Growing Cannabis: Everything You’ll Need

For most beginners, experimenting with medical marijuana treatment can be a lot. There are so many things to learn.  Adding “growing your own medical marijuana” to that list can seem overwhelming. That’s why we’ve put together a list of everything you’ll need to start growing. This list is not the best and most fool-proof system in the cannabis industry. This list is designed to help anyone looking to cultivate their own medical marijuana understand the tools they will need. Once you have a few harvests under your belt your curiosity will set in and you will try new things, new nutrients, new ways of doing things and in doing so, you will become a better and better grower each time. You will find items that no longer serve you, however, in the beginning this is what you’ll want to start with.

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Grow Tent – you’ll need something to keep your plants in. It is possible to do this in a well ventilated and cared for basement. However, to maximize the control you have in your grow you’ll want to get a grow tent. They keep light in and help keep pests out. It is still possible to use a grow tent and get pests in your garden, but it is a preventative measure against them.

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Light – Arguably the most obvious item you’ll need. Plants need light to grow, it’s as simple as that. You’ll want to find the light that is perfect for you. Starting off, most growers will choose LED lights and then venture into different kinds of lights in the future. LED lights are cost effective and use less energy that other grow lights.

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Light Timer - A timer is important because it will replicate the suns light cycle for your indoor grow. These come in handy when you switch your plants over to the flowering stage, however it’s best to have this from the start.

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Grow Glasses – Always wear eye-protection in your grow. Grow lights essentially mimic the sun, and you don’t need the light for photosynthesis.

Vent System - This comes in handy when you are trying to reduce the smell in your grow in addition to expelling stale air from your grow.

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Oscillating Pole Fan – In order to maximize your yields you want to mimic nature as much as possible indoors. When you grow marijuana outdoors your plants get sunlight and they are rustled around by the wind. Have a powerful fan in your grow to constantly keep your plants moving is not only ideal, but it’s preventative. Oscillating fans play a role in keep bugs out of your grow.

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Hygrometer – You’ll want to regulate temperature and relative humidity and you’ll want to have it down to a science. A hygrometer provides temperature and humidity readings so you can have more control over your environment for your plants.

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pH Testing Kit – The water you provide your plants is incredibly crucial to your yields come harvest time. This is a small investment to be able to measure the pH and make sure you aren’t throwing off the pH balance in your soil.

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Pots – What are you going to keep your plants in? It be a clay pot or even a bucket; Either way you need to put your plants in something.

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Trimming Scissors – A good pair of trimming scissors can really help you make it through to your final product. A bad pair of trimming scissors will cramp up your hands a lot quicker and lead to more time invested in the end.

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Jewelers Scope – One of the finer details of a grow, but you’ll want to know when to harvest. A jewelers scope will allow you to get a closer look at the trichomes of your plant. Are they crystal clear? Maybe wait another week to maximize potency. Are they cloudy? Maybe it’s time to harvest, especially if you’ve found a number of amber-colored trichomes.

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Mason Jars – After trimming your plants you’ll need to ‘burp” the buds every now and then to cure them to perfection.

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Nutrients – Nutrients can be a valuable thing to have. You can choose to grow organically and use soil that already has most of the nutrients your plant will need, but feeding nutrients to your plants during certain stages can really bring out those buds you want to harvest.

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Soil – Making sure you have the right soil is important. If it has no nutrients your plants will yield less. Some growers choose the hydroponic route, but soil is best for starting out. Hydroponic grows can be meticulous and one small mistake can make a huge impact. Using soil allows for errors because you’re able to make adjustments more easily with a soil grow.

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Pest Spray & Powder – Managing your garden is a big task and pesky bugs entering your garden makes it even more difficult. However, having a backup plan in place for when prevention doesn’t work is necessary. You’ll need to have a plan for eliminating pests in your garden if your preventative measures don’t work.

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Dehumidifier – You’ll want to be able to reduce the humidity levels in your grow as needed. A small dehumidifier will do the trick.

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Gloves – To minimize the bacteria you introduce to your plants, you’ll want to wear gloves at certain stages of plant growth. When your plants go into bloom and harvest, you’ll want to wear gloves.

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Small Pots – You’ll want to have small pots lying around to plant your seedlings in. After germination, depending on your set up, you would put your newly sprouted seedlings into a small pot and allow it to come through the soil before transitioning into a bigger pot. Some growers skip this step because they just plant them straight into the bigger pot and don’t need to transport their plants. If your plants will be in one spot for the entire grow, you’ll likely be able to skip this step.

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Rockwool or Substrate – If you’re planning on cloning plants or starting with a hydroponic grow, you’ll want a grow medium. Most cultivation facilities use rockwool for every stage. Most growers will clone their plants in rockwool.

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Curved Blade Pruning Scissors – You’ll likely need a good pair of these to prune your plants in the veg stage.

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Herb Drying Rack – This is not a necessity. You can always hang your plants upside down somewhere in your grow space. However, these drying racks typically come with a mesh screen around them, meaning they keep the pests out after harvest. This seems to be a highly innovative product for growers. Not one single person on earth would be unaffected by having their 90-day grow compromised while drying.

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Humidifier – This is the yang to the yin of the dehumidifier. You’ll want to control every aspect of your environment. This means increasing humidity when the plants call for it and decreasing it when the time is right.

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Camera – Depending on what state you live in, having a camera monitoring your grow can be beneficial. It can help identify thieves and alert you when anything changes in your grow. However, most growers would skip this step, which is understandable. However it has saved a few crops in the past.

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Seed – The most important part of the grow. All the soil and lights in the world won’t grow help if you don’t have something to grow. Choose your seeds wisely as each strain has a different terroir. Each strain will need certain environmental conditions in place, so research your strain before buying the seeds.

So now that you have all that you need to grow, the next step is gaining the experience and really understanding the intricacies of growing cannabis. Happy Growing!!