[imagesource: Matteo Paganelli on Unsplash]

With the decriminalisation of marijuana for personal and private use in South Africa, you’re probably wondering how to plant your own weed at home. 

Growing quality cannabis can be a challenge, and there are few things as disappointing as your plant babies dying somewhere along the growing process. 

Even if you don’t exactly have green fingers, the guide below should have you yielding some good grass in no time. 

As always, remember to keep the legalities of planting weed in mind before you get started. 

How to Grow Weed from Seed to Harvest

With an overwhelming amount of information on cannabis planting available, it can be hard to know where to start. With this quick guide, you’ll be a pot planting pro in no time. 

How long does weed take to grow? 

Cannabis plants generally take anywhere from 3 to 8 months to grow from seed to yield. If you’ve purchased clones or autoflowering seeds, your plants may finish faster. 

Other factors, like the cannabis strain, expected yield, and setup, will also impact the time it takes to grow your weed.

Buying Weed Seeds

The first step to growing weed at home is to find or buy cannabis seeds.

When buying marijuana seeds, it’s a good idea to check for feminised seeds – especially as a beginner pot planter. Feminised seeds are almost guaranteed to develop as female plants – which are the plants that produce the bud. 

While there are many male cannabis plant uses, you don’t want these near female plants. Male plants grow pollen sacs and pollinate the female plant. Once pollination happens, seed production starts – which will greatly diminish yields.  

Female plants need to be grown ‘sinsemilla’ (seedless) to render the maximum amount of buds. As a beginner, it is thus safer to stick to the widely available feminised seeds to make the growing process less stressful. 

Weed Plant Stages

There are four key stages of growing weed: 

• Germination: 3-10 days
• Seedling: 2-3 weeks
• Vegetative: 3-16 weeks
• Flowering stage: 8-12 weeks

Germination

If you’ve ever had to sprout a bean between two paper towels for a primary school project, you’re already well equipped for this stage of the process. 

It’s best to germinate your seeds indoors, where you’ll have better control of the conditions the seeds are exposed to. Your plant is also less likely to be exposed to pests and mould.

To germinate your seeds, you can either use the paper towel method or set it in some loose, airy soil. 

It’s essential that the seeds are kept in a warm (but not hot), dark space with a good level of humidity.

Once a seed develops a radical (a single root), it’s ready to be transferred to some soil in a small container. Two cotyledon leaves will form on the top of the seed, seeking sunlight to fuel the plants’ growth. 

The Seedling Stage

Once your plant has grown a few small leaves, you’ve reached the seedling stage – congrats! As the plant grows, it’ll start to develop the well-known weed leaves with multiple ‘fingers’. 

During this stage, your plant is especially fragile, and extra care needs to be taken to ensure that the plant gets enough (but not too much) water. The plant will also need a lot of light (around 16 hours) to absorb as much energy as possible. 

You’ll need to monitor the humidity levels and keep the surroundings clean to avoid mould or disease on the plant. Try out mould-resistant cannabis strains if you’d like to be extra cautious. 

The seedling stage lasts about 2-3 weeks but may last longer. Once your plant starts developing leaves with full sets of blades (around 3-7 per leaf), it has reached the vegetative stage.  

Vegetative Stage

During the vegetative stage, which lasts about 3-16 weeks, the real growth starts. The first thing you need to do is transplant it over to a larger pot, or into your garden, in some nutrient-rich soil. Nitrogen is a crucial nutrient here. 

With its root system now more developed, the plant will start growing upward. At this point, your plant is growing tons of new leaves to absorb as much energy as possible – to help it develop flowers. 

This is also the best time to spot and remove any male plants.  

At this stage, the plant should be getting around 16-18 hours of light a day if grown indoors. If you’re growing your plant outside, it should be getting 6 hours of full sunlight exposure plus multiple hours of indirect sunlight.  

The Flowering Stage

This is the final stage of the weed growing process and where you’ll get to see the fruits of your patience and labour materialise. The flowering stage of cannabis lasts around 8-12 weeks and is triggered by a reduction of light. 

So if you’re growing your plants outdoors, the change of the season will determine the amount of light your plant is getting. If you’re planting indoors, you will need to change your light schedule to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness each day.

There are three different stages of cannabis flowering — pre-flowering, mid-flowering, and late-flowering. 

The first signs of the flowering stage are the small pistles (greenish-white hairs) that develop where buds will form. In the mid-flowering phase, the buds will start to plump up. The late-flowering stage is where the number of trichomes will increase, and the plant will get sticky. 

Once the pistles start to turn brown, you can consider harvesting the buds. Avoid harvesting or pruning your plant too early. Once you’ve gathered the buds, hang them upside down to let them dry out.  

Final Thoughts on How to Grow Cannabis

Now that you’ve got a good grasp on cannabis planting, you can further research the necessary types of soil, ideal temperatures, strains, and harvesting practices. 

If you follow all the steps above, you should yield some boast-worthy bud. And who knows, you might just be the next person to grow South Africa’s largest weed plant.