total game-changer. So, why all this clamor about autoflower marijuana plants? There is a good reason for all this excitement, let’s look at some of the best attributes of the plant:

– They are smaller. This means they are easier to hide, harder to spot, and are, therefore, a safer choice with a greater variety of grow location options.
– They grow very quickly, have high yields in comparison to their size, and are even more resistant to pests and insects than other marijuana strains.
– No matter what the lighting situation is like in your outdoor or indoor grow setup, they follow the growth schedule embedded in their genes. They will flower after a certain amount of time, not after the light begins to change. This opens up a lot of new possibilities for many growers.

This article is intended to to keep you informed about this development in the marijuana world.

What is autoflowering marijuana, and how was it created?

There are plenty of different strains of autoflowering marijuana, and no two strains are exactly the same. Some people think of autoflower marijuana plants as lower quality than more conventional and traditional types of marijuana. Others consider it a godsend that makes life significantly easier for marijuana growers. Whichever category you fall into, it may be important to learn more about it, and the different options out there.

So what is an autoflower marijuana plant? To fully understand this, it’s best first to know a bit more about marijuana itself. Marijuana is a photoperiod plant, which means that its life cycle (specifically the flowering phase) is influenced by changes in the timing of exposure to sunlight.

Through this logic, growers can manipulate the growth of their indoor plants with ease. Young cuttings can be spurred to enter the flowering phase simply by giving them 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness every night for a couple weeks. Older plants growing outdoors won’t enter the flowering phase until this same light change affects them through the natural seasonal variations. These don’t occur until after the middle of summer.

Autoflower strains of marijuana flower when the plants are a particular age, rather than flowering in response to changes in light exposure. This means that, regardless of the weather and sunlight patterns, they will enter the flowering phase after a certain number of weeks. This, understandably, has opened the door for all sorts of new possibilities in the marijuana growing world.

The addition of autoflower marijuana strains comes from the crossbreeding of ruderalis plants, with a “standard” marijuana plant. Because ruderalis plants were not cultivated for their high THC content (given the fact that the THC levels were very low), they were not grown or used by smokers very often at all. For this reason, the dominant traits of the first autoflower strain had to include high THC levels from the “standard” marijuana strain half, and the autoflower genetics from the ruderalis half.

The process was difficult, and largely unsuccessful at first. For this reason, not too long ago, growers did not readily trust autoflower strains, because of their low yields and low THC levels. They ended up being considered a scam, of sorts.

Things have changed, however. The autoflower strains on the market today are just as reliable as any other strain – just be sure to purchase them from a reputable source. The THC content will also be as high as it is described in the online information provided about the strain. With these traits stabilized, and the number of high-quality strains of autoflowering marijuana increasing all the time, the dawn of the age of autoflower has finally come.

What can you expect from autoflower strains?

Autoflower strains of marijuana generally have a shorter life than other types of marijuana plants. Their quick turnaround is part of their appeal for growers who want more than one harvest per season. An autoflower strain usually takes between 7 and 9 weeks before they are ready to harvest.

When considering an autoflowerharvest, it is important to remember that it will be different from the harvest of other types of marijuana. Certain limitations that come with the plant’s not having the time to grow as long and that includes the fact that it will be smaller. Consequently, the harvest will be, too. Your yield can only be so high when you grow smaller plants.

Some of the highest quality autoflower marijuana strains require eleven to twelve weeks for full growth and flowering, to achieve the best possible harvest. It mostly depends on the strain you grow. Be sure to read the information provided for that specific strain, as well as any comments and tips from people who have successfully grown the strain before.

Starting off strong
When you grow any kind of marijuana plant, it is crucial to start the growing season, and entire life cycle, rooted in strength. With the short life span of autoflower marijuana plants, this is especially important.  The very beginning is the time to support your plants so they have as much growth as possible. If this is not done, you may end up with a harvest that is infinitely more disappointing than the “normal” marijuana harvest failure. The room for error is smaller with autos.

For this reason, it is often recommended that people who want to grow autoflower marijuana plants start growing them indoors, with artificial lights they can control. Indoor growing decreases the chance for error and favorably controls each aspect of your plant’s early life. A strong start ensures that it will get everything it needs to thrive, both now, and later on.

Properly germinating your marijuana plants is crucial to their healthy development, as well. This can be done naturally in soil, or in a container without any growing medium. Most autoflower marijuana growers actually prefer the second method. It simply involves placing a seed within a damp paper towel, or length of toilet paper, and putting it in a container of some sort that will retain moisture and humidity. This should cause the seeds to sprout within days. After they sprout, they should then be transplanted to their final growing medium. After this, do not transplant them again if you can help it as autoflower plants are small and are vulnerable to greater transplanting shock.

Cuttings
For now, cuttings are not a great idea with autoflower marijuana plants. The problem is that, while you can easily take a cutting successfully, you have to remember that the plants will autoflower after a certain age. The cutting’s age will merge with the parent plant’s age. This means they will flower at the same time. So if you are growing a cutting of an autoflower plant, the final plant will be much smaller than the parent, when it enters the flowering stage. When all this is considered, cuttings aren’t exactly worth it, as these particular plants are already small to begin with.

Feeding your autoflower marijuana plants
Once your autoflower marijuana plants have reached two weeks of life, you can feed them a small amount of vegetative feed. Feed them higher quantities of it gradually over time, until your plants are either six or seven weeks old. Don’t switch over to feeding them flowering food until you have visibly noticed a stop in its vertical growing. Even if the flowering phase started a week earlier, don’t be premature with the flowering food. Be guided, instead, by the ending of vertical growth.

Lighting for autoflower marijuana plants
Similar to regular marijuana plants, you can decide one of two lighting options:

1. One choice is to expose your plants to 24 hours of light per day
2. The other is to allow them some rest every day, and give them 21 hours of light, and three hours of darkness. It all depends on your personal preferences, as well as the strain that you are growing.

One specific go-to example is to use 120-watt LED lights for the first few weeks of growth, and keep it going for 21 hours each day. In this case, the light should be set up between 70 and 80 centimeters away from the plants. Once you have potted the older plants, you can convert to larger LED lights, and a schedule of 18 hours of light, and 6 hours of darkness.

Pruning autoflower marijuana plants
While pruning (toppings, specifically) can be done in a positive and helpful way with autoflower marijuana plants, certain modifications are needed when pruning regular marijuana plants. For instance, the pruning needs to take place very early in your plants’ lives, to avoid obstructing its vegetative growth later on.

That being said, many growers claim that pruning autoflower marijuana plants at all is a bad idea and should be avoided altogether. They say pruning will lower the autoflowers’ harvest. If you really want to take the risk, try doing it with an autoflower strain that has been proven to take a bit longer than the others. This way, it has more time to recover and grow, after the pruning has taken place.

The harvest: weight expectations
If everything goes well during your autoflower grow season, what can you expect in terms of a harvest? Keep in mind that the perfect environmental elements include being around 73°F, 55% humidity, 400 watts per m2 for light, good air circulation, plenty of oxygen, and a solid nutrient regimen (among other things).

To put it bluntly, your harvest will be proportionate to the length of time that your autos grow. In simplest terms, longer growth equals bigger harvest. Some strains that grow for about 3 months, for example, often average around 40 grams per plant. While longer-growing super autoflower strains might get between 150 and 500 grams per plant, when grown outdoors.

Choosing when to harvest is also difficult, and equally important to all the other decisions you might make when growing autoflower marijuana plants. You generally need to check your plant’s trichomes to see when 50% of them are amber in color. The amber color signifies the point at which harvesting should take place. Make sure you stop watering the plants for at least one or two days before you harvest them so that their extra nutrients go away.

Curing and storing
Curing your autoflower marijuana buds helps them turn into the delicious product that every grower desires. If you cure them poorly, then your efforts will not pay off in great taste. Curing should be done inside an airtight container. This is so the moisture can spread throughout evenly, and move from the middle of the bud, where it is originally held.

During the process, open the container several times per day for a few days straight. Eventually, you should only open it once a day or longer, until the buds are thoroughly cured, several weeks or months later.

Once they have finished curing, the buds should not have much moisture left at all. A tiny amount of moisture is still good for smoking, though. Extra dry buds actually make the smoke more unpleasant.

Store the marijuana inside a sealed container, such as a plastic bag or glass jar. Smoke it within several months, to one year. After a year, it is unlikely that the product will be as pleasant for smoking. Keep it in a dark, cool location. Freezing it can keep it fresh longer.

Growing autoflower marijuana plants outdoors

Although there are certainly plenty of downsides to growing autoflower marijuana plants, they also have some very compelling advantages, as well. Many would argue that their true value lies in being grown as outdoor plants. Or, perhaps even better, many might grow them for some time indoors, and then finish their vegetation and flowering stages outdoors. This usually involves between 1 and 1.5 months of indoor growth, to maximize their vegetative stage. Then, they are moved outdoors (assuming the temperature is not colder than 50°F).

The reason this is considered such a good thing is because you can get several harvests within one plant’s normal growing season. While a huge plant will get you a massive harvest at the end of its growth, it takes 8 to 9 months to ever get that far. Of course, this also leaves more room for unexpected obstacles to mess up your harvest before you even get there.

With the autos, however, you can have numerous crops growing in the same space of time. You are, therefore, achieving smaller harvests incrementally while avoiding a long wait to consume any of the buds. Your work is secured, and you are given you several “chances” within the same amount of time, in case one crop gets somehow ruined.

Autoflower marijuana plants will always be shorter than regular marijuana plants. This means they will not be as easily spotted as the more massive marijuana plants (which definitely tend to attract unwanted attention). Even if you are growing them in your own personal garden on your owned property, they can still easily go undetected throughout the span of their entire growth cycle, because of their small size. For a reference, the most efficiently grown autos have one square meter each to themselves to grow to their full size (and harvest) potential.

Breeding autoflower marijuana plants

One of the major negative aspects of autoflower marijuana plants is the fact that they cost quite a bit of money to purchase the seeds to begin with. It is likely that these prices will eventually drop as this type of seed become more widespread. Until then, you can breed your own seeds to get the best bang for your buck; however, there is a considerable expense in that as well.

The short lifespan of autos means that – assuming you want to grow and harvest as many plants as possible within one season – you are going to need a lot more seeds than you would with normal marijuana plants. In some locations, this would even mean that buying harvested, dried, and cured marijuana could actually be cheaper than growing your own autoflower weed.

Because many people would like to experiment with this emerging new trend, but want to avoid spending an arm and a leg, breeding is likely the best alternative. It is a surprisingly easy process and is well worth the effort when you consider the smaller harvest per seed in autoflower marijuana plants, compared to normal marijuana plants.

Should you grow autoflower marijuana? Pros and cons

Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of growing autoflower  marijuana plants, instead of regular marijuana plants.

Pros
First of all, you have the chance to attain a higher variety of marijuana when you grow autoflower marijuana plants. This is because of the shorter growing season. So within one season, you can grow approximately three separate strains, and get that many different varieties of marijuana for smoking! This is especially valuable for people who are growing just for themselves and prefer a range of highs, which can change depending on their mood or preference that day. Therefore, autos can help keep things fresh and exciting on the marijuana smoking front.

There is also somewhat less hassle involved — at least in certain aspects. For example, you will not need a complicated setup with one grow room and one flowering room. That means that, even if you had the space for that many rooms, you could instead use that space to time your growing so that you can harvest every few weeks. You also won’t have to be so careful with your lighting setup, and grow room light-proof sealing. This is because light leakages have no impact at all on your autoflower marijuana plants’ flowering phase.

Another advantage is multi-crop systems, which are compatible systems that overlap nicely. They allow you to harvest a new crop every few weeks, and can be set up outside. They don’t require much space in your garden and are unlikely to attract much attention if any.

In the case of power outages (which can be more frequent for people in certain locations), normal marijuana plants could have their growth and flowering phases interrupted, and their harvests consequently damaged. You will not have these issues with autoflower marijuana plants.

It is also thought that, because autoflower marijuana plants contain genes from the ruderalis marijuana strain, they may be hardier than other types of marijuana plants. This idea comes from the fact that ruderalis plants are very hardy, and can handle cold and other obstacles better than photoperiod plants.

These plants will also work well in indoor and outdoor areas that have height or size restrictions. Finally, if your growing friends are already growing their own photoperiod marijuana, you can enjoy smoking your own marijuana, while they wait and wait for their own harvest to be ready.

Cons
In terms of light usage per gram of harvested bud, autoflower marijuana plants are less efficient than regular photoperiod plants. This is because you will need the same amount of light per plant although these smaller plants have smaller yields.

Additionally, autoflower marijuana plants tend to be inconsistent in terms of their speed of growth, and their size. Even individual plants within one particular strain might have varying sizes and growth patterns. This makes certain types of growing methods, like hydroponics, particularly difficult — if not impossible. Sometimes it will be necessary to harvest one crop several times until all of the plants have been harvested because they flower and mature at different rates as well.

Some smokers of autoflower marijuana will complain that the aroma of their product is not as strong as that of regular photoperiod marijuana plants. Whether this is a pro or con might depend on your own personal preferences, of course.

Male and female autoflower marijuana plants

A normal photoperiod marijuana seed has a 50/50 shot at being either male or female. This is an unfortunate statistic for the average marijuana grower who is only interested in growing unfertilized female (sensimilla) plants. If you get feminized seeds, on the other hand, you can expect nearly every seed to turn out female.

Autoflower marijuana seeds are not any different in regards to these ratios. Hermaphrodites can be expected in either case and should be watched out for, even if you are expecting all female plants, like when you purchase feminized seeds.

Super autoflower marijuana strains

If you have done any research into this new autoflowering trend, you have probably already discovered the term “SUPER autoflower” to describe many different seeds. So, what are these super seeds, and how are they different from other autos?

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn how to grow your own autoflower marijuana

The idea behind the super strains is that they are larger, but still share the same useful trait of flowering automatically. They are stronger and hardier than regular autoflower marijuana plants, especially when it comes to resistance against mold or pests. They were created specifically with the goal in mind of having a bigger, higher yielding autos.

Buying autoflower seeds

Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of the autoflower marijuana plant growing process is deciding which of the autoflower seeds to buy first. This is an especially important decision if you are a first-time grower or even a seasoned veteran who has never grown autoflower strains of marijuana before.

There are a huge variety of seed strains to choose from, so it is easy to get overwhelmed by all the options. The key is always to consider:

• What type of growing conditions the seeds will be planted in
• What ratio of THC to CBD you would like in the strain
• What taste and smell you prefer in your weed.

If you have clearly defined these main points, then you will have a much easier time choosing the perfect strain for you.

If you have the money for it, it is recommended to purchase feminized seeds, since it will significantly increase your yield (and you won’t need to remove 50% of the crop that turns out to be male plants).

If you just don’t have the money for it, or would like to spend that money on other aspects of growing marijuana, then you can feel free to take the risk and keep an eye out for signs of male plants. Of course, if you are looking to breed more autoflower marijuana seeds, then you will at least one male plant, so don’t bother with the feminized ones, in that case.

For smaller grow rooms, go for the Indica autoflower marijuana strain because they will be smaller, even in comparison to other autos. For outdoor grow setups or indoor setups that are large enough, a Sativa autoflower marijuana strain will be better since they will get to a bigger size and therefore have a greater yield. They will require sufficient space to grow large, of course.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

The knowledge and ability to make marijuana clones is an added bonus for any successful grower – as well as growers of any type of plant. Cloning is a reliable way to have a better harvest and yield without risking certain important factors such as potency. As long as you know which of your plants are the healthiest and most successful, as well as which are males and females, you will be able to clone correctly. If you don’t know these things at this stage in the growing season, you may want to take up a new hobby.

You might even have a specific favorite plant already, which will make the decision process quite easy when it comes to cloning. Cloning is about as close to a guarantee as you can get in the marijuana growing business, so proceed with confidence because it has a very high success rate.

This article will help you successfully clone any plant that you want. We will cover the various methods for cloning and transplanting, as well as more advanced techniques and options that you as the “cloner” can look further into if you are interested. Keep reading and learn to clone like a pro!

What is cloning

Cloning marijuana plants itself is actually just using the clipping of one of your plants and moving it elsewhere to begin growing by itself. It’s as simple as that!

While the theory is extremely simple, the actual practice isn’t foolproof for some people. For outdoor growers, cloning is the most successful when it’s done in a region with a long growing season. Even with a very long growing season, you can’t expect your clones to reach their full height potential. This is unlikely since they will only start growing about 3 months into the growing season when your original plant is mature. That being said, even short clones can end up with a superb yield, sometimes having a top full of buds.

Most cloners prefer to take the bottom branches from their plants since those branches would receive less light and struggle for survival anyway. If you take between two and four of each of your plant’s bottom branches to make clones, you have at least doubled your harvest. Do you understand now why cloning is such a popular practice?

Although cloning is relatively risk-free since it does not risk the health of the original plant and your main harvest, clones often die before they are even able to root. It is not uncommon for just one out of ten clones to survive, so don’t be discouraged when most of them die.

Select a mother plant

Don’t be hasty when you are trying to decide which of your plants to clone from. You need a plant that is hardy, growing rapidly, with great yields, large roots, and strong buds. When taking cuttings to clone your plants, you should make sure that your plant is in a vegetative state. If you take them during the flowering stage, then it will become much more difficult for your plant to take root, thus making your clones’ mortality rate will be higher.

If this is your first time cloning, then you may not actually know your plants well enough or have enough experience to know which ones are the best to choose. Regardless, if you choose a female that is in its vegetative state that appears relatively healthy, then you are probably choosing one that will work fine for cloning.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more cloning tips

At the absolute minimum, your chosen plant needs to be two months old. In fact, it should have been in the vegetative state for two or three months already. If you wait this long to remove branches for cloning, then you should be able to get many clones from the one plant.

Once you decide on a plant, be sure to prepare it properly. It should receive ten percent less nitrogen than normal starting a week or two before you clip its branches. This will help its clones have a higher chance of successful rooting after you have clipped them off.

Cloning Techniques

When you cut the branches from your plants, make sure you end up with 6 to 8 inches of each branch. Also be sure to leave at least one pair of leaves on the branch so that two new branches can sprout. Remember to cut out branches from the bottom, since they aren’t as productive as branches higher up on the plant anyway. This will promote faster rooting in the clone. That being said, you also might want to consider cutting from the top if you want the resulting plant to flower more quickly.

You will need a knife that is quite sharp (to avoid any ripping during the cutting process). Make sure you always cut diagonally, since this will maximize the surface area from which roots will hopefully sprout. Buy cloning gear like knifes, rooting gel and rock wool cubes at this link

Rock wool method. All you have to do is trim healthy cuttings from healthy plants. Make sure to clip off most of the leaves, but leave the top ones intact. Dip each cutting in rooting gel or powder and then place it in a rock wool cube under a CFL light. The ideal temperature is around 72-75*F (22-24*C). The roots should start showing up in 8-12 days. Make sure to soak the rock wool cubes in pH 5.5 water for a few hours.

The Potting Soil Method. Because you will want the cutting to use all of its resources and energy for sprouting roots, take away any mature leaves that are on the stalk. Then wet the sliced bottom of the stalk and dip it into rooting gel or powder. Right after that, stick the plant into the saturated potting soil under cfl lights, where it should remain while roots are forming.

The Water Method. You should also remove the mature leaves from the cutting with this method. After that,  get a container of some sort (a plastic bottle of about 16 ounces is best, since it has a narrow neck that will be helpful in holding the plant up) and fill it with water that has been treated with plant food. Submerge the stalks of your plants into this water and leave them there, mixing things up every couple days to make sure algae doesn’t grow too much. If you do discover an algae problem, you can change the water.

Keep sunlight indirect or less intense than normal until new leaves are growing at the top. This new leaf growth usually happens at the same time as root growth. You should soon have a nice ball of roots as a sign that it’s time for a transplant.

Transplanting clones

Since you probably have already transplanted your seedlings during this growing season, you will already have the knowledge for transplanting your clones that have rooted in soil.

Clones that were rooted through the water method, on the other hand, will require a new technique. First, dig a hole that is one foot deep and one foot wide. You will then need to move the actual container that is holding the rooted plant and its water all the way to the site where you will transplant it. It is crucial that you do not expose the roots to the air, so despite the inconvenience this is an important part of the transplanting process.

Put the plant in the hole and fill the rest of the hole with potting soil mixed with dirt that was dug up. Pat down the soil firmly but gently, then water the entire area with a half gallon or more of water mixed with plant food.

In general, clones that have already taken root have a very high chance of survival. This is simply because the original plant they were a part of were already mature and strong, meaning that a clone with roots is no different. It should begin the flowering stage within two or three months. Take note, however: sometimes the clone ends up being a different sex than your original plant, so don’t be shocked if it happens. Read the article When and how to transplant marijuana plants for more info

Caring for your clones

You should keep your clones’ grow room temperature a bit warmer than standard room temperature, so between 72 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Since cuttings don’t have roots yet, watering the soil around them will not do any good. Instead, spray them with water several times a day so they can absorb the water through their leaves. You may also want to consider spraying a mild nutrient solution as well. Make sure it’s also hitting the leaves since they will also absorb the nutrients through their leaves as well.

If you invest in a mechanized cloner, you won’t have to worry about monitoring the moisture or temperature. The cloner will do it for you, thus (more or less) automating the entire thing.

Some growers make the decision to not use any lights at all for a day or two while the clones are adjusting to their new surroundings. Others start with a bright light and then use a dimmer grow light after a couple days. For roots to form, you should also ensure that there is at least some darkness each day. Try 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness.

When you are using powder or gel that is designed for rooting, ensure that it has been stored properly. It, like many products, needs to be stored in a cool, dry place. If there’s any chance that it has been contaminated, definitely do not use it under any circumstances. Whether the packaging wasn’t sealed properly or anything fell into it, even natural materials like leaves or dirt, it could have a negative effect on your plants.

In general, the most effective way of giving your clones a chance at growth is to keep a constant, close eye on them.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

High-quality cannabis starts with good genetics. If you know what you’re hoping to get out of your buds, then you’ll want to do some research on available strains to make sure you maximize your chances. As a bottom line, you want to make sure that you are using healthy viable marijuana seeds, otherwise you won’t get any crop at all! The best place to start is with a reputable seed company.

The first step for most new growers is to extract seeds from large commercially purchased bags of cannabis. This is likely the easiest way to get seeds, but be warned— the cannabis has already been heavily processed and packaged. Huge quantities of bud are dried and cured together en masse, and then snipped and stuffed into big vacuum-sealed bags.

Throughout all of this, they might go through a lot of rough handling and questionable environments. Since the legality surrounding cannabis cultivation is hazy in most parts of the world, there aren’t very many regulations that need to be followed. Instead of leaving it to hope that you might find quality seeds in your stash, read this guide first. If you want to make your own feminized seeds, read my article How to make feminized seeds.

What are quality marijuana seeds

What this means for the consumer is that it can be difficult to get good seeds. Seeds are, in fact, considered undesirable by most commercial growers, and many of the seeds that sneak into the end product never reached full maturity before being harvested. There’s just no good reason for commercial cultivators to ensure that each and every bud has reached maximum maturity and that the seeds are robust and healthy.

The only reason you’ll be able to find marijuana seeds at all is the difficulty growers have in finding and removing all of the seeds. Commercial growers have nothing to gain by offering free seeds to consumers. Another factor that can come up is freezing seeds, especially in northern latitudes. You won’t know if the seeds have been frozen when you get your cannabis, but if the seeds have in fact been frozen, they are far less likely to produce viable plants.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more growing tips

With moderately healthy stock, you’re likely to see about one in every three cannabis seeds actually sprout. Although relatively robust, there are many factors which can prevent sprouting: seeds with damaged husks, immature seeds, or seeds that have been damaged by environmental extremes. Additionally, seeds won’t last forever. If the seeds are too old, they are also very unlikely to sprout.

There are a couple steps to take when culling seeds to make sure you are saving the best candidates for sprouting. While you’ll never reach a perfect success rate, you can learn to discern good seeds from bad ones. Mature cannabis seeds are a dark brown, often marbled through with lighter shades or stripes. In general, you’re better off avoiding seeds that are pale green or white since these probably aren’t mature. Big fat seeds are ideal, and they should have a fairly rounded shape. You can use smaller seeds too, but as a rule of thumb, you’re more likely to develop a healthy sprout from a bigger healthier seed.

How to find the best seeds

Cannabis seeds grow underneath the buds themselves, sandwiched in between the plant matter and the parent stem. They’re difficult to see because of these and have a cushion of protection to guards against all of the drying, curing, processing, and packaging that they’ll go through before they get to you. This is why seeds manage to survive at all.

Young marijuana seeds are also protected by a white-green cellulose sheath that will wither and fall away as the seed matures. To remove them from the plant itself, the best method is to simply find them and gently nudge them free of the stems with a little finger or thumbnail. Feel free to discard any seeds with damaged or scratched surfaces. The same is true for any immature seeds with white seed coats.

Veteran growers might want to grow a mix of both male and female plants, but this is not recommended for most growers, especially inexperienced ones. There is a high risk of inadvertent fertilization, which can ruin the yield of an entire crop. Unfertilized female plants produce the biggest and best yields.

Fertilized females can still provide a crop, but the end yield will inevitably be much smaller and the buds filled with seeds. Mainly they can provide the seeds necessary for the next generation. Multigenerational breeding is extremely complex, however, and extends beyond the scope of what we’ll talk about here. For now, consider purchasing feminized seeds from a commercial distributor. This will simplify the process, and make it much easier to get started if you’re new to cannabis cultivation.

Keep in mind that if you do end up purchasing feminized seeds, you will get only female plants. With no males in the area to pollinate the female plants, you won’t get very many seeds if you get any at all. Over the long-term, this can be something of a drawback for a home grower since it’s impossible to harvest seeds for the next crop. It also means you won’t be able to reproduce the same crop, which can be frustrating if you find a strain that you really like. Read more in the article What are regular, feminized and autoflowering marijuana seeds

Buying top shelf seed

It takes a lot of trust to buy cannabis seeds. There’s no way to know what strain you’re getting by looking at the seeds themselves. You won’t know anything about the genetics, except the information you’re given by whomever you’re purchasing from. This is one of the biggest reasons why you’d want to purchase your seeds from a reputable company or seed bank. Random dealers won’t necessarily know any better than you what strain they have.

When you buy seeds, try to choose a seed bank or company that offers some client support. Cultivating cannabis isn’t too difficult, but because of the nature of the plant, you can’t just ask friends and family for help and support. Usually seed banks and commercial companies will be available for some troubleshooting since it’s in their best interest to help customers and maintain a positive reputation.

It takes a lot of experience and expertise to produce high-quality seeds. The entire process of selecting, testing and producing a batch of seeds can take up to a year or more. Still, it’s worth it to know you have the right strain, and in a feminized form.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

It is a product of many names: BHO, honey, erl, hash oil, honeycomb, honey toast, wax, shatter, glass, whip, comb, ‘tane, and more. As its popularity increases, more and more people are learning about butane hash oil (BHO) made from marijuana. There’s a reason it’s becoming so popular in recent years.

BHO sounds scary but can be extremely enjoyable when it is prepared correctly. Many people choose to make it themselves so they know exactly what is in it, and can rest assured that it was made safely.

This article will help you understand what it is and how to make BHO from marijuana in a safe and healthy way. Please keep in mind that it was written for information purposes only!  ILGM does not encourage any illegal activity and take no responsibility on what you do with this information.

What exactly is BHO?

Butane hash oil is called this because of the process required to make it. Marijuana trimmings are put into a holding container of some sort, with butane pushed through until only the butane escapes, and the plant matter remains. This process allows for the cannabinoids to be removed from the marijuana by pumping the butane through the holding container. It becomes a liquid mixture of butane and marijuana, which is then evaporated in order to remove the harmful substances while keeping the good product, which is a waxy or honey-like substance.

Is BHO safe?
The key aspect of making BHO that is safe for consumption is the evaporation process. If the liquid substance is not evaporated correctly, then people might end up smoking both the good and the bad substances, making it unsafe and unhealthy. That being said, if you compare properly evaporated BHO with regular marijuana that most people smoke, good BHO is much more pure

While critics argue that smoking BHO must include a certain amount of butane being inhaled in the process, even with the purest and most properly prepared BHO, it’s important to consider that the average lighter also contains butane as fuel. If you use a regular lighter to smoke a pipe, then you are also bound to inhale some of that butane, aren’t you?

Of course, any type of smoking is going to come with unavoidable and unhealthy aspects. Smoking anything is never going to be as healthy as inhaling pure air. Many assert that smoking BHO is better than smoking raw marijuana with a pipe, however, so that makes it worth it for some who enjoy smoking BHO.

It is also important to consider your personal security. In California, for example, BHO is completely illegal. That means making it, selling it, or even having it are all considered a felony. In addition to it being a security risk for those using it, distributing it, and making it, it also means it is difficult to ensure safe laboratory conditions when it needs to be done in secret. Safety gear is generally at a bare minimum during illegal extractions, and many new people who are interested in making BHO are given misleading information, such as “just don’t smoke while you make it, and you’ll be fine.” This is extremely misleading and a dangerous lie. When there are no official rules or regulations, however, dangers increase

Is making BHO safe?

No. Making BHO is a completely different process from smoking it. It is possible to do it safely, especially if you are an expert or are partnering with an expert to make it, but the amount of risk involved is extremely high. Messing up in any tiny way is extremely dangerous to your well-being, and even to your life. Do not make BHO if it is your first time.

When making BHO you must take every precaution possible. Butane is highly flammable, all extractions must be done outdoors, doing extractions indoors can be extremely dangerous, meaning you could catch yourself and your house on fire easily.  Always keep a fire extinguisher nearby and make sure to wear safety equipment like gloves and eye protection.

There are many documented cases of people blowing themselves and/or their apartments up while attempting to make BHO. People were burnt from an accident during the process and later died in the hospital. Not only is this damaging to their own lives (and the lives of others), but it also is damaging the reputation of BHO in general.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow marijuana for your own BHO

Making BHO yourself without knowing what you’re doing could not only result in harming yourself but even if you survive the process, it could also harm others. Plenty of rookie BHO-makers feel as though they have confidently and safely made BHO for others to smoke, and then it turns out that they did not perform the evaporation process completely properly, and then have caused other people to inhale unhealthy substances. Not only that, but it also gives the BHO movement (not to mention the marijuana movement) a bad name — which is something we in the marijuana industry do not need right now.

The process of making BHO is also illegal in most places, so you should think long and hard about whether making your own BHO is actually worth all the risks involved.

How to make BHO

With the above warning aside, we have committed to providing you with information to make your own BHO. If done correctly, there are a lot of positive aspects to making your own BHO, and it ultimately is safer for you (assuming you know what you’re doing). Therefore, the below instructions are provided for those interested in making their own BHO.

Which butane should you use?
Before collecting the necessary ingredients for making BHO, you will need to make an informed decision about which type of butane to use. There are two general types to choose from: Isobutane and N-Butane. Other types of butane likely have propane mixed in. While generally less expensive, Isobutane is often considered more hazardous and toxic than N-Butane. N-Butane, therefore, works best for this recipe. Not only is it safer, but it also works better for extraction and will not leave behind a residue in your final product.

You can find pure N-Butane in gas supply companies, but not in retail stores. The most reliable companies include Win, Sarome, Cora, CTC, Colton, Dunhill, Ventti, Colibri, Calor Gas Match, Unilight, Supergas, K2, Lucienne, Newport, Nibo, Fackelman, and Davidoff. To check the quality of butane from a company you aren’t sure of, spray a large quantity of butane on a mirror, wait for up to 10 minutes, and see if there is a poor-smelling residue left over. If so, it’s not a good idea to use it for making BHO.

Which marijuana should you use?
Of course, we should also pay close attention to what kind of marijuana you should use for this recipe. The higher quality the marijuana, the higher quality your BHO will be — the importance cannot be emphasized enough. Your best bet is to use whole buds that are fresh, recently dried and put through the extractor. Grade A oil can be accomplished via one extraction; grade B oil can be accomplished on a second extraction after grinding up the buds.

INGREDIENTS:
– one 10-oz can of butane per 1-oz of marijuana
– one extraction tube
– one medium Pyrex dish
– one large Pyrex dish
– one electric heating pad
– one razor blade scraper
– a concentrate container
– a purging system (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Extract the marijuana. First, fill your extraction tube with the strain you have chosen. Prevent any air pockets from forming, and make sure the grass you are using is extremely dry. Fill the tube, pack it down, and then repeat until full and air-free. For less plant material, use a smaller tube.Next, fasten the screen (or a mesh coffee filter) to the bottom of the tube. Hold it over the medium Pyrex dish, then get your butane and put the nozzle right over the top hole in the tube. Allow the butane to flow into the tube, then wait for up to a minute until the liquid begins to drip into the Pyrex dish. Use as many butane cans as necessary. Allow the drip to continue for several minutes. The liquid should appear gold in color.
2. Once you have completed the extraction process, you will need to evaporate the liquid so that the harmful butane can be removed. Get the large Pyrex dish and put the medium one inside of it. Then, put hot water in the outer, larger dish. This will cause the butane to begin to evaporate, which should take between fifteen and twenty minutes. Replace the hot water as needed to keep it hot. For your safety, be sure there is plenty of ventilation during this process.
3. Purge it. Purging is the process to complete the removal of the butane honey/hash oil. Using a purging system is the best way to do it, but many money-conscious people prefer to use an electric heating pad instead. Simply set it to high heat, and then place the medium Pyrex dish on it for an hour or more. Watch it carefully. It is finished once the oil stops bubbling. Honey oil that has begun to become hazy or cloudy in appearance looks that way because of trapped butane. Purge it again to get rid of all the butane. One simple way of checking if there is any butane left in it is to touch it with a flame — if it catches, there is still butane that needs to be removed.
4. Store the oil. Use the razor blade scraper to get all of the oil out of the dish, and then put it all into a concentrate container. As long as it remains in an airtight container that remains dark and cool, BHO can last a long time. If improperly stored, you can expect the substance to become dry, tasteless, and less potent.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

While many marijuana growers are most concerned about maximizing the yield and getting the most buds out of each marijuana plant, the taste and smell of the end product are also critical factors that can be influenced during your marijuana plants’ lives. In this article, we will discuss how to maximize the smell and improve the taste of your marijuana buds

Taking your time to learn the basics

A surprisingly overlooked way to improve the smell and taste of marijuana is simply to learn how to better grow and care for marijuana plants. If you are someone who just picked up the basics of how to grow marijuana on the fly, then this piece of advice is for you. It is very easy to grow marijuana well enough but maximizing the yield and potency of the buds, as well as the flavor and aroma, takes a few more steps of learning.

It is as important to know how to grow your marijuana plants properly at the beginning of their life as it is at the end of their life. In other words, the harvest is important. You need to know when to harvest your plants to ensure that you are getting the most out of your buds.

After that, the basics of drying your buds comes into play and can make a big difference in terms of how strongly your marijuana smells and tastes. Once you have mastered how to properly do these things, you will already be well on your way to improving the taste and smell of your marijuana buds. That being said, there are also some more detailed steps you can take for ensuring your buds potency in both smell and taste.

In-depth ways of improving the taste and smell of marijuana

There are a number of more complex and detailed ways for making the smell and taste of your marijuana even better. This is, of course, in addition to taking good general care of your marijuana plants, and cannot serve as an adequate substitute for any of the basics.

Let’s look at some of the more specific ways you can improve the taste and smell of your marijuana.

Maximize the terpenes and terpenoids
Terpenes are a somewhat little-known chemical contained within all marijuana buds. Marijuana that has more terpenes is going to have a more potent characteristic smell and taste. In other words, more terpenes are exactly what you need to increase the smell and taste of the buds. Within each terpene, terpenoids are contained. They are also responsible for improving the smell and taste of your marijuana.

In fact, terpenes and terpenoids generally take care of the aroma of your marijuana plants — as well as a myriad of other types of flowers too. Therefore, the best way to get your marijuana to smell better and stronger is to encourage the making of terpenes and terpenoids in its’ buds.

It is important to remember that with every strain has a slightly unique scent. For that reason, you cannot expect all marijuana to smell the same. When you maximize the amount of terpenes in the marijuana buds, however, you will be strengthening the scent of whatever is natural to that particular strain.

How to increase terpenoid content and get more terpenes
To get your plants to produce more terpenes and terpenoids than usual, you will need to stress them out a tiny bit. Please note: this should only be undertaken if you have been growing marijuana for a long time and really know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you could end up with a plot full of dead plants that weren’t even stronger smelling after all your deadly work.

The reason you should have experience before trying out this process is that just the right amount of stress needs to be applied. If you apply too much stress to your vulnerable plants, they could get overly stressed out and either die or end up having a much smaller harvest than they would have had otherwise.

The key is, therefore, to apply a small amount of stress consistently and over a longer period of time rather than all at once. This is best done during your plants’ flowering stage of life, in particular towards the middle or end of it. If you do it just right, within two weeks of the time you are going to harvest the buds, then you will end up maximizing the scent of your buds by increasing the terpene production as well as the trichome level (which affects the potency of buds).

So how do you stress out your plant in a “good” way? You can start by bending or moving the stems without using too much pressure, often referred to as low-stress training (LST). Just be sure that when you do, you are not making physical contact with the buds themselves.

If you would prefer a slightly more active and bold approach, super cropping is an option for you. It is done by breaking certain parts of your marijuana plants’ stems from within. In other words, you are creating breakages without having any exterior damage. Although it is tricky, it is possible and can lead to surprisingly high benefits.

Some growers prefer to actually remove the leaves around the buds on their marijuana plants. This is to give the buds and the surrounding area more exposure — but please proceed with caution here, because not every type of marijuana will end up getting positive results from such a method. Therefore, it is always best to start off quite slow and then build as you start seeing concrete positive results. Some growers prefer to even go one step further and do something called extreme defoliation — but this is not necessary nor recommended for beginners.

Whatever method you choose, be sure to keep the humidity down to a lower level than you would have during the vegetative or seedling stages of your marijuana plants. This will increase the number of terpenes contained in your marijuana buds, and it should also make the potency and number of trichomes go up. If you are having trouble with humidity due to the natural climate of your area, invest in a dehumidifier and keep it at or below 20% humidity for the final 14 days of the flowering stage. Additionally, make sure your marijuana plants receive plenty of darkness for a few days before you harvest — total darkness for two to three days should do it.

For an extremely advanced approach, you can try stressing out the plants right at their roots. Do this by drying them out a bit more than they would “like” during the flowering stage. If this is done incorrectly, however, the buds will be damaged not only in potency but also in aesthetics. So be careful!

Further methods of stress
The list of ways to stress out your marijuana plants is practically endless. But which ones are good for increasing the potency of taste and smell? Let’s look at the options below.

First, restricting nutrients can have a strong (and positive) effect if it is done correctly and at the right time. The best time to carry out this method of stressing your plants is by reducing the amount of nutrients given in the last two weeks or less before you harvest your marijuana buds. What nutrients you do feed to your plants should be mainly designed for the flowering stage of marijuana; otherwise, you might end up overfeeding some nutrients and underfeeding others.

Reducing temperatures can have a similar effect. During the flowering stage, keep the temperature of your grow room at least below 80 degrees. Believe it or not, high temperatures can actually cause thermal damage to the terpenes that might already have been produced in your marijuana buds. Therefore, the hotter the room, the blander the taste of your buds. Since terpenes begin to generate in greater numbers starting in the sixth or seventh week into the flowering stage, this is when the temperature definitely needs to remain lower.

In the same strain of thinking, reducing temperatures elsewhere can have a strong effect. This involves dropping the coolest temperatures (in other words, the nighttime temperatures) to slightly below what you usually would want. That being said, never drop it so the air is freezing cold. But a solid difference of about ten degrees between the nighttime and daytime temperatures should do the trick. The beauty of this trick is that it also helps the marijuana look much better once you have harvested it — more colors like purples and reds are going to appear, assuming that the genetics of your seeds allow it.

For people who are growing their marijuana in soil, you are actually already in luck! According to studies, marijuana grown in soil-based mediums have a greater variety and number of terpenes. This especially applies to marijuana plants that were grown using composted super soil. Hydroponics systems, on the other hand, don’t always have the same number and variety of terpenes as soil-grown marijuana does. That being said, it is probably not enough of a difference to make you throw out your hydroponics system altogether.

General tips for success

There are all sorts of unique methods as well as pieces of advice for what not to do to grow some huge, potent, aromatic marijuana plants. However, how about some of the good things many growers are doing? Here are some of these tips:

Light matters
For outdoor marijuana plants, many growers assert that as much sunlight as possible during the flowering stage of their plants leads to a greater potency in smell and taste in them. The theory is that terpene production is stimulated by sun exposure, but, of course, more research needs to be done.

For indoor growers, supplementing the lights that you already have installed could do the trick. In particular, LED lights should be used as this supplement. This is because LED lights cover a broader spectrum of light colors, and therefore are more likely to cause your plants to produce more terpene. LED lights are the next best thing to the sun itself.

Plenty of growers who use HPS lights for the most part during their marijuana growing season will also add an LED light or two to ensure that their flowering marijuana plants are getting all of the light that is possible and that the end result will be potent and delicious. This is particularly a good idea in the last few weeks before harvesting.

Gentleness is important
It may seem like a minute detail, but being gentle with your plants consistently can work wonders for the final potency, aroma, and taste. The temptation is, of course, to reach out and begin touching all the buds that are surrounding you on your plants in your garden. But you must not do that because it destroys terpenes, and therefore has an adverse effect on your buds’ aroma.

Drying and curing

Plenty of growers will tell you the same: the way you dry and cure your marijuana will determine a lot more about its potency and flavor than the actual growing that you did with these marijuana plants. Once you have obtained the plant matter, you will need to hang it upside down for a minimum of one week — preferably ten days.

Depending on your climate, you may be living in a place where things dry extremely quickly. Marijuana is no exception, and this also does not bode well for you if you live in such a place — you need to dry the marijuana slowly, over a longer period of time. For that reason, if you already know that your plant matter will be at risk for drying too quickly, you should not remove or trim the leaves around and on the buds so that they actually dry more slowly, given the extra layers of moist plant matter. Of course, come mentally prepared with some patience because handling the leaves on the buds after they have already dried is a huge pain.

Before you begin to cure your buds, there are a few key things to remember. First, remember that your dried product should not be perfectly dry. It will need a certain amount of moisture to cure properly. You can rest assured knowing that the jarring (curing) time has come when the plant matter that has been hanging upside down feels dry to the touch on the outside of it.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more growing tips

Whatever you do, don’t try to speed up the drying process. This will lead to disappointment reaching you faster rather than you simply being patient to begin with. If you feel some dampness on the outside of the buds, the time to cure has not yet come. If you did attempt to cure the marijuana at this point, then certainly mold and other contaminants could develop, causing the product to eventually taste and smell awful.

In the final few weeks before you are going to harvest your marijuana plants, be sure to flush out all the nutrients that you had been feeding them before. Do this by feeding them plain water with a neutral pH level for a minimum of several days and as many as several weeks before you decide to harvest your buds. Although it is likely you have already lessened the amount of nutrients you were feeding your plants during this stage of their lives, it is still a good idea to do the neutral water flush.

If you have any doubts about how much nutrients you fed your plants, you should absolutely do the water flush. If there is a possibility of any buildup of any of the nutrients you have been feeding your plants throughout their lives, flush the system out. Or if you are simply a meticulous grower who prefers to do everything right and is willing to work for it, then do this just to be safe.

Mistakes made with marijuana smell and taste

Unfortunately, it is relatively easy to completely ruin the way your marijuana will smell and taste.  Below are some things you should not do, unless you like taking massive risks.

Some people try spraying an air-freshening spray or mist on or around their marijuana plants, but that is not a good idea — especially if it occurs during the flowering stage. In fact, anything with a clean scent at all should be thrown away or at least left far away and never used, as it could cause a number of issues.

First and foremost, the fact that your plant has been exposed to air that is also wafting chemicals can be a problem. If you do let it happen, the smell and taste will inevitably be compromised in those marijuana plants. Of course, if you make the mistake of doing it once, you likely won’t have massive issues — the real problems arise when a product like this is used consistently over a longer period of time.

Other types of odor neutralizers are also dangerous in terms of ruining the taste and smell of your marijuana buds, so it is better to avoid them altogether unless you are deliberately trying to get a bud that can’t even be recognized as marijuana (which is unlikely).

A much more dangerous problem that can arise with marijuana plants during their flowering stage is mold or mildew. Any bud that has mold, mildew, or bud rot is going to need to be discarded immediately because its very presence will endanger the rest of your harvest as well. Mildew and mold can spread very quickly, and sometimes they even are never seen and go right into the product you want to smoke.

If you do ever smoke a marijuana product that has mold or mildew in it, you will notice a significantly more irritating, harsher feeling when you inhale. It can also cause other, longer lasting effects such as the development of a cough or throat discomfort. For this reason, you should also look through every bud you have slowly and thoroughly to ensure they are safe to smoke. Throw away anything that has mold or mildew on it.

Choosing the right strain

Despite all these other tips and tricks, it’s important to remember that the marijuana with the most potent smell and flavor is likely a type of marijuana strain that is already prone to a strong smell and taste to begin with. Selecting the right strain is how you can start maximizing the smell and taste of your marijuana plants before you have even started to grow and take care of them.

Be sure to do your research on which strains are the best in terms of smell and taste, and read the reviews for those particular seeds to ensure that the description and information provided by the seed provider is accurate. Of course, not all aromas are created equal: some are highly unpleasant while others are incredibly easy on the nose. Therefore, read about the type of scent as well.

There are a number of strains of indica dominant strains, hybrids between sativa and indica plants, and sativa dominant strains that will help you meet your goal of getting stronger smelling and tasting marijuana. Although these are the most common types of strains to be found, autoflowering marijuana plants are also an option for certain grow setups or types of people who are looking for that.

Whatever you do, just make sure that you are choosing a strain that will work in your environment, will have the potency, smell and taste you desire, and will be easy enough to grow for your own personal level of experience. Don’t skimp on prices here, because it will have a lasting effect on the final result of your marijuana harvest.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

If you are thinking about growing marijuana yourself, you are likely unsure or indecisive about how to begin. The first step, of course, is deciding what kind of setup you prefer. Are you going to grow outdoors or indoors? Will you grow just one plant or many? What strain should you buy, and what equipment do you need? We will cover all this and more below.

When people are first looking at growing their own marijuana plant for the first time, they generally end up reading articles and guides about how to set up a big, successful operation. While success is certainly something you should be looking for, the fact is, that growing marijuana for only yourself does not need to be a huge endeavor. Why not start out with just one plant.

In the United States more and more people are becoming interested in growing their own marijuana. Whether this has to do with the changing legality of it or if it is simply a trendy thing to do at the moment is irrelevant. The point is, people are getting sick of needing to buy sub-par marijuana to enjoy it. Therefore, they have decided it is time to grow their own.

Growing your own marijuana can have a lot of positives to it. You will know exactly where your weed comes from this way, and how the plant was treated. There will be no question of whether residual chemical fertilizers are in the product, or if it is really as high quality as the seller claims, and so on. It juts simplifies things in that it removes any room for confusion or mistrust.

Of course, growing your own marijuana can also have its downsides. It is, after all, still illegal in most places, even in those that allow some amount of marijuana consumption. That being said, it is safer for your personal health because you won’t need to deal with someone else you don’t know to provide you with marijuana. Like growing any consumable plant, it is also highly rewarding. When you finally get to consume the end result after months of work, you will enjoy not only the product itself but also the great feeling of accomplishment that comes with it.

Why grow only one marijuana plant?

There are a number of reasons why growing just one plant can be extremely beneficial. First of all, with only one plant you are better able to focus your efforts, making it more likely that the one plant will grow better than the individual plants in a plot of more than one marijuana plant.

Additionally, security is better with just one plant. While authorities are known for busting people who have a large-scale growing operation contained within their home, who has ever heard of someone growing just a single plant having their house raided? The fact is, law enforcement has bigger fish to fry. Even if they did want you and your one plant, one plant is far easier to hide, making it unlikely anyone would notice it anyway.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

Even better, growing only one plant is going to be extremely inexpensive when compared to other grow setups that generally include more plants and therefore more expensive equipment and resources. One plant only needs the bare minimum, so whether it’s seeds, soil, nutrients, lighting, or even water, you just don’t need as much. Growing one plant is the perfect way to try your hand at growing marijuana without investing a huge amount of money and time, making it much more low-risk than if you were trying it with many plants.

Getting started

Now that you have decided you are going to try growing just the one plant at home let’s get into the details of how to actually do it. First of all, don’t get tied down with the stress of how difficult you think it might be. It simply isn’t as hard as it sounds — after all, there’s a reason marijuana has the common nickname “weed.” Like any weed, it is able to grow just about anywhere.

One thing you should know about growing weed is that it is a flowering plant. In case you haven’t gardened before, this means that it will grow buds just once per year naturally in the fall. It “knows” when to start growing buds when the sunlight begins to dwindle below a certain point.

Although you will be growing your marijuana plant indoors, this is still an important fact to know because it will affect how you set up your lighting and schedule the lighting for your plant. Unless your plant has more than 12 hours of light exposure every day, it will begin to flower — and a plant that flowers too early is going to have a much smaller harvest than if it flowers on time. And when you’re growing just one solitary plant, the size of that plant’s harvest becomes critical.

As a good rule of thumb, make sure your plant has grown (in its middle “vegetative” stage) for a bare minimum of one month to a month and a half before you even attempt to have it enter the flowering stage. While growing in its vegetative stage, make sure your plant is getting between 16 and 20 hours of sunlight (or other kinds of light) per day — the higher, the better. Buying a lamp is going to be necessary for growing it indoors.

Lighting

Even if your plant has a nice window that exposes it to lots of sunlight, it is still going to need to be helped along with an actual lamp. This lamp cannot be any desk lamp or floor lamp; it needs to be a lamp designed specifically for growing plants.

Luckily, lighting doesn’t have to be expensive — and it certainly can be kept at a lower cost when you only have one plant. Also, keep in mind that lighting is the most expensive piece of equipment that you are going to need to buy, so even if you aren’t happy with the price, it is the only item that will cost as much.

The kind of light you buy will depend on the situation you have in your house. If your plant will be next to a window that provides excellent light exposure already, for example, then buying a fluorescent light bulb will be your best bet as it just will add on some extra lighting hours after the sun goes down. Try buying a T5, a T8, or a CFL to get the minimum amount of light your plant will need.

This, however, is not going to maximize the amount of light your plant is getting. The more light, the better when it comes to growing a marijuana plant, so if you really want to get the best results then just going for the minimum isn’t going to cut it.

If you don’t have a window setup, try a 250-watt HID light bulb instead, which includes both HPS bulbs and MH bulbs. These can cost less than $30 although the bulbs don’t fit in a regular bulb fixture so you will need to include the more expensive cost of an additional fixture. The best lighting option for a marijuana plant is a 250-watt HID lamp so it may be worth it nonetheless.

If your plant is not receiving enough light, you will clearly know because it will begin stretching and reaching upwards, having more upward growth than outward growth. This is not good for a marijuana plant because bushy plants are the ones that are capable of growing huge, potent buds that every marijuana user dreams of.

Additional lighting information
When you get into the more minute details of lighting, things can get a bit complicated. If you really want to maximize how much light you are exposing your plant to, however, it is a good idea to really understand what you are dealing with.

Although all the lamp options will likely be good enough to grow a healthy plant and get a decent yield, different kinds of lamps can achieve different results. If you go with a VHO lamp, for instance, your plant will probably grow as much as three times as fast as a plant that is growing underneath a more “standard” type of lamp. With a VHO light, you can expect to need to keep raising the light up more and more every day because the plant will be growing so fast.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

That being said, a VHO lamp may be out of your price range. Additionally, you might not have the physical space for growing a plant that big. It is, therefore, important to consider all the aspects before deciding on a lighting system for your plant.

One of the best timers you can use for whichever type of lighting you go with is a vacation timer. These timers are intended to be used in regular household lights to make it appear as if you are home when you are really on vacation. Although they were not created with the purpose of setting a timer for growing marijuana plants, they nonetheless work wonders. It is a good idea to use a timer anyway because it will keep things extremely consistent, and it will be easy to remember how you treated your plant during one grow “season” when you need to consider how to change this treatment for your next plant that you grow.

Temperature and humidity

The key factor to remember with the temperature and humidity surrounding your plant is the fact that it should be different during the day (or during the artificial “day” created by your lighting technique) and the night. When the lights are on, the temperature should be between 68 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit. This should drop down by about 15 degrees for the nighttime temperature.

Generally speaking, keep the area around your plant relatively dry. This encourages more resin to coat the surfaces of your plant, as an excess in humidity will instead keep the leaves dry and fairly resin-free. That being said, be sure the temperature is not too warm when you have a dry environment because this could lead to an unhealthy amount of drying out of your plant altogether. It will start to turn brown, and its roots won’t be able to take in the proper amount of water to keep your plant healthy.

Another reason you need to keep the humidity down is that humid areas cause plants to have broader leaves. This is because, in dry climates, marijuana plants are able to respirate easily and quickly — in other words, the moisture is pulled off of their leaves in a dry climate more easily. Therefore, marijuana plants growing in humid climates grow broader leaves to be better able to respirate despite the humidity. Broader leaves are bad for the consumer of marijuana, however, because they will have a lower resin to leaf surface area ratio. Since you are only growing one plant, these seemingly small details can make a big difference in your final product and how much you get out of that plant.

If your grow room (or, rather, the room where you happen to be growing your new favorite potted house plant) is too humid, you will need to employ some sort of method to dehumidify it until it is down to a healthy humidity level. That being said, you should only use a dehumidifier if you already own one or if you are not worried about the extra cost. Generally speaking, investing $100 or more in a new dehumidifier is a bit overkill for just one potted marijuana plant, so decide for yourself if it is a good idea.

Ventilation

While connected to humidity and temperature, ventilation is a separate aspect that needs to have as much consideration as the other aspects of growing your marijuana plant. Ventilation is a preventative measure against things like mold, fungi, and other unhealthy issues that could develop for your plant. While it is perhaps more important for a room filled with marijuana plants rather than just one marijuana house plant, it still should be taken into consideration.

A lack of proper ventilation can cause the pores in the leaves of your marijuana plant to start to clog, causing that leaf to eventually die off. If there is too much leaf death, eventually your plant itself could die. More likely is probably just the fact that your plant will be losing some valuable resources since its leaves are responsible for absorbing the energy of the sun and using it for faster and better growth.

This is probably going to be more important if you are growing your marijuana plant inside of a small closet or cupboard. Since you will likely need to enclose it this way just before and during its flowering stage, however, you should probably plan ahead and make sure there is enough ventilation before you even start growing your plant in there.

Ventilation is perhaps the most important during the flowering stage of your plant’s life, because, without enough air movement and fresh air in general, the thick, juicy buds are prone to developing mold. Moldy buds are completely unusable, so this would be completely devastating to your plant and to your final yield.

If you have set up the closet or cupboard (or other enclosure) and are in need of a source of ventilation, try putting in a fan. If you can set it up in a way that the fan is pulling fresh air in from the outside, then it will be perfect. If not, a fan that even just moves the air around can be very helpful. Using a fan from an early age of your plant has the additional benefit of encouraging it to grow a thicker stalk, as it registers this as potentially harmful wind and therefore grows stronger to counteract it. The thicker and stronger your plant is, the better.

Watering

Watering is important for marijuana plants for obvious reasons. What may not be so obvious, however, is that the quality of the water is equally important. It makes a big difference what city you are living in and how your city specifically treats its water. There may be more chemicals in your water than in a neighboring city’s water, for instance.

Regardless of where you are located, you will likely have some chlorine in your water. (All water in the United States is treated with at least some amount of chlorine, for example.) It isn’t a very healthy additive to marijuana plants.

Luckily, chlorine is quite easy to get rid of. You simply need to let the water sit for 24 hours or more, with the container holding the water open to the air around it. This will also ensure that the water becomes the same temperature as the room. Watering plants with water that is room temperature is definitely healthier for them than shocking them with ice-cold water, so this process kills two birds with one stone.

If your particular city adds more chlorine to its water than most other cities, then buying anti-chlorine drops may be a good idea. These drops can be found at any pet store because they are used to prepare an aquarium to support fish (which can’t survive with chlorinated water either).

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for tips on how to grow your own marijuana

The next thing to consider is the quantity of water you are feeding your plants. If your plants are growing in a container that holds three gallons of soil, then up to three quarts of water can be given to them. The key is to observe how the soil is in terms of its moisture. You want the entire soil to be moist evenly — this is why it is better to water a larger amount once in a while than to water a small amount more often. If you only give your plant a little amount of water, the water won’t make it all the way to the bottom of the soil (and therefore the roots at the bottom won’t get any water access).

That being said, before watering your plant in any amount you need to be entirely sure that its container has proper drainage holes at the bottom. You should see the water coming out the bottom when you water your plant. If this doesn’t happen, it either means that you aren’t feeding it enough water to reach the bottom or somehow the water is getting caught inside the soil — and that can lead to significant health problems. As long as the soil has sand and perlite in it, however, it is unlikely that it will have drainage issues.

To check for the correct time to feed your plant its dose of water, check the soil to see if it feels moist. If it does, don’t water it yet — wait for one to two days before watering again, because even when the top feels dry, the bottom of the soil may still be moist. Never water your plants when they don’t clearly need to be watered, as that can lead to a myriad of overwatering issues.

Germinating the seed

Once you have purchased all the supplies and equipment you need, including the seed itself, it is time for germination to begin the growing process. There is not one perfect or right way to germinate, but it certainly can be kept simple and effective.

First, put the seed about a quarter inch to a half inch into the soil, covering it completely. The soil should remain moist but never get truly wet, and should stay at a nice, warm 75-degree temperature. All you have to do after that is wait to see the tiny sprout beginning to appear in 3 to 7 days (which can vary according to the strain and a number of other factors).

An additional option for germinating the seeds is to put the seed inside several moist paper towels. You can also use a damp sponge for this. Then keep the paper towels or sponge moist (but not wet, much like with the soil method above) until you see the seeds sprouting. They could sprout in as little as 24 hours or as long as a week.

After germinating the seed(s) this way, you should plant it into the soil. This should be done as soon as you have seen the seed cracking open to allow the tiny sprout to emerge. Keep the soil moist but not wet, and make sure it is covered on the top.

Be sure to give your new plants plenty of light once they are planted in the soil. The lights should be only about two inches away from the soil, and should not be moved upwards until the seedling has grown a decent amount. Some people provide their young seedlings with 24/7 light for maximum growth, but this part is up to you.

The vegetative stage

The “middle” stage of your plant’s life is its vegetative stage when it will grow the most in its leaves, branches, and height. Its stem will be getting thicker and stronger, and it should be growing many new leaves at an increasingly fast rate. The vegetative phase is crucial for your plant being able to absorb as much energy from the sun as possible (as the leaves absorb this energy), and therefore will contribute to a healthy flowering stage later using all the energy it had acquired. A larger plant means more and bigger buds, so you should take the vegetative stage seriously.

That being said, you can only grow your marijuana plant to use as much space as you have in your home. If you just want a small plant for personal use of marijuana, then just 30 days of the vegetative phase should do the trick. Some people even go as short as two to three weeks of the vegetative phase and still get everything they need from their plant.

Some growers (especially experienced ones) use training methods to get their plants to grow outwards rather than upwards, thus maximizing the amount of growth without growing too huge for the indoor space that they have.

The flowering stage

With indoor marijuana plants, you are responsible for everything. The soil, the water, the nutrients, and even the “sun” all come from you. Because marijuana plants respond to the amount of light they are receiving, you will need to change the number of hours of light that your plant is exposed to — in fact, it’s actually the number of hours of darkness that triggers their transition to the flowering stage, but the same rule applies.

To trigger the flowering stage (which should be done after your plant has had ample amount of time to grow and develop), you will need to expose it to 12 hours of “sunlight” (or lamp-light, as it were) and, more importantly, 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Make sure the darkness is complete and does not have even one instant of light, as this will cause the plant to stop entering the flowering stage. Additionally, the 12 hours of light your plant does receive should be as strong as possible, so be sure to keep using your lamp.

The beauty of growing one indoor potted plant is that you can move it to wherever you want it, whenever you need to. In this case, before you start triggering the plant to enter the flowering stage you should move it to some sort of enclosed location, such as a closet or cabinet. There, set up your lighting so that you are able to expose the plant to its 12 hours of lighting and 12 hours of darkness perfectly. Using an outlet timer is probably your best option because it leaves out any room for error.

Remember, make sure the 12 hours of darkness are total and entirely uninterrupted. If there is any light that gets into the enclosure (i.e. if you accidentally open the door during the 12 hours of darkness), even for a second, your plant will start getting stressed and confused about the seasons. This stress can cause all sorts of problems, not least of which would be it developing into a hermaphrodite, or else it may simply have a lower quality and lesser quantity yield at the end.

The flowering stage usually lasts between 8 and 10 weeks, and it will remain in this phase until the harvesting time has come.

Harvesting and curing

After you harvest the plant (by removing the buds and the leaves curling around them), you will need to cure the plant matter in a way that makes it smokable (and enjoyable). After drying the plant matter by hanging it upside down in a cool, dry room for days at a time, store the dried plant matter in clean glass jars, closing the lid tightly. Leave some extra room in the jars because the extra air will be helpful in the curing process.

Your main concern when curing marijuana is the development of mold. This will only happen if the plant matter is too moist when you start storing it in jars, so be sure it is quite dry before doing so. Open the jars every so often (first once per day, then once every few days) for several weeks until the aroma and texture seem just right. After that you will be able to smoke the product to your heart’s content — just make sure to store them properly (in a cool, out of the way location).

Other aspects to consider

There are a variety of other aspects to consider when you are growing any number of marijuana plants. For instance, what type of container will you grow your plant in? And what type of soil should you put into that container?

Containers and transplanting

When choosing a container for your plant, you can buy a breathable pot of some sort and rest assured knowing it is the best option for growing a marijuana plant. One good type of breathable pot is a fabric pot. Other pots are fine as long as they have drainage holes with something beneath to hold the water that trickles down and out. Try to avoid letting this water sit for a long time, as it could spark the interest of unwanted visitors such as mold or insects. As a general rule of thumb, the first container you use should be about six inches across or less. If you don’t use a fabric pot, a clay or a plastic one should be fine.

Another aspect of the container that you need to consider is how big it is. This will depend on how fast your plant is growing as well as how big the marijuana plant is in general. If you didn’t already know, it’s important to note that transplanting will absolutely be necessary at some stage — probably more than once. Transplanting is a tricky process, even when it is done perfectly. It always causes some amount of shock to the plant, which means it slows down the growth inevitably to a certain extent.

Transplanting is nonetheless important because otherwise you would need to start growing your seedling in a giant pot. While this may sound harmless to the new grower, it is in fact very dangerous because it is easy to overwater a plant that is growing in a pot too large for it. If you overwater your plant, all sorts of health issues can arise — mold and root rot can easily occur because of the excess of unabsorbed water, and the lack of oxygen can cause big problems for the plant.

One of the most common problems that happen with new growers is overwatering, as it is easy to misjudge exactly how much your plant needs and the prospect of underwatering is perhaps more daunting to many new growers. To help avoid this problem, simply don’t start growing your plant in a pot that is too large for it — begin it in a small one and have larger pots that increase incrementally as your plant grows. In other words, plan on transplanting.

The way to transplant your marijuana plant is simply in theory, but rather touchy in practice. First, get the larger container ready for the plant by filling it with soil and creating a hole for the plant. Then take the pot that contains your marijuana plant, tip it upside down, tapping the bottom until the plant and the soil pops out. There should be a chunk of soil with the ball of roots coming out without any physical effort, then place the entire chunk into the hole in the new container. Water the plant plenty and baby it a bit more than usual, as the process can be shocking.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of transplanting your marijuana plant, an alternative option is to use a Jiffy-Pot or a similar product. A Jiffy-Pot is a container made of peat moss that has been compressed. It helps with any potential transplanting issues because it protects the roots until the plant has been transplanted into a bigger pot. Once in the new soil, it will start decomposing and allowing the roots to break through it, making for a smooth and protected transition to the new pot. If you do use a Jiffy-Pot, make sure that the larger pot has at least 3 gallons of soil.

The key with transplanting marijuana is to always plan ahead. Depth is perhaps more important than width, so if you are going to grow a large plant, be sure that the pot is correspondingly large in volume. The last thing you want is for your plant to become rootbound in a container that is too small. A rootbound plant is one that has its roots grown around the outside of the pot, forming a sort of wall. When this happens it either doesn’t allow water in or out, meaning it will be thirsty all the time or will invite root rot or other health problems. Even if you change pots, the effects of being rootbound can last for a long time afterward.

Soil

For your growing medium (or the soil), the solid choice is always an organic potting soil. You could also look for mediums that are peat, coco, or sphagnum based, as they work quite well for growing marijuana as well. The key is to choose a soil or medium that is airy enough for oxygen to reach the roots.

You can buy a medium that already has a certain amount of nutrients contained in it — organic soils are generally this way. This means you won’t need to feed nutrients to your plant much or at all until the flowering stage. When you do feed nutrients to your plants, go the organic route whenever possible as it is less likely to cause a nasty “nutrient burn” to your plant. Anything that has lots of salts is a bad idea (Miracle Gro, for example).

The quality of your soil is almost as important as the quality of the seed that you buy — in other words, it is vital. You need to make sure that any soil you use is sterilized to avoid the presence of parasites or other annoying and harmful critters. Luckily, high-quality soil can be found just about anywhere — your local garden center and even stores like Walmart or certain grocery stores will have it.

Besides having an airy quality (which also allows the soil to drain properly — another important way to avoid the development of mold or fungus), good quality soil should also have a balanced pH level (between 6.5 and 7.5). If the soil is too acidic, then the marijuana plant will not thrive and has a higher chance of being male (which, if you know anything about marijuana plants, you know is not ideal). In addition to being airy enough for draining and oxygen access, the soil should also have humus in it because it does need to retain the water and nutrients you feed it to a certain extent.

Some growers prefer to form their own soil so that they can ensure it is exactly the mixture that they want. If you are interested in making your own soil, the best way to do it is by mixing together sand and moss (with a 1:2 ratio) as well as another part of either sponge rock or pearlite and soil (a 1:4 ratio). Always make sure the pH level is balanced — use a pH testing kit or litmus paper to do this. If the pH level of your soil (whether homemade or store-bought) is too low by one point, add half a pound of lime per each cubic foot of soil.

If you want to use your own soil from your backyard, you will absolutely need to sterilize it. To do this, moisten it and then put it in the oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for sixty minutes or so. Warning: it will smell terrible. After that, put in some of your fertilizer of choice — one tablespoon per every gallon of soil should do the trick. Make sure it is mixed in completely.

Fertilizers and nutrients

Another mistake that many new growers make is adding too many nutrients to their young, vulnerable plants. If you do it, you will end up burning your plants. Nutrient burn can have some major negative health effects, so it’s best to avoid causing this at all costs.

A good thing to keep in mind with nutrients and marijuana plants is to always start off slow. If you aren’t sure of how large of a dose to feed your plant, give it less than you would expect. Also, remember that you should not feed your marijuana plant any nutrients at all until it is at least three weeks old.

One good way to introduce your young plant to your fertilizer is to dilute it quite a bit, then slowly increase the amount of fertilizer within your fertilizer and water mixture. If you need a recommendation for what brand to try for your marijuana plant, go for either Eco-Grow or Rapid-Gro, as they are both commonly used in the growth and care of marijuana plants. Because adding a fertilizer generally always has some effect on the pH level of the soil, be sure to continue testing your growing medium for its pH level to ensure that it remains at a good value.

More often than not, feeding your plant fertilizer will cause the soil to become more acidic (or a lower pH value). If this goes untreated, it will eventually start having adverse health effects on your marijuana plants. It will lead to poor performance in terms of how well your roots are able to absorb the nutrients they need, simply because salts are the result of the fertilizer breaking down in the soil. When these salts accumulate, your plant will start to have these problems.

Some growers employ a method call leaf feeding, which should not be done until your plant is at least a month and a half old. It involves taking your fertilizer and dissolving it in warm water, then putting it into a (clean) spray bottle of some sort. Then simply spray the leaves of your marijuana plant with the solution and they will absorb the nutrients they need.

As long as you increase the amount of fertilizer given to your plant in a gradual way, you should be able to get away with feeding it quite a bit of fertilizer in the end. Marijuana plants are very hardy plants, after all, so you just need to do things that make sense to them and work for their mechanisms.

Before your plant is three months old, only feed it once every few days. Then, once you are getting ready to spur the flowering stage to begin, lower the amount of fertilizer you are feeding your plant. Most importantly, you need to flush out the fertilizers completely one or two weeks before you harvest it so that you can safely consume the product later. Certainly don’t add any fertilizers in the last few weeks of the flowering stage.

If you are someone who is interested in keeping things as organic as possible, you may want to look into using worm castings instead of chemical fertilizers. Organic worm castings, although expensive, are certifiably organic in every way. They are fed with all natural materials, and their castings are incredibly rich and healthy for marijuana plants. If you are willing to bear the extra expense, the results should be highly positive.

Pruning

Pruning is generally an optional endeavor, although some growers absolutely swear by it. It can work wonders for a plant that you want to grow wide instead of tall, however, so for an indoor plant, it may be a good idea to look into the methods of pruning.

That being said, try choosing a strain of seed that won’t need pruning to begin with. Check the description and reviews to see that it is a shorter and bushier strain so you won’t have to deal with a monster plant. Otherwise, you will need to babysit your plant quite a bit more, and after a certain point, you just don’t want to dedicate so much time to one house plant.

If you do start seeing your plant growing taller than you would like, it’s time to get into pruning. Simply cut off the top of your plant, right where the top two branches meet. It should be done with a razor sharp blade, cutting straight across. This method (called “topping”) will also serve the purpose of increasing the resin amount of the new growth, as tops always produce more resin. Topping also helps with the speeding up the growth of branches that are further towards the bottom of the plant, which wouldn’t happen without this pruning method.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

I get a lot of questions about watering marijuana plants. There are myriad things that can go wrong when growing marijuana but most of the ones that you control revolve around PH levels. Your eyes are the first line of defense as you’ll be able to see problems ranging from misshapen or damaged leaves to fungus, but there are things that you can’t see.

It is therefore a very good idea to get a PH tester that enables you to check both soil and water. Electronic ones with digital displays are of course easier to use, but also more expensive. At any good home improvement or gardening store you’ll also be able to find liquid PH testers, and these do a good job as well and are not as expensive but may be a bit more complicated to use. In a pinch, or if you are on a budget, PH strips will work, but they cannot be completely trusted. If you find your readings are not jibing with what the plant or soil looks like then the tester may be the problem.

Sometimes, however, the soil readings may consistently be in a good range (between 6.5 and 8.5), your soil composition may be sound (whether you are using an organic mix or chemical solution) but there are still problems with the marijuana plant. In these cases the problem is likely the water. Often it’s the PH of the water (ideally between 5.8 and 6.5), but other times it may be as simple as over- or underwatering the marijuana plants. Download my free marijuana grow bible for more information about pH and ppm levels.

Overwatering is a serious mistake that is very common among new marijuana growers because the assumption is that since water is needed, too much of a good thing can’t be bad. The problem is that too much water deprives the roots of oxygen and so they slowly die. A quick and easy sign of overwatering is that the marijuana plant will droop and seem as if it is changing colors, the green luster turning yellow. Leaves will fall off the plant and eventually even leaves that look healthy will die and fall. Another problem that comes from too much water is that it can leech vital nutrients from the soil before the plants have had a chance to absorb them.

The easiest way to prevent overpowering is to check the soil before you water. Insert a ruler a few inches into the soil and if it comes out dry and with no soil adhering, then it’s time to water. Unless you are growing marijuana in a very arid environment, your marijuana plants will only need a good water twice or so a week. The reason for this is that the topsoil is not indicative of the moistness of the rest of the soil. lf you are using an irrigation system, then you’ll have to adjust either the flow of the water, or the distance of the spouts from the plant. This problem is unlikely to occur if your plants are in the ground since excess water will be absorbed by the surrounding soil, but if your marijuana plants are in pots, this could be a serious issue because they could develop root rot.

Root rot is what happens to roots deprived of oxygen, and it could kill your marijuana plant. A slightly involved way to control water is to add a small amount (a few tablespoons) of hydrogen peroxide to your water. This works because the chemical compound is comprised of oxygen, but it also has an added benefit: it will kill any bacteria in your soil arising as a result of the rot.

But if this doesn’t works your alternatives (searching for the roots that are affected, killing them, then transplanting to a larger pot; or cutting the plant down) aren’t very good.

Underwatering is another serious problem and its effects will look similar, with the exception that the leaves falling off will be shriveled and decimated. The plant is literally dying of thirst and, as it starts to wither, it is using all the available resources on subsistence and so will let the leaves, the extensions, go. This means that during this period of its vegetative state, the marijuana plant will stop producing new branches and leaves. Even though you can correct the problem quite simply (add water) the effects may continue to be felt at harvest when your plants may be smaller and their smoke may be more harsh than expected.

Typically, any other problems having to do with water will be related to pH The problem will go something like this: the soil has a nutrient deficiency, so you attempt to remedy the situation by doing something like adding Epsom salts or worm castings, or you mix in a balanced organic nutrient mix with your watering regimen. After about a week, the soil PH levels begin to rise (soil is less acidic) but the plant’s problem is still apparent. Concerned, you add more nutrients either directly to the soil, or in a tea and the problem only seems to get worse, (the PH drops).

In cases like this, it is probably the water that is the problem, and so, before you completely lose your mind, be sure to test the water. Most major municipalities chlorinate their water to kill bacteria harmful to humans. This water should never be used when you are germinating marijuana seeds or flowering your plants, and if you must use it when your marijuana plants are in the vegetative growth stages you should let it sit for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours so that the chlorine can evaporate. Chlorine is very acidic and, once added, it can lower the PH levels in the soils preventing the absorption of whatever nutrient or supplement you are trying to add.

The outdoor season is once again upon us and it’s important to procure seeds and start germinating them. If you haven’t purchased seeds yet, you can check out my seed shop for a wide selection of high-quality marijauna seeds at this link. Don’t let yourself fall behind at the start of the season! We’ve still got a deal for White Widow, Super Skunk, and Super Silver Haze (order 5 and get 5 free!).

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

Marijuana cuttings will naturally root rather quickly if they are kept in perfect condition and are prepared correctly. They don’t have any roots, so their ability to get and maintain water is limited. In order to avoid a water shortage (a cause of wilting and, ultimately, death), you need to trim your plants well. Read this article to find out how to get your clones to root faster.

How to root cuttings

Using a rooting machine is the best way to root cuttings. You can also do it by hand fairly easily.

To get started, trim about 6 – 8 inches of healthy cuttings from plants that are in good condition. Remove the majority of the leaves except for the ones on the top.

All cuttings will need to be submerged in rooting powder or gel, then put in either rock wool, oasis cubes, planting mix or sterile soil. Keep the temperature at about 72-75*F. It will take about 8-12 days before the roots begin sprouting. You can attempt to root the clones in water if you are only doing a few.

To keep it sterile, boost the amount of oxygen in the water, and encourage rooting, make a solution of one part hydrogen peroxide (3%) and 5 parts water. Give the cutting 10 Watts of cold, white fluorescent light per square foot. Keep the clones in a location where the humidity is at least 65% or more. If you use a cover to make sure the humidity is just right, be sure to take it off once 5 or 6 days have passed. Even after you take the covers down, continue to keep the humidity high.

After about 5 days give it a dose of flowering formula fertilizer at 25% potency. You will not raise the strength of the light to 20 Watts per square foot. Over the 10 days go ahead and enhance the strength of the nutrients by mixing in a little grow formula. From the time, you started to the time you are done it should take about 2 weeks to see the roots.

What to watch out for

If you are growing your clones in the water, be aware that algae can easily clog them up. This will result in the clones not growing properly. You can prevent this by the use of a dark, dull looking container to retain the water because this will block algae from growing.

Cuttings from a flowering or ripe plant

You are able to clone all ripe and flowering plants. If at all possible, you will want to use cuttings from a shaded area so the buds aren’t as matured as the other ones. Stay clear of using woody stems when you are selecting your clones. The harder the stem, the more difficult it is for the clone to start rooting. Get the medium of your choice and place your cuttings in there. You will need to have the light there the entire time. The cutting will begin rooting and the newer top growth will become fruitful.

If your clones won’t root, don’t fret. There are plenty of things you can do to get the cloning process going. All it takes is about two weeks of proper care for your clones to start taking root.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible.

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

For this recipe you’ll need:

• 2 medium bananas, sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup marijuana butter (or margarine if vegan), melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs (egg-replacer or one cup applesauce if vegan)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Marijuana-infused banana bread is loved by many. It is delicious, not overly rich and sweet.

The best way to make banana bread is to use cannabutter, however it can also be made using extremely finely ground Cannabis.

This recipe for the moistest marijuana banana bread that you’ve ever tasted. It’s also very easy to make! This recipe makes 1 – 9×5 inch loaf

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, stir together the melted marijuana butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the marijuana butter mixture until smooth. Finally, fold in the sour cream, walnuts and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Then cool the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.

Want to start growing marijuana yourself? It begins with quality seeds. We have selected some of the best strains for you. Get our top selections of autoflowering and feminised cannabis seeds right here in the seedshop.

By Robert Bergman, IloveGrowingMarijuana.com

For marijuana growers in the northern hemisphere August is the last chance to start an outdoor grow. Autoflower marijuana seeds are special seeds that grow within 10 weeks from seed to mature plant despite the light schedule. August and September are often very sunny months so your plants get plenty of light to create some big fat quality buds.

How to get  a pound of cannabis in the next 10 weeks

Regular marijuana plants grow when they get 18 hours of light (summer) and flower when they get 12 hours of light (fall). As the amount of light starts to decrease the plant understands that winter is coming and starts to produce buds and seeds to reproduce. Marijuana is an annual plant that does not survive the winter.

Autoflowering marijuana plants start flowering immediately and also grow for only a month. This gives you a nice sized plant that can produce some quality buds. Because they create little side branches you can easily put a lot of plants close together. 10 plants in 4 gallon pots on 10 ft2 can produce a pound of marijuana. In just 10 weeks!

Make sure you order your autoflower marijuana seeds today from ilovegrowingmarijuana.com and surprise yourself and your friends with some nice home grown marijuana in only ten weeks. Autoflowers are available in the strains Amnesia Haze, White Widow, Super Skunk, Northern Lights, Blueberry and AK47. All beautiful Strains. This week we have a special offer on White Widow Feminized Autoflowers; all orders are doubled! So buy 10 seeds and get 20! Click here for the white widow offer

White Widow feminized autoflowers are one of the most popular strains because it is a very strong plant that is suitable for both beginners and advanced marijuana growers. The yields are always very high and of good quality. Also among medical users it is one of the most popular strains. The seeds will only produce female plants that will not focus on the creation of seeds for reproduction but only on the creation of THC.

For tips on how to grow autoflower marijuana seeds you have to download my free grow guide at this link. Make sure to order some some high quality marijuana seeds at this link here. We ship seeds to the US, CA and many other countries.