New to growing? Take a look at this

Hey people

You might not remember me or even know me. I have been on these boars a year ago, stopped and then im back. Enought with the introduction and lets get to the point.

I am making here a book on the very BASICS of cannabis growing. So if you are new this, this is the thred where you want to start. I don't even know if im doing the right thing but im shure that the experts here will get less FAQ and might have a litle rest here. I don't know if i can attach the whole file on the thred so i will only copy and paste it on this thred. I hope you will enjoy it. If there is anything that you want me to correct or add (this applies to the moderators and the experienced ones please) send me an e-mail so i know what to do [email protected]

Thank you

The Practical book of the apprentice
Indoor/Outdoor
Version 1.0
Vol I

By Cannabecea III

Hi! This is my book! In Volume one, I will explain the very basics of cannabis culture and ways to have a very potent crop with little time and money. The book will be in 4 chapters, explaining step by step ways to grow, bud and smoke your cannabis in a cheap but efficient way. Now letâ??s get started!

Chapter 1
Seeds

The very first step of cannabiculture is to obtain your seeds. How? This is why I make this book! The very basic way to obtain seeds is when you buy cheap buds, because sometimes you get seeds in your bud. These seeds have the reputation of rubbish, trash and arenâ??t potent. Well, they are quite wrong (sorry). Itâ??s been now 7 years now that I grow my stuff and the very first seeds I had was from cheap buds like these. First, you must be able to identify the good seeds. They are darker. That is all you have to know. The darker seeds are riper than the others. The whiter seeds may have some potential but not as much as the darker ones. People will say that these seeds make Hermaphrodite plants. Yes they do, but about 1% of them do it. So donâ??t panic about hermaphrodites for now, you donâ??t even have to think about it for now (I will talk more about hermaphrodites in my Vol II in detail).

The second way of getting seeds is trough the internet. It is very easy and secure. If you know where to start. I wonâ??t tell any name or brand because I donâ??t want to be in trouble for copyrights and everything like that. So just browse trough the internet and inform yourself to the people (I will be able to give you the information). And you will find what you are searching for.

Chapter 2
The Grow room

You have your seeds in hand and now you are ready for the growing. Excellent! This is the most frequently asked question: indoor or outdoor? The way to find out witch one to choose is to look around you house (in the house and out). The basic characteristics of your grow room is to be neutral, stealthy. Outdoors, it must be out of sight, like a forest or anything like this, an open field is more susceptible to be searched and your crop might be found by the police or people aroundâ?¦and they might run away with the plantsâ?¦ and you donâ??t want this to happenâ?¦ also if they are almost ready for harvest. There is not much to say about outdoors so I will start with this.

Outdoors, you need a good soil. Clay isnâ??t good, sand either. Donâ??t worry about acidity (Cannabis grows well in Neutral soil, a little acid, like 6 and 6.8 pH.) because you can just change the soil where you want to grow your crop. The mix that I recommend is very simple and applies to every situation. You mix 1 part Vermiculite to one part perlite,1 part peat moss and one part compost. You can also add one part Worm castings to enrich the soil. Mix well and dig up a hole where you want you plant(s). One hole per plant is easier and is simpler to manage. Just dig a hole that will do about the size of a 20L bucket (appox 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep, you can dip deeper and wider too also, depending oin the quantity of the mix you have) and dump in your mix in it. Now let it sit there for 2 or 3 days. During these days you can germinate you seeds (to see how to germinate your seeds look at the 3rd chapter in vegetative stage) at home and then you bring them back in the hole outside and you plant them (white stem downâ?¦itâ??s the roots). You will need to water the plant 1 to 2 times a day (depending on the forecast). DO NOT OVERWATER!!!!!! This is the most frequent problem that much people do and donâ??t realise and they think itâ??s a sickness. To determine is you need to water you plant, dip you finger in the soil and if it is dry to the first 2 to 3 inches you can water it. I usually put one liter of water (about 34 fl.oz I think).

This is the very basics of the outdoor growing. If you want more information, you can browse trough my Vol II and you will find more details about it. Now for indoors:

3/4 of the time, people use their wardrobe. Easy to access, simple, convenient and easy to modify. You can use other rooms but I will start with the simplest one.

Your wardrobe can be modified in various ways. First you need to check if it is well insulated, because cold air isnâ??t very welcomed. It must have also white paint in it thus the white paint reflects the light. So, now we need to equip the room and make it functional for our little plants. First you need a pot; in witch you will grow you plant(s). People say that you must use a 20L bucket to do the job, yes itâ??s true, but if you give the plant enough nutrients and light you can grow a plant in a shooter (donâ??t go and try it! Itâ??s only and expression!!). Now people will say: bullshit. Well this is a little story for you: I had a friend that grew 4 plants. 2 in each pot, the pots were approx 6 inches wide and 4 inches deepâ?¦ and they grew 6 foot tall. They were Sativa (they usually grow taller than indica) â?¦. So I say that it is not necessary to grow in a 20L bucket. Sorry for breaking down your theories guys (and there is more to come donâ??t worry) The minimum for a decent pot is approx 10 inches tall and 7 inches wide, you can play in theses sizes and you will stay in the safe zone. Now fill it with dirt, use 1 part vermiculite, 1 part perlite, 1 compost or worm castings or both and 1 part black dirt or sand (for drainage because in a wardrobe you wonâ??t have the heat of the sun so the water will stay longer in the pot to help water excess to drain down) and mix this well. Put it in the pot and now you can think about your lights.

Fluorescent Lights (tubes)

Lights are the most important thing to have in your wardrobe because plants that make photosynthesis need light to grow. Nowâ?¦ what kind of lights!!! Not incandescent, not halogen. You will need fluorescent tubes or economic lights. There is an also HID light (High intensity discharge) that works well but it makes a lot of heat, itâ??s very expensive and you must know a lot in electronics to make it happen. So letâ??s stick with the florescent lights. There is all kinds of lights on the market today and you must learn how to choose and make the difference between the good ones and the bad ones. On fluorescent tubes, you always have inscriptions on one of the ends of the tube to indicate the wattage, voltage, spectrum and all kind of stuff. The thing you must look for is the spectrum. Nothing more, nothing less. Look for Daylight on the tube or Cool White. There is also Full spectrum that is very efficient but is again very pricy. Warm white is also a good tube but you will only need it when you will bud you plant. I suggest using 48â? tubes because they have more wattage. Watts is the thing you must always look for, the more watts the better (there is a bunch of other stuff too but itâ??s not important for the moment). One 48â? tube will produce 40 watts of light. 24â? ones will make 20 watts. So letâ??s stick with the 48â? ones. I suggest (for maximum yield) 4 tubes to grow approx 5 to 6 plants. If you are a bit of a handyman/women you can buy the ballast and all the bells and whistles to build your own shop light (itâ??s the only name I can find for this contraption). If not, try to buy (are you ready?) a Shop light. Itâ??s the ballast enclosed in a metallic casing and have reflectors etc, and it is very fancy and isnâ??t very pricy. If you are lucky you will be able to find a shop light that can hold 4 tubes at a time. This will make a total of 160 watts and will be perfect. Now where to you hang the damn thing? Well, the main reason why people use their wardrobe itâ??s because they can hang their lights on the tube (where you hang your coat hangers) and itâ??s perfect. You finally need to plug the thing up and you are in business.

Economic tubes

There are also economic fluorescent tubes that you can use. They are almost the same thing as the florescent tubes. They are, 90% of the time, warm white. The thing is, the plant uses the blue light from the light spectrum to grow in their vegetative stage (they â??chooseâ? to use blueâ?¦donâ??t ask me why, thatâ??s the way it is). So the more blue in the spectrum, the better (for the vegetative stage only). Now donâ??t mix up spectrum and the color that you see. Donâ??t use a Blue fluorescent tube to grow your plants. The thing is, they coat the tube in a powder (blue) and you see the color blue. But the spectrum wonâ??t change. So just stick with the daylight or cool white and everything will be cool (Hahahaha! What a joke!). So, where was Iâ?¦ ah yes the economic tubes. So what I suggest is to use as many as possible to make the most wattage. Sylvania lights came out with a very interesting light that have my approval stamp. Itâ??s a 20w lamp, with a reflector and is about 4can$ (approx 3us cents (Canadian joke again, sorry)â?¦.noâ?¦sorry, 2us$) and is VERY efficient. For 30$ I made a light system with 4 of these and it works like a charm. So if you see them donâ??t hesitate, BUY THEM! You donâ??t need any ballast (they are in the socket of the lamp itself) so you can plug them like ordinary lights. These lights use 20 watts of energy but emit more than 20 watts (on average 1 watt of a fluorescent tube will be the equivalent of 3 watts for an incandescent light (not ALL the times but its pretty close). So in one word, if you think that fluorescent tubes are less trouble than economic ones stick with them, otherwise, take economic ones.

When you have your lights ready, buy a timer, so you will be able to forget about the lights and relax a bit.

And, for last, if you have a window you can use it! The sun is free! But be careful because neighbours might see you joy plant and this isnâ??t a good thing.

Ventilation

Yes, you will need ventilationâ?¦ its handy when you are in a very humid and hot place (3rd story of an apartment). You are not forced to have ventilation but I recommend it, and mostly if you are in an apartment. This is the main reason: the SMELL. Because the smell of the plants will be quite attracting to the neighbours. It will smell like skunk. So what I suggest is to buy deodorisers to minimise the smell. You can also buy ozone air purifiersâ?¦they cost a fortune thought and for a wardrobe you really donâ??t need this. An activated charcoal filter is the best thing because you can just let it inside the wardrobe and it will filter the air. If you only have one plant, it wonâ??t smell very bad but as you add more it will get worse. Otherwise just use Febreese spray and it will be good, or coffee beans. So donâ??t take too much time on the ventilation but stay aware that if you are in an apartment it might get the attention pretty quickly.

So as you see, it may take a bit time to make a grow room but it is worth it trust me.

Chapter 3
Making it Happen

This is where the magic of nature comes in. In this chapter I will explain the BASICS of taking care of your plants and grow them to full potential until they are ready to harvest, cure and, finally, smoke. So letâ??s get started!

Vegetative Stage

This is the first stage of your plants. I will explain in different stages how to make it correctly.

Germination: This is where you can see if your seeds are good or not. To germinate correctly, soak them in a glass of lukewarm water for 24 hours, then, dampen a paper towel (Kleenex, toilet paper etc) and put the seeds on it. You donâ??t need light at this stage. Keep an eye on the seeds. It may take several days to germinate them because sometimes they are old or just a little weak but they will germinate after a certain period of time. Sometimes it may take 2 weeks to germinateâ?¦after that...wellâ?¦all hope is lost I think. Keep the paper damp, not soaked, otherwise the seeds will just rotâ?¦and you donâ??t want this to happen (we arenâ??t making magic mushrooms here). When you see that the shell have cracked open and you see a little white stem coming out, this means you have done it correctly. This is the roots. So, you donâ??t need to be Nosrtadamus to know that the roots are going downwards. After they have germinated, now you can plant them in the pot you have prepared for them before, make sure that it haves been watered. Be careful for the first 2 to 3 weeks of the vegetative stage because the stem of the plant and the roots need to gain forces, so no poking or touching. Also, keep a 2 to 3 inch between the top of the plant and the tubes of the lamp at ALL times.

Vegetative stage: This is where you will grow your plant to prepare it for the floraison (budding). Your timer should be set that the light will be lit for 16 to 22 hours and be closed the rest of the time (donâ??t go higher because the plant need some rest, and lower will trigger the floraison stageâ?¦and I think that you want your plant to grow a bit bigger to have more buds) Please, donâ??t touch the plant (even if you have gloves). Let me say why. On your hands, gloves and on the plant there is millions of different kinds of bacteriaâ??s that live in symbiosis with the plant/hands (gloves donâ??t enter in the category because they are an object but contain certain bacteriaâ??s). If you start to mix up these bacteriaâ??s you will create a lack of balance, thus creating chaos on you plant, provoking 90% of the time diseases on your plant. And you donâ??t want to buy all kind of pesticides/ insecticides/ fungicides that hardly work just to get the thing worseâ?¦.so just donâ??t touch it and everything will be fine, ok? Thank you. Now, this vegetative stage is not very complicated you will see. You only need to water the plant once a day and keep an eye on the height of the lamps. If you want to adventure yourself with the fertilizers you can, just follow the instructions on the label and thatâ??s it. Just a little thing here: you will always find 3 numbers on the label of a fertilizer. This is the N-P-K indicator. The letters are the same as the ones in the periodic table of elements. So the N stands for Nitrous, P for Phosphorus and K for Potassium. Nitrous is for the foliage and the green of the leaves. So in a vegetative stage you will need a fertilizer that will contain more nitrous. The phosphorus is for the stem and the roots. Try to search for a fertilizer that will have between 2 to 20 in phosphorus. Then the last one, potassium, will be used for buds. So you will need a fertilizer with more potassium for a floraison stage. Thatâ??s all you have to know for the moment. And please, follow the instructions of the fertilizers because if you think that your plant will grow faster with more fertilizer you are totally wrong, it will grow slower and will start to burn. If you see that the tip of the leaves is beginning to get dry and brownish you have the maximum amount of fertilizer in the pot and the plant has quite enough.

Floraison stage (budding): This is my favourite stage because you will now start to see you plant change in a dramatic way. Your timer should be set to 12 hours of ON and 12 hours of OFF. Nothing more nothing less. I suggest, for maximum yield, to change your tube to Warm white fluorescent tube (chapter 2, lights) because the plant uses the red light from the spectrum to grow its buds. This will trigger the floraison stage. And now you will see that itâ??s the longest time of your life because you have to wait. You continue to water your plant normally, and you keep an eye on the SEX of the plant. Yes they have different sex and you have to know how to make the difference. The females, the good ones, have little white strings coming out of a little ball. It will look like antennas. The males only have little balls. Males will liberate their pollen when the little balls will open up exactly like umbrellas. If you want seeds for future growing, select a stem from a female (or the whole plan) and expose it to the male. You can shake the male to liberate more pollen on the female. But if you only want buds try to get rid of the males as quickly as possible because it might makes seed and make lower quality female buds for you (thus making cheap buds). So just cut the male and throw it away because it doesnâ??t even creates THC (one of the active molecules of cannabis (Tetrahydrocannabinol)). So, now you have to wait. When your plant has 1/3 of the white strings brown, you will need to â??flushâ? the plant (only if you used fertilizers for the floraison stage). This will get rid of all the bad stuff that can give you buds a bad taste or make them fizz of pop when you smoke themâ?¦not very good. To â??flushâ? your plant, just take it to the bathroom, put it into the bathtub and then water the plant. But this time you will need to water it VERY WELL, this means that you will need about 5 gals of water to flush a 5 foot tall plant. So 1 gal for 1 foot approx. Make this stage very gradually. But about Â¼ of a gallon each 15 mins approx. This will flush everything out of the plant that can make your smoke a nightmare. Take you time and donâ??t bother about the over watering of the plant because at this stage, even if you kill the plant you will still get excellent quality buds. After flushing it, you can return you plant to the growing room and wait for the very last moment to harvest it. DO NOT USE FERTILIZERS for this last stage because your flushing will be useless and you will need to restart the whole process again and it might be too late.

How do you know when it is time to harvest your plants? Well, look at the overall color of the buds (white strings). If they are 2/3 brownish, its time to harvest. There is no particular smell, color or anything of the sort. Then, cut the plant near the dirt (at the very base of the plant) and hang it upside down. Now we enter the curing and drying of you plant...another chapter.

Chapter 4
The final touch

Your plant is upside down now. It dries. This is the best way to dry you plant because all the water and the nutrients that remains in the plant will continue to be assimilated in your plant and processed for the next 1 to 3 days approx. You know when the plant is dry when you squeeze the bud. Just by the feeling of it you will now. If itâ??s well dry it will feel like dry (a little bit crispy in the middle). Donâ??t dry them too much, like they crumble in powderâ?¦that not good and you will have a harsh tar like smokeâ?¦not very good. It will feel a bit soft in the middle. When it isnâ??t dry it will feel like a sponge.

The cure of your buds is quite important because thatâ??s where you will get the maximum out of your buds. The basics of it are quite simple: the less air the better. So I suggest air tight pot (like a Mason jar, not Zip locks with zippers or anything like that). You just need to Stuff in your buds in it and that it. For the first week of the curing process, I suggest taking out the buds once a day and lying them on a table to make sure that there is no water in the buds; this might trigger bud rot, not good. After that week you can store your buds in a cool dark place (light degrades THC) and you are done.

Was it difficult? If you take all your time and you are patient you will see that it will pay for itself after that and you will be laying in your armchair smoking a flat spliff and saying to you buddy: this is what I did for the past 4 months dude, thatâ??s some serious shit!

I hope you enjoyed my little book (if I can call this little) and if you are interested about more specific things, I will start the redaction of my second one (Volume II) and it will clarify certain points of my Volume I and will talk about diseases etc.

For any suggestions, comments, feedback, ideas or subjects that you want me to talk about in my next volume, send me an e-mail to : [email protected]

Thank you!!!

Special thanks: I will thank Sanclem from the old boards of www.cannabis.com for the precious info he gave me and all the others.

Until then

Cannabecea III