Marijuana
For sale
Marijuana
Seeds
This is a guide that I pulled off the net that puts everything in plain and simple english, and doesn't go to deep into advanced botony and gardening. I find this one to be the best guide out there.
Indoor Marijuana Cultivation
Introduction:
Growing marijuana indoors is fast becoming an American Pastime. The reasons are varied. With the increased interest and experimentation in house plant cultivation, it was inevitable that people would apply their knowledge of plant care to growing marijuana. Many of those who occasionally like to light up a joint may find it difficult to locate a source or are hesitant to deal with a perhaps unsavory element of society in procuring their grass. There is, of course, the criminal aspect of buying or selling grass; Growing marijuana is just as illegal as buying, selling, or smoking it, but growing is something you can do in the privacy of your own home without having to deal with someone you don't know or trust. The best reason for growing your own is the enjoyment you will get out of watching those tiny little seeds you picked out of you stash sprout and become some of the most lovely and lush of all house plants.
Anyone Can Do It
Even if you haven't had any prior experience with growing plants in you home, you can have a successful crop of marijuana by following the simple directions in this pamphlet. If you have had problems in the past with marijuana cultivation, you may find the solutions in the following chapters. Growing a marijuana plant involves four basic steps:
1. Get the seeds. If you don't already have some, you can ask your friends to save you seeds out of any good grass they may come across. You'll find that lots of people already have a seed collection of some sort and are willing to part with a few prime seeds in exchange for some of the finished product.
2. Germinate the seeds. You can simply drop a seed into moist soil, but by germinating the seeds first you can be sure that the seed will indeed produce a plant. To germinate seeds, place a group of them between about six moist paper towels, or in the pores of a moist sponge. Leave the towels or sponge moist but not soaking wet. Some seeds will germinate in 24 hours while others may take several days or even a week.
3. Plant the sprouts. As soon as a seed cracks open and begins to sprout, place it on some moist soil and sprinkle a little soil over the top of it.
4. Supply the plants with light. Flourescent lights are the best. Hang the lights with two inches of the soil and after the plants appear above the ground, continue to keep the lights with two inches of the plants. It is as easy as that. If you follow those four steps you will grow a marijuana plant. To ensure prime quality and the highest yield in the shortest time period, however, a few details are necessary.
Soil
Your prime concern, after choosing high quality seeds,
is the soil. Use the best soil you can get. Scrimping
on the soil doesn't pay off in the long run. If you use
unsterilized soil you will almost certainly find parasites in it,
probably after it
is too late to transplant your marijuana. You can find excellent
soil for sale at your local plant shop or nursery, K-Mart,
Wal Mart, and even some grocery stores. The soil you use should have
these properties for the best possible results:
1. It should drain well. That is, it should
have some sand in it and also some sponge rock or pearlite.
2. The ph should be between 6.5 and 7.5 since
marijuana does not do well in acidic soil. High acidity in
soil encourages the plant to be predominantly male, an undesirable trait.
3. The soil should also contain humus for retaining
moisture and nutrients.
If you want to make your own soil mixture,
you can use this recipe: Mix two parts moss with
one part sand and one part pearlite or sponge rock to
each four gallons of soil. Test your soil for ph
with litmus paper or with a soil testing
kit
available at most plant stores. To raise the ph of the soil,
add 1/2 lb. lime to 1 cubic foot of soil to raise the ph one
point.
If you absolutely insist on using dirt you dug
up from your driveway, you must sterilize it by
baking it in your oven for about an hour at 250 degrees.
Be sure to moisten it thoroughly first and also prepare yourself
for a rapid evacuation of your
kitchen because that hot soil is going to stink. Now add
to the mixture about one tablespoon of fertilizer (like Rapid-Gro)
per gallon gallon of soil and blend it in thoroughly.
Better yet, just skip the whole process and spend a couple
bucks on some soil.
Containers
After you have prepared your soil, you will have
to come up with some kind of container to plant in. The container
should be sterilized as well, especially if they have been used previously
for growing other plants. The size of the container has a great
deal to do with the rate of growth and overall size of the plant.
You should plan on transplanting your plant not more
than one time, since the process of transplanting
can be a shock to the plant and it will have to
undergo a recovery period in which growth
is slowed or even stopped for a short while. The first
container you use should be no larger than six inches in diameter and
can be made of clay or plastic. To
transplant, simply prepare the larger pot by filling it with soil
and scooping out a little hole about the size of the smaller pot
that the plant is in. Turn the plant upside down, pot
and all, and tap the rim of the pot sharply on a counter or the edge of
the sink. The soil and root ball should come out
of the pot cleanly with the soil retaining the
shape of the pot and with no disturbances to the root
ball. Another method that can bypass the
transplanting
problem is using a Jiffy-Pot. Jiffy pots are made of compressed
peat moss and can be planted right into moist soil where
they decompose and allow the passage of the root system through their
walls. The second container should have a volume of
at least three gallons. Marijuana doesn't like to have its
roots bound or cramped for space, so always be sure that the container
you use will be deep enough for your plant's root system.
It is very difficult to transplant a five-foot
marijuana tree, so plan ahead. It is
going to get bigger. The small plants should be
ready to transplant into their permanent homes
in about two weeks. Keep a close watch on them
after the first week or so and avoid root binding at all costs since
the plants never seem to do as well once they have been
stunted by the cramping of their roots.
Fertilizer
Marijuana likes lots of food, but you
can do damage to the plants if you are too zealous. Some
fertilizers can burn a plant
and damage its roots if used in to high a concentration.
Most commercial soil will have enough nutrients in it to sustain
the
plant for about three weeks of growth so you don't need to worry
about feeding your plant until the end of the third week.
The most important thing to remember is to introduce the
fertilizer concentration to the plant gradually.
Start with a fairly diluted fertilizer solution
and gradually increase the dosage. There
are several good marijuana fertilizers on the commercial
market, two of which are Rapid-Gro and Eco-Grow. Rapid-Gro
has had widespread use in marijuana cultivation and is available
in most parts of the United States. Eco-Grow is
also especially good for marijuana since it contains an ingredient
that keeps the soil from becoming acid. Most fertilizers
cause a ph change in the soil. Adding fertilizer to the
soil almost always results in a more acidic ph.
As time goes on, the
amount of salts produced by the breakdown
of fertilizers in the soil causes the soil to become
increasingly acidic and eventually the concentration
of these salts in the soil will stunt the plant and cause browning
out of
the foliage. Also, as the plant gets older its roots become less
effective in bringing food to the leaves.
To avoid the
accumulation of these salts in your soil and to ensure that your
plant is getting all of the food it needs you can
begin leaf
feeding your plant at the age of about 1.5 months. Dissolve
the fertilizer in worm water and spray the mixture directly onto
the foliage. The leaves absorb the fertilizer into their
veins. If you want to continue to put fertilizer into
the soil as well as
leaf feeding, be sure not to overdose your plants.
Remember to increase the amount of food your
plant receives gradually. Marijuana seems to be able
to take as much fertilizer as you want to give it as long as it is
introduced over a period of time. During
the first three months or so, fertilize your plants every
few days. As the rate of foliage growth slows down in
the plant's preparation for blooming and seed production, the
fertilizer intake of the plant should be slowed down
as well. Never fertilize the plant just before you are
going to harvest it since the fertilizer will encourage foliage
production and slow down resin production.
A word here about the most organic of fertilizers:
worm castings. As you may know, worms are raised commercially
for sale to gardeners. The breeders put the worms
in organic compost mixtures and while the worms are reproducing
they eat the organic matter and expel some of the best marijuana
food around. After the worms have eaten all the organic
matter in the compost, they are removed and sold and
the remains are then sold as worm castings.
These castings are so rich that you can grow marijuana in straight
worm castings. This isn't really necessary however,
and it is somewhat impractical since the
castings are very expensive. If you can afford
them you can, however, blend them in with
your soil and they will make a very
good organic fertilizer.
Light
Without light, the plants cannot grow.
In the countries in which marijuana grows best, the sun is
the source of light. The
amount of light and the length of the growing season
in these countries results in huge tree-like plants.
In most parts of
North America, however, the sun is not generally intense
enough for long enough periods of time to produce the
same size and quality of plants that grow with ease in
Latin America and other tropical countries.
The answer to the problem of lack of sun, especially in the
winter months, shortness of the growing season, and other problems
is to grow indoor under simulated conditions. The rule
of thumb seems to be the more light, the better. In one experiment
we know of, eight eight-foot VHO Gro-Lux fixtures were used over
eight plants. The plants grew at an astonishing rate.
The lights had to be raised every day. There are many types
of artificial light and all of them do different
things to your plants. The common incandescent
light bulb emits some of the frequencies of light the
plant can use, but it also emits a high percentage of
far red and infra-red light which cause the plant to concentrate
its growth on the stem. This results in the plant stretching
toward the light bulb until it becomes so tall and
spindly that it just weakly topples over. There
are several brands of bulb type. One is the
incandescent plant spot light which emits higher amounts of
red and blue light than the common light bulb.
It is an improvement, but has it drawbacks. it is hot,
for example, and cannot be placed close to the
plants. Consequently, the plant has to stretch
upwards again and is in danger of becoming elongated and falling
over. The red bands of light seem to encourage
stem growth which is not desirable in growing marijuana.
the idea is to encourage foliage growth for obvious reasons.
Gro-Lux lights are probably the most common flourescent
plant lights. In our experience with them, they have
proven themselves to be extremely effective. They range
in size from one to eight feet in length so you can set up a growing
room in a closet or a warehouse. There are
two types of Gro-Lux lights: The standard
and the wide spectrum. They can be used in conjunction with
on another, but the wide spectrum lights are not sufficient on their
own. The wide spectrum lights were designed as a supplementary
light source and are cheaper than the standard lights. Wide
spectrum lights emit the same bands of light as the standard
but the standard emit higher concentrations of red and blue
bands that the plants need to grow. The wide
spectrum lights also emit infra-red, the effect of which on stem
growth we have already discussed. If you are planning
to grow on a large scale, you might
be interested to know that the regular
flourescent lamps and fixtures, the type
that are used in commercial lighting, work well
when used along with standard Gro- Lux lights. These commercial
lights are called cool whites, and are the cheapest of
the flourescent lights we have mentioned. They
emit as much blue light as the Gro-Lux standards and
the blue light is what the plants use in foliage growth.
Now we come to the question of intensity.
Both the standard and wide spectrum lamps come
in three intensities: regular output,
high output, and very high output. You can grow a nice
crop of plants under the regular output lamps and probably
be quite satisfied with our results. The difference in using
the HO or VHO lamps is the time it takes to grow a crop.
Under a VHO lamp, the plants grow at a rate that
is about three times the rate at which they grow
under the standard lamps. People have been
known to get a plant that is four feet tall in two months
under one of these lights. Under the VHO lights, one may have to
raise the lights every day which means a growth rate of ate least
two inches a day. The only drawback is the expense of
the VHO lamps and fixtures. The VHO lamps and fixtures
are almost twice the price of the standard. If you are interested
in our opinion, they are well worth it. Now that you
have your lights up, you might be curious about the amount
of light to give you plants per day. The maturation date of
your plants is dependent on how much light they receive per day.
The longer the dark period per day, the sooner the plant will bloom.
Generally speaking, the less dark per day
the better during the first six months of the
plant's life. The older the plant is before it blooms and
goes to seed, the better the grass will be.
After the plant is allowed to bloom,
its metabolic rate is slowed so that the
plant's quality does not increase with the age at the same
rate it did before it bloomed. The idea, then,
is to let the plant get as old as possible before allowing
it to mature so that the potency will be a high as possible
at the time of harvest. One relatively sure
way to keep your plants from blooming until you are ready
for them is to leave the lights on all the
time. Occasionally a plant will go ahead and bloom anyway,
but it is the exception rather than the rule.
If your plants receive 12 hours of light per day
they will probably mature in 2 to 2.5 months.
If they get 16 hours of light per day they will probably be blooming
in 3.5 to 4 months. With 18 hours of light per day, they
will flower in 4.5 to 5 months. Its a good idea to put your
lights on a timer to ensure that the amount of light
received each day remains constant. A "vacation" timer,
normally used to make it look like you are home while you are away,
works nicely and can be found at most hardware or discount
stores.
Energy
Emissions In Arbitrary Color Bands
40 Watt Flourescent Lamps
In Watts and Percent of Total Emissions
Daylight Cool White
Gro-Lux GroLux WS
Light Type
Band Watts
% Watt
% Watt
% Watt
%
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
Ultra-Violet
-380 0.186 2.15
0.16 1.68 0.10
1.42 0.27 3.16
Violet 380-430 0.832 9.60 0.72 7.57 0.70 9.67 1.07 12.48
Blue 430-490 2.418 27.91 1.98 20.78 1.96 27.07 1.22 14.29
Green 490-560 2.372 27.38 2.35 24.67 1.02 14.02 1.24 14.49
Yellow 560-590 1.259 14.53 1.74 18.27 0.10 1.42 0.83 9.77
Orange 590-630 1.144 13.21 1.69 17.75 0.44 6.05 1.36 15.93
Red 630-700 0.452 6.22 0.81 8.47 2.86 39.55 1.86 21.78
Far Red
700-780 0.130 1.53
0.07 0.81 0.06
0.80 0.69
8.10
==================== =========== ========== ==========
==========
Total
8.890 100.0 9.52
100.0 7.24 100.0
8.54 100.0
Temperature and Humidity
The ideal temperature for the light hours is 68 to 78 degrees fahrenheit and for the dark hours there should be about a 15 degree drop in temperature. The growing room should be relatively dry if possible. What you want is a resinous coating on the leaves and to get the plant to do this, you must convince it that it needs the resinous coating on its leaves to protect itself from drying out. In an extremely humid room, the plants develop wide leaves and do not produce as much resin. You must take care not to let the temperature in a dry room become too hot, however, since the plant cannot assimilate water fast enough through its roots and its foliage will begin to brown out.
Ventilation
Proper ventilation in your growing room is fairly important. The more plants you have in one room, the more important good ventilation becomes. Plants breathe through their leaves. The also rid themselves of poisons through their leaves. If proper ventilation is not maintained, the pores of the leaves will become clogged and the leaves will die. If there is a free movement of air, the poisons can evaporate off the leaves and the plant can breathe and remain healthy.
In a small closet where there are only a few plants you can probably create enough air circulation just by opening the door to look at them. Although it is possible to grow healthy looking plants in poorly ventilated rooms, they would be larger and healthier if they had a fresh supply of air coming in. If you spend a lot of time in your growing room, your plants will grow better because they will be using the carbon dioxide that you are exhaling around them. It is sometimes quite difficult to get a fresh supply of air in to your growing room because your room is usually hidden away in a secret corner of your house, possibly in the attic or basement. In this case, a fan will create some movement of air. It will also stimulate your plants into growing a healthier and sturdier stalk. Often times in an indoor environment, the stems of plants fail to become rigid because they don't have to cope with elements of wind and rain. To a degree, though, this is an advantage because the plant puts most of its energy into producing leaves and resin instead of stems.
Dehumidifying Your Growing Room
Cannabis that grows in a hot, dry climate will have narrower leaves than cannabis grown in a humid atmosphere. The reason is that in a dry atmosphere the plant can respirate easier because the moisture on the leaves evaporates faster. In a humid atmosphere, the moisture cannot evaporate as fast. Consequently, the leaves have to be broader with more surface area in order to expel the wastes that the plant put out. Since the broad leaves produce less resin per leaf than the narrow there will be more resin in an ounce of narrow leaves than in one ounce of broad leaves. There may be more leaf mass in the broader leafed plants, but most people are growing their own for quality rather than quantity.
Since the resin in the marijuana plant serves the purpose of keeping the leaves from drying out, there is more apt to be a lot of resin produced in a dry room than in a humid one. In the Sears catalog, dehumidifiers cost around $100.00 and are therefore a bit impractical for the "hobby grower."
Watering
If you live near a clear mountain stream,
you can skip this bit on the quality of water. Most of
us are supplied water by the city and some cities add more chemicals
to the water than others. They all add chlorine,
however, in varying quantities. Humans over
the years have learned to either get rid of it somehow or to
live with it, but your marijuana plants won't have time to acquire
a taste for it so you had better see that they don't
have to. Chlorine will evaporate if you let the water
stand for 24 hours in an open container. Letting the
water stand for a day or two will serve a dual purpose:
The water will come to room temperature during that period
of time and you can avoid the nasty shock your plants suffer
when you drench them with cold water. Always water with
room temperature to lukewarm water. If your water has
an excessive amount of chlorine in it, you may want to get some anti-
chlorine drops at the local fish or pet store. The most important
thing about watering is to do it thoroughly. You
can water a plant in a three gallon container with as
much as three quarts of
water. The idea is to get the soil evenly moist all
the way to the bottom of the pot. If you use a
little water, even if you do
it often, it seeps just a short way down into the soil
and any roots below the moist soil will start to turn
upwards toward the water. The second most important
thing about watering is to see to it that the pot has good
drainage. There should be some holes in the bottom so
that any excess water will run out. If the pot
won't drain, the excess water will accumulate in a pocket and rot
the roots of the plant or simply make the soil sour or
mildew. The soil, as we said earlier, must allow the water
to drain evenly through it and must not become hard or packed.
If you have made sure that the soil contains sand and pearlite,
you shouldn't have drainage problems. To discover when
to water, feel the soil with your finger. if you feel moisture
in the soil, you can wait a day or two to water. The soil near
the top of the pot is always drier than the soil further
down. You can drown your plant just as easily
as you can let it get too dry and it is more likely
to survive a dry spell than it is to survive a
torrential flood. Water the plants well when you
water and don't water them at all when they don't need it.
Bugs
If you can avoid getting bugs in the first
place you will be much better off.
Once your plants become infested you will
probably be fighting bugs for the rest of your plants' lives.
To avoid bugs be sure to use sterilized soil and containers and don't
bring other plants from outside into your growing room.
If you have bets, ensure that they stay out of your growing
room, since they can bring in pests on
their fur. Examine your plants regularly
for signs of insects, spots, holes in the
leaves, browning of the tips of the leaves, and droopy branches.
If you find that somehow in spite of all your precautions
you have a plant room full of bugs, you'll
have to spray your plants with some kind of insecticide.
You'll want to use something that will kill the bugs and not you.
Spider mites are probably the bug that will do the most
damage to the marijuana plants. One of the
reasons is that they are almost microscopic and very hard to spot.
They are called spider mites because they
leave a web-like substance clinging to the leaves.
They also cause tiny little spots to appear on
the leaves. Probably the first thing you'll notice,
however, is that your plants look sick and depressed. The mites
suck enzymes from the leaves and as a result the leaves lose some
of their green color and glossiness. Sometimes the leaves
look like they have some kid of fungus on them. The eggs are very
tiny black dots. You might be wise to get a magnifying glass
so that you can really scrutinize your plants closely.
Be sure to examine the underside of the leaves too.
The mites will often be found clinging to the underside as well as
the top of the leaves. The sooner you start fighting
the bugs, the easier it will be to get rid of them.
For killing spider mites on marijuana, one of the best
insecticides if "Fruit and Berry" spray made by llers.
Ortho also produces several insecticides that will
kill mites. The ingredients to look for are Kelthane
and Malatheon. Both of these poisons are lethal
to humans and pets as well as bugs, but they both
detoxify in about ten days so you can safely smoke the grass
ten days after spraying. Fruit and Berry will only kill the
adult mite, however, and you'll have to spray every four days for
about two weeks to be sure that you have killed all the
adults before they have had a chance to lay eggs. Keep
a close watch on your plants because it only takes one
egg laying adult to re- infest your plants
and chances are that one or two will escape your
barrage of insecticides. If you see little
bugs flying around your plants, they are probably white flies.
The adults are immune to almost all the commercial insecticides except
Fruit and Berry which will not kill the eggs or larva.
It is the larval stage of this insect that does
the most damage. They suck out enzymes too,
and kill your plants if they go unchecked. You will have
to get on a spraying program just as was explained in
the spider mite section.
An organic method of bug control is using soap suds. Put Ivory flakes in some lukewarm water and work up the suds into a lather. Then put the suds over the plant. The obvious disadvantage is it you don't rinse the soap off the plant you'll taste the soap when you smoke the leaves.
Pruning
We have found that pruning is not always necessary. The reason one does it in the first place is to encourage secondary growth and to allow light to reach the immature leaves. Some strands of grass just naturally grow thick and bushy and if they are not clipped the sap moves in an uninterrupted flow right to the top of the plant where it produces flowers that are thick with resin. On the other hand, if your plants appear tall and spindly for their age at three weeks, they probably require a little trimming to ensure a nice full leafy plant. At three weeks of age your plant should have at least two sets of branches or four leaf clusters and a top. To prune the plant, simply slice the top off just about the place where two branches oppose each other. Use a razor blade in a straight cut. If you want to, you can root the top in some water and when the roots appear, plant the top in moist soil and it should grow into another plant. If you are going to root the top you should cut the end again, this time with a diagonal cut so as to expose more surface to the water or rooting solution. The advantage to taking cuttings from your plant is that it produces more tops. The tops have the resin, and that's the name of the game. Every time you cut off a top, the plant seeds out two more top branches at the base of the existing branches. Pruning also encourages the branches underneath to grow faster than they normally would without the top having been cut.
Harvesting and Curing
Well, now that you've grown your marijuana, you will want to cur it right so that it smokes clean and won't bite. You can avoid that "homegrown" taste of chlorophyll that sometimes makes one's fillings taste like they might be dissolving. We know of several methods of curing the marijuana so that it will have a mild flavor and a mellow rather than harsh smoke.
First, pull the plant up roots and all and hang it upside down for 24 hours. Then put each plant in a paper grocery bag with the top open for three or four days or until the leaves feel dry to the touch. Now strip the leaves off the stem and put them in a glass jar with a lid. Don't pack the leaves in tightly, you want air to reach all the leaves. The main danger in the curing process is mold. If the leaves are too damp when you put them into the jar, they will mold and since the mold will destroy the resins, mold will ruin your marijuana. you should check the jars every day by smelling them and if you smell an acrid aroma, take the weed out of the jar and spread it out on newspaper so that it can dry quickly. Another method is to uproot the plants and hang them upside down. You get some burlap bags damp and slip them up over the plants. Keep the bags damp and leave them in the sun for at least a week. Now put the plants in a paper bag for a few days until the weed is dry enough to smoke. Like many fine things in life, marijuana mellows out with age. The aging process tends to remove the chlorophyll taste.
Editor's Note and Important Warning:
This pamphlet was written about
8 years ago. While the facts, figures,
and methods described here are still valid, an
mportant note must be added concerning
the purchasing of equipment and supplies.
The information age is upon us and and increasing amount
of data is being kept about all of us whether we realize it
or not. With the war on drugs in full effect, the D.E.A.
is using this information at every possible opportunity.
When you make a purchase with a credit card, every last bit
of information regarding that purchase is filed
away into a database, both at the store and
with your credit card company. Not only the price,
but the exact date, location, and items purchased
are recorded and stored away. Many stores and credit
card companies routinely sell their databases of customers
and transactions to anybody who can afford
it. The D.E.A can certainly afford it.
After all, they're using your tax dollars.
The D.E.A. as well as other government agencies DO purchase
these databases for their own uses. They feed them into
their computers and the computers spit out a list
of anybody with "suspicious" purchases. Any
purchases that could be associated with drug production,
use, or selling could be flagged for further
investigation. These "suspicious" purchases
include unusual chemicals, medical supplies such as syringes,
lights and timers, and even potting soil and fertilizer.
The point is, if you are planning on purchasing supplies to
grow marijuana don't take any chances. While the average
home grower, who is simply growing enough for his
own use, would probably never be flagged by the computers,
you never know. If you are purchasing equipment or supplies,
PAY CASH! In addition, many supermarkets and
discount stores now have some sort of "Preferred
Customer" cards. When you buy something, regardless
of how you pay, you give them your card to scan and all
your purchases are recorded. They then send you some
sort of coupon depending on what and how much you
purchased each month. It sounds like
a good deal, but you wind up having all of your
purchases recorded and sold just like with the
credit cards. DON'T use one of these cards
when you are purchasing anything that might be deemed
suspicious. For that matter, don't use them at all.
They just result in a ton of junk mail and a lot of
people knowing exactly what you buy and when you buy it.
Marijuana
For sale
Marijuana
Seeds