What is a Grow Room

By Leafy Mate July 11, 2022

A grow room or grow tent is a designated space of a specific size where plants are grown in a controlled environment. Some people use a grow room to avoid the legal repercussions of home growing weed, while others have little to no outdoor space available.

Is it safe to grow weed at home?

It is legal to grow weed at home in some states; however, marijuana is still federally illegal to possess in the United States. It’s also important to note that cannabis plants are still entirely unlawful in sixteen states, but recently that number has decreased and will continue to grow smaller within the next few years.

Most states that allow home growing weed are okay with indoor growers maintaining four to twelve plants. Some states allow bigger yields that can reach up to twenty-five cannabis plants.

States that allow home grow rooms indoors, both medically and recreationally, are:

States that allow home cultivation of medical marijuana are:

Here, we have five tips for how to grow weed discreetly:

Invest in a ventilation system that will minimize the smell when growing indoors.
Keep your project to yourself. The more people that know you are growing weed, the more likely word will get around.
Don’t sell. This is crucial because weed sale is illegal and can result in consequences like losing your stash and plants or, legal troubles.
Research before you buy your plant seeds. Try to choose a less intense strain.
Be aware of online tracks when purchasing supplies for your grow space.

Is growing weed expensive?

According to a 2017 chart by Marijuana Business Daily, the average cost of whole cultivation per square foot is 45.00 USD. An indoor grower will spend around 75.00 USD growing marijuana per square foot. A greenhouse cultivator will pay approximately 50.00 USD per square foot.

Lastly, the cheapest way to grow is outdoors. This will cost roughly 10.00 USD because you will need to plant seeds and space from growing cannabis plants to get started.

How long does it take to grow cannabis?

It can typically take nine weeks to eight months to grow your marijuana plant. The growth stage for the plant depends on whether you are growing weed indoors or outdoors.

Indoor space allows cannabis growers to harvest after a few weeks or months, but growing outdoors depends on natural weather and annual cycles.

Cannabis Plant 101

Female cannabis plants take longer to show signs of their gender, but you can recognize them by the white hairs that appear during the flowering stage.

Male plants will have pollen sacks that appear close to the main stem near the bud sites on the female plant, one to two weeks after the flowering cycle. The pollen sacks will often burst, and you will see them produce pollen that’s yellow on the leaves below the bursting.

The plant’s gender is critical when determining seed production. Unless a male plant turns out to be a hermaphrodite, it will not produce male cannabis seeds. The job of a male is to pollinate with pollen sacs; the position of a female is to create pre-flowers and buds. Marijuana is similar to many other plants in those ways.

Like humans, cannabis plants are dioecious, typically having male or female reproductive organs. However, the rare plant will have traits from both genders. Depending on the grower’s goal, it’s essential to know which one you’re working with before moving forward.

Growing male and female plants together will result in cross-pollination and thus the production of more seeds for future weed crops. But, if you’re goal is to produce large buds rich with cannabinoids, you’ll want to separate the plants.

Removing male cannabis plants will cut out fertilization of the female cannabis plants, resulting in dense, seedless buds, or sensimilla, that have a higher content of cannabinoids, such as THC or CBD.

Male plants are vital to most growers and farmers during cannabis cultivation since they provide pollination, thus fertilizing the female plants. They can also pass down specific genes to combat poor genetics in some plants, such as mold resistance, and are vital for producing new strains of healthy plants.

Plant life cycle

The weed plant goes through a particular life cycle, and you’ll need to distinguish which phase your plant is in at all times. From germination to flowering, it’s essential to provide the proper nutrients, light, and oxygen at each step of plant growth.

Seed Germination

The seed germination life stage can take three to ten days. You’ll want to place your germinating seeds in a dark place that is warm and humid. Once the regular or feminized seeds open and begin to produce their first root, transfer it into a small flower pot. It will start to create the oval leaves known as cotyledons.

Seedling phase

Once you have a seedling, it should take approximately two to three weeks to complete this essential life stage. You’ll begin to notice serrated leaflet production, followed by larger, bladed fan leaves. Mature female cannabis plants have five to seven blades per leaf.

Vegetative stage

Next, your cannabis plants will enter the three to sixteen weeks known as the vegetative stage. Your female marijuana plant will need at least sixteen hours of grow light, or six hours of direct sunlight with several hours of indirect sunlight to follow. During vegetative growth, you’ll want to provide nutrients, water, and maintenance to induce flowering in the growing plants.

Flowering stage

Finally, after the vegetative growth, the flowering phase lasts eight to twelve weeks and is the final step to producing buds. This is where the twelve hours of sun and twelve hours of dark come into play. If you take good care of your plants, they should begin to produce large bud sites with high contents of resin production.

Cannabis seed 101

Each cannabis seed is unique. You must know which ones you purchase before planting them in your indoor garden.

Regular

Regular seeds are completely organic and pure. These cannabis seeds give you a 50/50 shot at either gendered plant. For example, if you plant six seeds, you’re likely to determine sex as three males and three females out of the six plants.

Feminized

Feminized seeds taken from a seed bank are extracted from treated cannabis plants and will only produce female seeds. Feminized seeds are an excellent way to ensure you grow marijuana to have buds.

Autoflowering

Autoflowering seeds produce flowering plants around two to four weeks of growth. There’s no need to be concerned with the specific growth cycles or all the nutrients required for developing a photoperiod plant with these seeds. These are great for beginner growers who don’t know how to grow weed yet.

Where to Find Marijuana Seeds

In most states, possessing plant seeds is not the issue; it’s growing weed that becomes illegal. So, it’s best to check on your state laws before growing marijuana. You can typically purchase seeds from your local dispensary in legal states and online in states that haven’t legalized weed.

How to grow weed by Cloning

Start by using sharp scissors to cut a six-inch branch from the mother plant.
Place the branch into a rooting cube.
Provide a top-quality growing hormone to help the clone grow.
Once roots form, transfer to a pot or the ground.
The clone will grow its plant with the same genetic makeup as the mother plant.

Easy strains for Indoor Gardening

As a beginner, you’ll want your plants to produce high-quality weed without the struggles of more difficult strains.

Here are our top five favorite indoor cannabis strains for beginner growers:

Indoor

LSD is the most potent strain on our list, with upwards of 25 percent THC levels. It is an easy strain to grow for beginners but not for novice smokers. It’s an Indica-dominant and a low-maintenance, disease-free weed plant. Approximate yield: 21 ounces

Easy Bud Auto is an auto-flowering strain that is very easy to manage for novice growers. It can finish flowering by eight weeks and has an average THC level of around 13 percent. Approximate yield: 11 ounces

Blue Cheese is a pungent strain known for its unique aroma and flavor profile. It has a THC level of around 20 percent, is mold resistant, and does well in cooler climates. Approximate yield: 18 ounces

Blackberry is a delicious marijuana strain potent in THC and perfectly balanced between Indica and Sativa. It is a mold-resistant hybrid that does well in warm and dry environments. Approximate yield: 18 ounces

Quick One Auto is an auto-flowering strain with a lower THC level and can complete flowering in 8-9 weeks. Approximate yield: 12 ounces

Indoor Grow Room Benefits

Indoor growers have ultimate control over the conditions for their plants. If you grow weed indoors, you can control lighting, water intake, nutrients, temperature, and humidity. When growing cannabis outdoors, not so much. You don’t have to follow a particular cycle to yield multiple harvests in one year with indoor growth.

Indoor grow space

Your indoor grow space is ultimately your plant’s habitat and will be the deciding factor in plant growth and overall health. It’s essential to consider airflow, lighting, space, and many more factors when choosing a space for your plants to thrive.

How much space will you need in your indoor grow room?

You’ll first need an unused room in your house or another location you have legal access to, such as a workshed, bedroom, roomy closet, etc. There are alternatives such as a grow tent or box in an open space in your house. You can buy one or build your own grow space with this method.

It will need to have the following features to be suitable for cannabis growth:

Enough space for the amount and size of cannabis you’ll be growing. The area must also be tall enough to accommodate the plant height and hang a grow light far sufficient above the plant to prevent burning. A three-foot by six-foot elevated area is adequate for developing a few plants.
It is sealed from light. The room should be completely free from outside light; it is not as crucial unless you have an auto-flowering plant.
Reflective interior features. If the walls, floors, and ceilings aren’t reflecting light, they absorb it instead of your plants.
Floor drain or waterproof tray. It would be best to have something in place to catch anything that will drain off.
Ventilation fans and openings. Your grow room will need two or more spaces, typically one near the bottom and another near the top at the opposite end of the room.
Outlets with working plugs, opening power cords, and any other wiring.
Some framework near the top for hanging the grow lights and other equipment.

Greenhouse

A greenhouse is an excellent combination of cultivating cannabis indoors and outdoors. It can be smaller than the size of a shed. It can also be massive, like a warehouse building. This depends on the grower and the operation size. If you have the personal space to put together a greenhouse for your weed plant, it can certainly be a worthwhile idea for growing top-notch cannabis—cultivation to the next level.

The best part of using a greenhouse for cannabis cultivation is having ultimate control over the climate and elements that affect your plant’s growth and health. Utilizing a greenhouse provides natural sunlight, fresh air, ventilation, circulation, and more while eliminating the unpredictability of the outdoor world.

Periods of rain and wind can wreak havoc on your garden, but a greenhouse will keep the weed safe and secure throughout these natural occurrences. Furthermore, pests and diseases are less likely to attack your cannabis within a greenhouse shelter.

Outdoor Growing

Outdoor growers have to deal with natural elements, potential pest infestation, and less control. However, growing outdoors can yield a larger, more plentiful crop. There’s also the sun; the ultimate grow light at your disposal. The outdoor growing of the cannabis plant can save money and reduce your carbon footprint.

Growing medium

When growing a cannabis plant in soil, it’s best to use organic, peat-free soil. You’ll want to choose compost that is good for potting and contains around 30 percent of soil conditioner. This will ensure that water, oxygen, and nutrients can reach the plant’s roots to grow healthy and fast.

Hydroponics, Aquaponics, Aeroponics

There are three soil-less growing techniques used for growing plants. With hydroponics, it instead emerges into nutrient-rich water instead of placing the plant roots in the soil.

Aeroponics is a process used by NASA that removes moisture and soil while the root system dangles in a tank filled with top-quality, fresh air. The plants are misted with water using this method.

Aquaponics is a combination of fish farming and the hydroponic system. In this method, most growers use their fish to supply the water with enough nutrients from their waste.

Lighting

When you grow cannabis, you will want to understand light periods and how they affect the cannabis life cycle. If you don’t, your plant may never produce buds. The light schedule for your cannabis plant will change throughout its life stages, from the time you germinate seeds to placing them in their final growing environment.

In the vegetative stage, they need eighteen to twenty-four hours of light daily. Maintaining this throughout the entire room will help them to grow stems and leaves.

Indoors, your plants will need twelve hours of fluorescent lights, LED grow lights, or HID grow lights, then twelve hours of complete darkness in the same room on a cycle in the flowering stage. This will encourage the plants to produce buds with abundant psychoactive compounds found in the trichomes.

Air Quality and Humidity

Air naturally circulates, and the plants are well ventilated automatically when they are outdoors. Maintaining the climate, including circulation and ventilation, is crucial to the plant’s survival when growing indoors. While ventilation carries stale, hot air, circulation moves a constant flow of incoming air to the entire grow room.

They help to keep your plant growing and healthy in the following ways:

Regulating temperature and humidity:

Grow lights kick out a lot of heat, increasing the moisture in the grow room. An exhaust fan pulls the relative humidity out of the indoor growing space, creating a vacuum that pulls in crisp, cool air.

Delivering Carbon Dioxide:

The marijuana plant must breathe in carbon dioxide and oxygen. Without proper ventilation, the carbon dioxide supply in the room is depleted, and the plants suffocate.

Preventing Pests and diseases:

Warm, humid, stagnant air provides an ideal environment for mold, mildew, fungi, and even tiny pests. Pulling in cooler, drier air gets rid of this problem, and having good airflow in the room helps to discourage the infestation of insects such as gnats, mites, and fleas.

Strengthening plant parts:

Cannabis can sense the breeze in the room and grow hardier, which provides more support for buds during the flowering stage.

Pay attention to the leaves in your grow space to notice any of the following or other cannabis leaf symptoms:

Underwatering– will be droopy and appear to hang; growth will slow; water more frequently or increase volume.

Overwatering– leaves will curl down and appear rigid; they will show signs of being overly full of water, leading to root rot. Check the soil for dryness before watering to correct this issue.

Nutrient burn means overfeeding the plants; leaves will be brown and crispy, beginning at the tips and moving inward.

Light burn– if your light system is too close to the plant, your plants will turn yellow and then become brown and die. It’s best to raise your light output if you notice yellowing.

From Harvest to Cure

Harvesting your cannabis plant requires four main steps: cutting plants down, trimming the buds, drying, and curing before smoking. If you utilize wet trimming, it involves cutting the female flowers and then allowing them to dry. You’ll remove the female plants, hang them to dry, and then cut the buds off for dry trim.

An outdoor harvest in North America should happen between September and November, depending on your specific area and local climate. For indoor cannabis, harvesting should occur between seven and ten weeks after the flowering stage.

Common Growing Mistakes to Avoid

Keep your indoor grow room low-key. The fewer people that know, the more discreet your operation can remain.
Avoid over and under-watering. Manage water quality and pH.
Choose high-quality fertilizer and avoid giving too many nutrients.
Follow the plant’s growth cycle. Every detail matters during growth.
Choose the suitable soil for cannabis growth.
Pick top-quality seeds and a strain you’ll love.
A poor climate without proper ventilation, lighting, and airflow will result in an unhealthy plant.
Maintain an excellent infrastructure for growing cannabis.
Don’t harvest too soon. Wait until the buds are fully formed, and flowering is complete.
Store your weed in an air-tight container for best results.

How Does Grow Room Humidity Affect the Plants in the Grow Room?

The importance of grow room humidity cannot be overstated when it comes to the health and growth of plants. High humidity levels can lead to mold and mildew, while low humidity can cause stunted growth and wilting. Maintaining proper humidity levels is crucial for ensuring optimal growing conditions and maximizing plant yield.

Build Your Own Indoor Garden on a Budget

When building your grow room setup on a budget, you’ll want to first make sure you have a designated space with proper lighting, temperature, and ventilation. From there, you can purchase a mini-greenhouse setup, a grow tent, or DIY build a cabinet or shelving system for your plants. The climate is the most important aspect. Then, you’ll measure the area, and purchase supplies, and quality marijuana seeds. As long as you follow the tips above, you should be well on your way to having a successful indoor grow room that leads to a thriving cannabis garden.

Final Thoughts

Our guide for cultivating weed in a grow room gives you the tools and knowledge to cannabis indoors successfully. Be sure to revert to these helpful tips when selecting the strain, seeds, grow space, and grow medium, and you’re sure to be growing your cannabis in just a short time.

Leafy Mate