New growers are often weary of having male plants in their garden. The reason is well known, even to newbies: male plants can pollenate the females, causing them to produce seeds. And no one wants seeds in their bud. Yuck! This fear is so engrained that many new growers will stick to only buying feminized seeds. In our last article, we explained three reasons by Regular Seeds are better than Feminized Seeds. But in order to work with Regular Seeds, you will have to become comfortable with identifying males and removing them from your batch of females. And the earlier you can catch them, the ..read more

We’ve discussed why you do not want your plant to grow tall and skinny. The reasons are poor yield, and a bad ratio of top tier buds to B-Buds. Do you want only half of your plant’s yield to be “A” Buds, and the other half to be “B” Buds? Here’s my answer: “No, thank you!” At Smokey Okies, we actually have ratios for this metric. We shoot for 80% top grade, A-Buds (nice and chunky), and only 20% should be what we label as “small buds” from every harvest. How do we achieve this? Among other things, we make it a focus to tame and train our plants to grow horizontally, and wider, as opposed to ta ..read more

Why focus on horizontal growth? Many reasons. The most basic is your limitation on ceiling height. Cannabis plants will grow tall if you let them. But when growing indoors, you only have so much ceiling height. Additionally, your lights will hang from the ceiling, further reducing your available vertical space. This can be a bad thing if your plant has too much vertical growth. Growing cannabis horizontally prevents bleaching and burning your buds You do not want your plants growing into your lights. HPS lights can burn the plants if they are within a foot, and can bleach them if they are with ..read more

If you are growing weed, then we highly suggest you use trellis netting on your plants. It will increase yield, and make more efficient use of the electricity you are already paying for. Further, it allows you to grow horizontally, which is the primary objective of the indoor grower. We seek to grow our plants by the square foot (or square meter). That is how we measure our progress and how we run our operation. So now that we’ve given you an idea on why trellis is so important, let’s discuss when exactly you should use cannabis trellis netting. When should you trellis your cannabis plants? Tr ..read more

This article is going to explain to you the benefit of a very important tool used by commercial growers: cannabis trellis netting. We consider cannabis trellis netting to be one of the most important tools to be used when growing cannabis plants. But first, what is trellis netting? What is Trellis Netting used for? Trellis is netting that can be strung over the canopy of your plants. It is used for many varieties of plants, not just cannabis. Tomato growers will use trellis netting for similar reasons as cannabis cultivators. You use the trellis as a tool, to support the ever-increasing weight ..read more

To grow weed indoors, you must be capable of putting the plants through the each of the different growth cycles in the same way that mother nature does by changing the “seasons.” Outdoors, this happens naturally. The humid days of spring get longer and turn into summer. The intensity of the sun peaks during mid-Summer, but eventually transitions into autumn. Throughout each of these seasons, and through each of the transitions, there are changes in light intensity, duration of light per 24 hour period, and changes in temperature and humidity. In order to grow cannabis indoors, you must be capa ..read more

If your goal is to grow weed at home without any type of grow equipment, then you will need to grow outdoors, using as many natural resources as possible. You will still need tools and supplies, but this article will give you some ideas on how to be a minimalist home grower. What equipment is normally required to grow weed at home? The question really is about what equipment is required to grow weed indoors. That is because there is a huge difference in equipment requirements between indoor and outdoor cultivation. What equipment do you need to grow weed indoors? Indoor cultivation requires a ..read more

If you want to learn how to grow weed, this series of blog articles will give you an overview of the whole process, the set up you will need, and some of the major decisions you will have to make as far as what style of cultivation. There will be a lot of decisions to make. But the most important decision has already been made: the decision to grow your own weed at home! Hey, committing is the first step. Now that you’ve made the commitment to grow your own weed, let’s work through some other major decisions you will have to make. Decide whether to grow indoors or outdoors First, select your s ..read more

How long does it take to grow a cannabis plant? It depends on whether you are growing cannabis indoors or outdoors. You can do either one. But each will have it’s own time period. How long does it take weed to grow Outdoors? The time it takes to grow weed outdoors is dependent on the location where you are growing. This is because you are relying on the season and the weather to change. The outdoor season typically lasts from May to October, though this can vary depending on the region and local climate. If you are in the Midwest, United States, it is very common to plant seeds right around th ..read more

In our last article, we discussed how long it takes to grow weed. And in that article, explained that this is determined by the length of the various stages of growth. What are the Stages of Growth for a weed plant? Well, as a weed (i.e. cannabis) plant grows, it goes through stages just like a human would. You can think of humans as going from infant to toddler, to child to teenager, to adult, and to elderly. At each of these stages, we humans have different needs. An infant needs a lot of sleep, and it needs regular feedings from breast milk or formula. A toddler needs even more calories, as ..read more