WE HAVE UPDATED THIS CANNABIS GROWING MANUAL, CLICK “START HERE” IF YOU WANT TO VIEW THE NEW VERSION, THANKS FOR VISITING AND HAPPY GROWING.
WE HAVE UPDATED THIS CANNABIS GROWING MANUAL, CLICK “START HERE” IF YOU WANT TO VIEW THE NEW VERSION, THANKS FOR VISITING AND HAPPY GROWING.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Thunderdome! So you’ve finally decided to take the leap and grow your own cannabis and if you’re reading this Cannabis Growing Manual, you probably have no idea what you are doing. And thats ok! Gone are the days of meeting your dealer behind dark sketchy strip malls hoping they didn’t fill the bag with shake or worrying that their 10 year old scale is anywhere near accurate. We are here to take you by the hand and guide you through the darkness so that you can grow dank buds and be your own green thumb.
Recommented Items You Need
• Grow space (Tent/Enclosure/Room)
• Lighting
• Fans
• Nutrients
• Testers – PPM and PH handheld testers
• Premium buffering solution
• Measuring containers (syringes)
• Mixing buckets
• Pots and trays
• Growing medium (Soil/soilless )
• Seeds vs Clones
• Trimming/pruning tools
GROWING INDOOR VS OUTDOOR
The main difference between indoor vs outdoor growing is being able to fully control your environment. Indoor growing has a bit of a learning curve but nothing you can’t handle. When growing outdoors you have to work with the different weather changes and this can hurt the quality and yield of your cannabis. In this Cannabis Growing Manual, we will be covering indoor growing only, but most of the information in this manual will work for outdoor growing.
GROWING BASICS
Ok you have the Cannabis Growing Manual, now you need the space to start growing all this premo shit. This is not an end all be all growing book made by some super smart scientists.
Those books suck to read anyway so you can thank me later. If you follow our guidelines you are going to have a personal stock of some of the finest green a basement can provide. Something to show off to your friends and feel proud about! These are the basics, by no means do you need to confine yourself to this.
VENTILATION AND CIRCULATION
Regardless of where you are growing your plants they need to be able to breathe. Without ventilation your plants are going to be starved of oxygen and either die or give you a less then ideal yield. Think of the great outdoors. There is always a source of wind or airflow. If you are growing your plants inside they are not getting that airflow and are sitting stagnant. We want to mimic natural air flow. Based on the size of your grow op will determine how much air flow you need. Here are the basics.
The plants will need one air source blowing across the canopy. You don’t want to point your fans at the plants, but allow the air around your plants to be moved. Clip on, desk fans, or floor fans are acceptable.
If you are using a tent or confined space you will need to bring air in from an outside source. No, I am not talking about running pipes outside your dwelling, simply bring in air from outside the tent or space you are growing in if it is not out in the open. The tents will have vents so bringing in the air is easy. In your tent you should have a carbon filter with an inline air fan forcing air out of the tent through one of the pre made holes.
With a 4×4 tent you would want a 6 inch inline fan with a 6 inch carbon filter. If you are using a 2×2 tent, a 4 inch inline fan with a 4 inch carbon filter will work. You will need some flexible uninsulated metallic ducting which you can get from your local home improvement store along with three stainless steel duct clamps.
You are going to be connecting the carbon filter to part of the ducting that will be attached to the inline fan and then another piece of ducting from the inline fan, out one of the pre made holes of your tent. Always match up the same size ducting as the carbon filter/inline fan.
LIGHTING
We all have Benjamin Franklin to thank for this one. Without him we would all be left to grow outside and if you are from the Great White North you have to deal with sub zero temperatures half the year. Less than ideal when it comes to becoming the next El Chapo.
Artificial light is preferred and much more consistent because you have the ability to control the quality and duration of light your plants are getting. This method is recommended because you have complete control of the light source. Your standard house lights are not going to cut it for this one, you will need to bring in some actual lighting to get the best results.
This may mean CFL, CMH, HPS/MH or LED. No I am not making this up, there really are many different types of lights however this is not an english class and we’re not here to recite the entire alphabet to you. Our recommendation, go out and get some LED lights catered for horticultural growing. They will be low energy, costing less in hydro and don’t produce much heat with similar performance to HPS/MH lighting. (HPS/MH has been the standard for indoor growing applications before LED became popular). LED lights can be found on Amazon, Ebay or local growing stores. Depending on your size of grow, it will determine the quality/quantity of lights you will need.
HOW TO DETERMINE LIGHT SIZE
No one said there was going to be any math?! Don’t worry, pull out your phone, there’s a calculator. First you will need the square footage of your grow. Either pace it out with your feet or grab a tape measure. For example, if you are doing a four plant grow, your measurements will be roughly one square foot per plant.
Pro Tip: We HIGHLY recommend investing in a grow tent. It is going to provide you with much more consistency during the length of your grow. More consistency means bigger plants and bigger plants means more bud for you.
Based on the size of your grow you will need to refer to the PPF, input watts and PPFD maps/coverage area. How are you going to do this? Light manufactures will list the PPF, input watts and PPFD maps/coverage area necessary for your grow space. If they are not listed, ask the light manufacturer to provide these metrics.
You confused yet? Yeah me too. Easiest way to choose a light is first determine the size of your grow, then contact a light manufacturer and they will help you determine which lights you need to cover the area properly. Just make sure it is an LED horticultural growing light.
Once you have your lights and your tent set up your plants will require 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness. At this point you could turn off the lights manually every 18 hours, but to ensure a consistent grow every time you will want to use a 24 Hour Mechanical Timer.
Plug your lights in, and only your lights, into the timer and set for 18 hours of light. This setting is only for the initial stages of your grow (Vegging stage) and will be changed later on once you move into flowering stage. More on that later in the manual.
Well we have lights and a space to grow… what now?
WHAT POTS TO USE?
Now you are going to set this room up like a regular Martha Stewart.
If you are doing a single plant then one of each pot size will work. Two plant grow and you will need two of every pot size. If you are doing a three plant grow then you will need three of every pot size. I feel like you are getting the idea here. The small pots should be around two inches wide by two inches deep. These will be used for your seeds until they are seedlings.
What pots will you need?
Small pots: 2” wide, 2” deep
Medium pots: 6” wide, 6” deep
Large pots: 12” wide, 12” deep
Pro tip: The medium pots should be 6 inches across by 6 inches deep. Once the seedlings have a good root system, typically around three weeks, they will be moved into the medium pots. Some people may go directly to the large pots but with a small plant in a large pot of growing medium there will be excess water absorbed by the medium instead of the plant. Stagnant water means mold and mold means you have problems. This extra step with the medium pots reduces the risk.
For the large pots aim for something that is roughly 12 inches wide by 12 inches deep. Keep in mind, if your pots are slightly different sizes then what we have listed thats fine too. If your pots are within one or two inches of our guidelines they will still give you the same effect on your grow.
But wait there’s more! You will also need trays for the pots to allow the plant to drain off the excess water. Whatever size of pot you are using the tray has to be larger. So if your largest pot is a 12 inch wide pot then your tray should allow for at least two inches of space between all edges of the pot and the sides of the tray. If you get crafty you can even get one large hydroponic flood tray to fit the entire tent. The pots will also need to be off of the ground which can be achieved by getting pot elevators.
GROWING MEDIUM (Coco Coir)
Our recommendation is a soilless growing medium such as Coco Coir. It retains moisture and is one of the most effective growing mediums in terms of water retention. This means your plants are not going to get dehydrated because it can absorb 10 times its weight in water.
The other option would be to use soil which you can get from any local gardening stores or go outside and dig up some dirt. Again, we highly recommend going with Coco Coir opposed to soil, if you are bringing dirt into your house you have a higher chance of bringing bugs with it. And guess what, bugs like eating plants, so this is a bad combination. Our guideline to support a 4 plant grow is to get yourself two, twenty pound bags of Coco to start.
NUTRIENTS
Nutrients are probably the most complicated part of choosing what you need for growing but it will be the most influential on the quality of your plants. Imagine trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube except you don’t actually have any clue what a Rubik’s Cube is. (I’m sorry if you don’t actually know what it is, Google it).
Lucky for you we have a solution to get you through these troubling times. Go out and get yourself a nutrients kit. For example CYCO Platinum Series PROKIT. This will come with nutrients for the Veg stage, the Flower stage and will even include a chart to guide you on what to use during each week of your grow. Inside the kit it will instruct you on how many millilitres of nutrient to use per litre of water. This part of growing is pretty complicated to figure out by yourself, and purchasing a kit when starting out keeps you focused on growing instead. There are many range of choices in fertilizers and additives to choose from, and a visit to your local hydroponic store will get you all sorted out.
Pro Tip: you can reduce the recommended millilitres of your kit allowing it to last longer but this process needs to be monitored by a TDS tester so you will know if you need to add more or less of any nutrients. Eventually you’ll understand if you’re able to cut down your nutrients or need to add more by just simply looking at the plants.
WATER SUPPLY ( Reverse Osmosis Water)
There are three main options: tap water, spring water or reverse osmosis water. Reverse osmosis is the best option because there are no contaminants in the the water. Spring water is the second best option, tap water is the least recommended option but still better than the water from the pond down the road from your house. Controlling your water source gives you better control of the quality of your product.
If you are using reverse osmosis you NEED added nutrients because there is absolutely nothing in the water. If you use other sources of water there will be some kind of minerals already in it, therefore you always want to know what’s in your water source to estimate what you need to add. With all that being said, you can use any water supply you have access to, this is just a recommendation to get the best possible quality from your plants.
PH AND TDS TESTERS
This is what you will need to ensure the quality and potency of your nutrients and water supply. I am not a botanist and I am going to assume you are not either if you are reading this Cannabis Growing Manual. These testers will make sure you are giving your plants exactly what they need to grow big and strong. Think about Popeye when he downs a can of spinach, your plants are Popeye and all these nutrients are the spinach.
PH Testers (Potential of Hydrogen)
You can find plenty of PH testers online for a range of prices. A word of advice, you get what you pay for. Best bet is to spend a little more money and get a quality PH tester. You can find them online for $10CAD or $100CAD. Our recommendation, aim for the $50CAD mark to get a good quality tester. You will need either PH UP solution or PH DOWN solution depending on the water source.
Please note, that you should do this test AFTER you mix your nutrients in the water. You can test before mixing to track water conditions but it’s important to remember that nutrients will change your ph levels.
You need to be around 5.5 PH to 5.8 PH in Coco Coir, aim for 6.0 PH to 6.5 PH if you are growing in soil. So do a little measurement of your water mixed with nutrients to determine if you need PH UP or PH DOWN to get your PH levels where they should be.
For the proper storage of your PH meter you will need a bottle of Electrode Storage Solution and a bottle of PH BUFFER #7 for calibrating your PH Meter.
TDS Testers (Total Dissolved Solids)
For your TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) tester use the same price point idea as mentioned above to ensure you get a good tool for the job. Your TDS Tester will ensure you are using the proper mixture of nutrients for your plant. For PPM (Parts Per Million) use the tester to check your water source BEFORE mixing nutrients to determine how much of your nutrients you are going to use.
Reverse osmosis will have a very small reading for PPM so you will need to use more nutrients. Tap water will have a very high PPM so you will not want to mix as much of your nutrients. Think of it like this, if your water has around 50PPM before you mix any nutrients that is considered a low PPM reading. Once you mix in your nutrients you will want to have a reading that is proper for your grow stage. When mixed too strong you’ll get nutrient burns on the leaves.
Note : Adding PH solution also increases PPM.
For your PPM tester you will need a bottle of PPM TDS Calibration Solution. This will allow you to keep your tester calibrated and working correctly.
NUTRIENT MIXTURE GUIDELINE
Clones/Seedlings stay around 600ppm
Vegging stay around 800ppm (unless very large go up to 1000ppm)
Flowering stay around 1000ppm (max 1200ppm)
GETTING STARTED GROWING INDOORS
Ladies and gentlemen it is time. You are sitting there with your grow tent, enough fans to film a fancy hair commercial, a box of nutrients and some high tech testers to make sure you don’t over feed or starve your plants… now what? Now we grow.
You will need seeds or clones.
For the purpose of this growing manual we will focus on seeds.
If you are starting with clones skip ahead a few pages until we start talking about how to take care of your plants in their infancy.
So get some seeds, it might not be legal in your area however where we are from you can buy them online. More specifically in Canada, we can buy our seeds online from the Government! In this Cannabis Growing Manual we will be using Photoperiod Feminized Seeds.
HOW TO GERMINATE SEEDS
Once you have your seeds, wet a few paper towels, put your seed in and wrap it in the paper towel. Not so wet that your paper towel is dripping water or pooling but moist enough that it will stay damp for a few days. It needs to sit in a dark place that is room temperature. Think kitchen cabinet or something similar.
After about a day the seed will crack open and start sprouting.
Once the sprout is 3/4 of an inch long get one of your 2×2 pots, fill it with your growing medium (Coco Coir) and create a hole roughly the size of a pencil and about an inch into the growing medium. Before making the hole, wet the growing medium with water. Thoroughly enough that you see water coming out of the bottom of the pot (if using a larger pot, only water the centre where the seed will be located) Drop your seed in the hole with the sprout towards the ground and the seed towards the sky. Sprinkle a small amount of growing medium into the hole to cover up the sprouting seed.
VEGETATIVE STAGE
This next part is about as exciting as watching paint dry. The seeds are planted and now you have to wait until your sprouts break through the soil. It takes about 5 days for your little babies to come out while under a light. Set the lights to 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness.
Under 18 hours of light your plants will grow, but will not flower. You will run this light cycle until you are ready to flower, at that point changing the light cycle.
HOW TO WATER YOUR PLANTS
A lot of information online will give you dates and times when you should be watering your plants. The issue with this is different areas will have different climates. For instance, if you are somewhere with a dry climate or you are running air conditioning then your plant would dry out at a much faster rate than someone growing in a high humidity area.
Ideally you should be checking your plants daily based on the weight and the colour of your growing medium. Basically if you are picking your plants up every day you will begin to notice when they become lighter as the water is being used up. Combine this with looking at the colour of the Coco Coir. When you first water them it will turn a dark brown, when it begins to dry up and use the water up it will go back to light brown in colour.
It’s better to do more smaller waterings, until the plants grows large roots. If your roots aren’t mature, you will easily overwater the plants and the water will become stagnant if the plant can’t use it up within days. Once your roots are mature and overgrown, you can water heavier. When watering correctly your leaves will be nice and perky. If overwatered, they will droop and may even produce spotting if you end up with root rot.
WATERING STEPS TO PERFECT PLANTS: Water the middles of plants until the root system is big enough. Then you can flood the pots, allowing the coco to become totally hydrated, and after that water daily at maximum 20% of pot size. PRO TIP: If you’re able to setup something automated then you can split the 20% into 2 or 3 waterings.
HOW TO DETERMINE WATERING SIZE. If you used 12 L pot with a watering of 17% daily, it would equal 2.04 L per day after fully hydrating coco.
12 x 0.17 = 2.04
If grow is automated, you could water twice daily at 1.02 L.
Continue to check your plants daily and repeat this watering process until your plants are a foot tall. This is making sure the roots are growing. When the plant is sucking up the water in a day it should have a strong root system that will be ready to move into a larger container.
TRIMMING PLANTS
As your plants are growing you want to continuously trim them by getting rid of some of the branches and leaves that are not going to give you a a good yield when its time to harvest. Meaning the very bottom branches or ones that are stunted and smaller than the rest. The whole plant should look even and tidy instead of a bushy mess.
This also ensures all of your branches, even the lower ones, are getting proper light which will give you healthier plants with more buds. Best practice is to make sure your plant is growing evenly throughout the whole tree and not an overgrown mess. Think a landing strip vs a mullet from the 1970s. Nobody likes a messy bush.
TRANSPLANTING PLANTS
Once your plants are consuming water daily and are a foot tall you will be transplanting them from the 2×2 pots into the 6×6 pots. Start by filling roughly half of your 6×6 pots with Coco. Transfer the Coco and your plants from the 2×2 by removing the pots, putting the plant in the 6×6 pot and then fill the remaining area with more Coco. Do not fill to the brim of the pot as you will need a little bit of room when watering.
Repeat the same watering process in your 6×6 pots until your plants are 2 feet tall. At this point you can transplant your plants into the large 12×12 pots where they will remain for the rest of your grow.
The goal of transplanting your plants into larger pots is to keep increasing their size. In theory, you can keep repeating this to grow some pretty monstrous trees however the choice is up to you how big you want them to get. The larger the plant, the larger the yeild.
Once the plants are in the 12×12 pot, keep the same watering process. However, the goal here is not to have your plant grow to the point that they out grow your space.
We want the plants to get 4 to 5 feet in height and when you are at this point you are now ready to flower!
FLOWERING STAGE
At this point your plant is used to 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness every day. In order to initiate flowering you will be changing the light cycle to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. Adjust your timer accordingly. Flowering will take 8 to 9 weeks with most strains however depending what strain you are growing will determine how long you flower your plants for. When you purchase seeds the seller or packaging will tell you how long to flower for.
For watering, follow the same watering procedure found in our How to Water Your Plants section except this time you will not be transplanting your plants into any new pots. They will remain in the 12×12 pots. At this point you do not need to trim any branches on the plant as this should have been done throughout the vegetation stage. If you have leaves that are dying or discoloured you can still remove them during the flowering stage. You don’t want to disturb the plants too much in flowering as this can stunt growth and affect yields. Maintaining a healthy canopy is important but major cutting/removing should be done in vegging and minor canopy clean up in Flower.
Once the flowering stage is complete (8 to 9 weeks or when your seed company recommends) you will be ready to harvest.
PRE HARVEST AND HARVESTING
Lets not jump the gun here, this isn’t your average rodeo. Before you can get to cutting up your plants there is some major prep work that needs to happen to make your life a whole lot easier. This section we will be covering what you need to properly cut, dry and store your crop.
Pre Harvest
Ok lets get you situated. You are going to need:
- Rope or some other form of fastener to secure the plant from the top of the tent.
- Food grade buckets (one bucket per plant is recommended if you are using 5 gallon buckets)
- Scissors/trimmers. You should sterilize these before hand, no one wants to catch Corona Virus from your weed.
- Rubber gloves. Not necessary but your hands are going to thank you.
- Proper space to hang and dry your plants. You can simply hang your plants from the roof of your grow tent for this stage if you are not starting another grow immediately.
If you are hanging your plants inside your tent you can begin to trim your buds while they hang. If this is your first day harvesting and you don’t have anyone to help, plan to spend the whole day invested to harvesting your plants.
Harvesting
At this point your plants should be around 4-5 feet tall, smelling pretty dank, and developing some pretty vivid colours. They will be covered in crystals called trichomes and look frosty like the snowman.
Now its time to get out the sheers and remove your babies from their homes. We are going to cut the stock of the plant 2 inches from the bottom branches. This will give you enough space to tie rope or any other fastener to the bottom of the plant and then hang it upside down to the ceiling of your grow tent. Here they will hang to dry until they are ready to be portioned and stored.
Important tip! At this point when your plants are upside down to dry, turn off your fans and lights so they do not ruin the plants! You want to dry your plants in total darkness if you can, and fans will dry it out too fast, blowing off your trichomes.
In the harvesting stage, there are two main components; the first is Drying and the second is Curing. Currently you have your plants hanging upside down in your tent to dry. The drying stage will take about 12 days depending on your climate.
Check your plants by gently bending a smaller branch and listening for a crack or snap to help you determine when the plants are ready to be cut up and put into storage. If the branch is not dry and it just bends, the plants are still not dry enough. This will take some trial and error on your part however think a fresh potato chip vs a stale french fry. We want these things to snap like a chip. Once your plants are snapping like Rice Krispies you are ready to cut them up for storage and curing.
Now it is time to put on your rubber gloves, grab your scissors and cut your plants into sections.
First you must remove all your fan leaves. These are the full leaves with no bud on them which will not get you high like bud will, but you can save them to make edibles. Keep in mind these leaves smell pretty potent so if you have nosey neighbours you might want to plan how to get rid of them in a more discrete manner.
Once your leaves are removed you can begin to section off your buds. You can either cut them completely off the branch or leave some branch sections in tact to speed up the process. As you can see in the picture, some branches are still attached to the buds. As you are doing this simply begin to fill up your 5 gallon buckets with your buds.
Once your plants are completely trimmed of usable bud and your buckets are full you are ready for the curing stage.
CURING AND STORING
Make sure your buckets come with a sealable lid! if they do not, get ones that do. It is best to store your buckets in a cool, dry spot, preferably out of the sunlight and away from anything or anyone that could get into them. For the curing process you will need to store your harvested buds for a minimum of 2 weeks but you can always let it cure for longer.
For the first 2 weeks you must also break the seal on the lids or “burp” it to ensure proper curing. This is as easy as removing the lid once a day for maximum 15 minutes. After you do this daily for 2 weeks your crop is ready to be used!
ProTip: Keep your buds at 55% humidity while curing/storing to ensure they don’t turn brown and dry out completely. If they are loosing humidity you could throw in a humidity pack to keep your buds hydrated. Just don’t eat or smoke the humidity pack!
We did it! We have made it through all the ups and downs of being your very own Dr. Green Thumb. Now don’t think you’re a professional quite yet. This takes time and effort to perfect but once you do you are going to be the envy of all of your friends. Now get out there and grow something!
SEED TO FINISH IN 2 MINUTES
Super easy to follow summary video of what we went through in this Cannabis Growing Manual on youtube.
