The purpose of this page is to explain a few simple things that you must know to grow cannabis. We don't pretend to be exhaustive, we wanna just avoid to the novices (and there are a lot) the most common errors. After all, our success depends by yours. If you have already grown cannabis before, and had success, you can still read this page but its utility will be limited. If you are an expert, please understand that we have to compress information in one page, and this means that sometime the accuracy had to become simplicity.

GERMINATION

To germinate the seeds in the correct way you will need 2 basic things: you have to keep the medium humid, and the temperature in the  range of 18-27° centigrades, being the ideal temperature 24°. If you grow in soil, you can germinate the seeds directly in it: insert the seed  about 0.5 cm deep, make the soil wet and cover the top of the vase with a plastic film to keep the environment nicely moist. If you grow in hydro, you can germinate directly into the rockwool after the necessary preparation.  The seeds should germinate in 2-10 days. Remove the plastic cover immediately. You can also  germinate the seeds into  some cotton, into specific gel discs, between 2 paper napkins etc.

VEGETATION

Most of the strains require that every young plant grows  for 3-4 weeks at least before it can flower. In this stage, that normally happens in april-july in outdoor the plants answer to the short nights accelerating its grow: for this reason in indoor we give 18 hours of light and 6 of dark. About the nutrients, in this stage it's common a great need of nitrogen. When the young plant reaches 20 cm or is 1 month old, the flowering can start. A longer vegetation however will give much bigger harvests.

FLOWERING

When the nights are long enough (end of july) the plant react starting its flowering phase. In indoor we can provoke the flowering passing to 12 hours of light alternate with 12 of total dark. Since that day you can start to count the number of days that is proper of the strain that you are growing: if you read on its description flowering 8 weeks it means that approx. after 56 days they will be ready to be harvested.   Female pistils will start to appear on the plant in 7-14 days. About the nutrients the plant will eat more phosphorus and potassium.

MALE AND FEMALE

 The marijuana is the dried female flower (not pollinated) of the plant of cannabis: once arrived to this stage is important to distinguish male and female so you can destroy the males and finish the flowering with the females. The male at this stage develops balls, while the female shows a couple of white pistils for each calix. To clarify this, we have prepared a picture. This picture shows an example of male and female flowers, in a really early stage, within 2 days since their appereance.

HARVESTING

After 6-11 weeks, depending by the strain, it's the moment to harvest. You can recognize the moment when the buds are fully riped looking carefully at the pistils, about 3/4 of them should be brownish. Or to be more  precise, you can use a magnifier, the best moment is when the resin start to loose its transparency and become darker. Cut the plants at their base and take away all the big leaves. Now cut all the little leaves without resin around the buds. Now you can let them dry in a dry, fresh and well aerated place. hang the plants upside down, and provide a good circulation of the air around them. The plant will start to be fully dried in 5-7 day. However, it shouldn't be used before 20 days. Most of the strains give their best after 40 days after the harvest.

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