If you’re looking into planting cannabis indoors, there are a few things you’ll need to check before you dive, hands-first, into the soil. For one, if you live in an area of the country where cannabis is still illegal, sorry to say, you can’t grow cannabis in your home. But keep checking back on your local legislation! Cannabis laws have gone through many changes in recent years and will continue to change.
If you’re one of the lucky few (or many) living in a state where recreational and medical cannabis is legal, you’re in luck! You may even have a few plants in your possession or some seeds you’re eager to plant.
If planting cannabis indoors is top of mind for you this coming spring, we’ve got the perfect solution for getting the most yield out of your crop and managing any odor that might result as your plants mature.
Managing Odor from Growing Cannabis
Before you pull out the gardening gloves and grow lights, it’s important to first understand how you’re going to manage the odor. Whether you’re smoking, baking, or dabbing, cannabis leaves produce a distinct stink thanks to the hundreds and thousands of oils and terpenes.
To manage the inevitable cannabis odor in your home, you can turn to Cannabolish as a natural and easy-to-use solution for absorbing the unique stink of cannabis plants. Simply light an odor removing candle in your home. You’ll be amazed at the power of Cannabolish’s proprietary, plant-based formula.
A word of caution, Cannabolish odor absorbing spray should not be used near cannabis or cannabis plants as it could possibly alter the flavor and scent profile of its leaves. If you want to use the spray solution, make sure you’re designating it to rooms that do not hold your plants.
Can You Grow Cannabis Indoors?
Whether you can or cannot grow cannabis indoors depends largely on the cannabis laws in your state. There are currently 19 states, as well as Guam, in which recreational weed is legal. That is not to say that growing cannabis indoors, however, is legal in all of those states. For the states that do allow residents to grow and harvest their own plants, the laws vary.
For instance, the City of Sacramento, California has a law that states, “Under Prop. 64, residents can grow up to 6 plants in their household, subject to the approval and/or conditions set by their local jurisdiction.” Another state in which planting cannabis indoors is legal is Illinois. The caveat for doing so in the land of Lincoln is that it’s limited to medical marijuana users only. In this case, those patients can grow up to five plants at one time. Across the lake in Michigan, growing cannabis indoors is allowed for residents over 21 years old with the number of plants capped at 12.
Consideration Points to Growing Cannabis Indoors
Simply put, it’s complicated and your first attempt at cultivating and growing your own plants may not go as planned. But there are some easy steps you can follow and basic tools you can gather to get started.
Understanding whether or not you’re legally allowed to grow cannabis indoors is one thing, but learning all about the science or rather how to grow cannabis indoors is another thing entirely.
Lighting
Believe it or not, the type of light you choose is very important. From LED to halide to fluorescent lights, there are pros and cons to each type so ensure that you do your homework. HIDs are used throughout the industry, according to Leafly, but fluorescent lights work, too, in small-scale operations.
Also, make sure you are aware of how expensive the electricity bill will be as cannabis plants require nearly 20 hours of light per day. Additionally, if you are growing the cannabis plant from the seedling and germination stage, ensure you have a grow light that is no more than 30 inches away from the container.
Climate
Ensuring the climate of the indoor space is controlled is an important aspect of growing cannabis inside. Controlling the climate includes the temperature, airflow, and humidity levels. Even if you purchase a climate-controlled greenhouse, the climate outside of the greenhouse can even affect how your plants grow and flower.
Temperature is important to cannabis plants in their vegetative and budding states as well as in their flowering stage. Usually, the plants prefer a high temperature (between 75 and 85) when seedlings, 65 to 80°F in the vegetative growth stage, and, in the flowering stage, the baseline temperature is the same at 65° but the cap is around 85°.
Besides keeping the temperature in check, another aspect of the climate that needs to be addressed is the humidity levels. Because cooler and drier conditions are best for growing cannabis indoors, it might be prudent to have a dehumidifier — or a humidifier — on hand, depending on the humidity of your growing room. When the plants are in the growing or seedling stage, humidity should be at its highest (think 50-70%), whereas during the vegetative stage and the flowering stage, aim for a humidity level around 40% to 60% and 30-50%, respectively.
Soil and Container
Once the lighting and the climate conditions are squared away, the next matter at hand is the soil and the container. The size of the cannabis plants, as well as the type of plant, determines the type of soil you’ll use as well as the make of the container.
Container material can range anywhere from plastic to cloth bags to containers designed specifically to get airflow to the plant’s roots. Whether you’re growing monstera deliciosa or cannabis, healthy roots will help produce a healthy plant. Once you’ve established the right container for your operation, you next need to consider the soil.
Soils come in many different consistencies with different nutrients. Palms, for instance, require soils rich in magnesium. Succulents require an almost sand-like soil that wicks moisture. But, what is the best soil for indoor pot-growing?
While cannabis is a relatively resilient plant, it requires rich soil and there are two ways new growers can go about this. Growers can either purchase high-quality, organic potting soil from a local nursery or hardware store and nourish the soil with liquid nutrients, or, they can purchase worm castings and manually mix that into the soil a few weeks prior to planting.
Whatever method you choose, remember that cannabis requires nutrient-rich soils to get through the growing stage. But, until you plant your seeds and watch your plants grow you won’t know exactly what they need to thrive. You may find that your particular plants do well with a little orchid bark mixed into the soil to compensate for dry air. Or maybe your plants do better with a little bit of perlite to prevent over-watering. The key to growing any plant is a little bit of observation and a lot of patience.
Watering
Although weed plants are fairly autonomous, they do still need to be checked every few days — most people will do a spot check every day. When it comes to watering, like with any plant, you want to avoid overwatering. If you’re a new grower, try marking your watering days on a physical calendar that you can see. During your daily spot checks, you’ll quickly learn what watering schedule works best for your plants as you watch their progress or decline based on how much or how little you’re watering.
There are some rules of thumb new growers can apply to their cannabis watering schedule. For instance, in the seedling stage, the plants can go up to 7 days without being watered. In the vegetative stage plants can be watered every two to four days, and every two to three days in the flowering stage.
If you are starting from the germination stage, after buying the seeds from a cannabis dispensary or a seed bank company, plant the 12- to 24-hour soaked seedlings and then take good care and consideration of the seed as it should sprout in about two weeks.
Physically recording your watering days will also help you learn more about how your soil absorbs the water. If you find the soil remains wet longer than it should, you may have created a mixture with too little perlite or succulent mix. On the other hand, if your soil is dry almost immediately after watering, you may have a mixture that’s too coarse. While it’s very convenient to learn about cannabis at a place like your local dispensary, you can gain an even deeper understanding of this amazing plant once you grow it for yourself and your own personal use. It might even spark ideas for other projects like making your own salve or creating an endless supply of cannabutter.
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