If you smoke a lot of weed, growing your own cannabis plants is a great way to save money on bud while learning essential skills for self-sufficient stoners. Last year, my husband and I decided to try growing two weed plants in the closet of our spare bedroom, partially as a learning experience but mostly to see if we could actually turn some old Northern Lights seeds into something smokeable. Spoiler alert: it worked!
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This list includes everything we used to successfully grow two marijuana plants in the closet. If you have more space you can definitely do more than 2 plants, but as our first grow we wanted to keep things simple.
Update Nov. 2021: We’re doing this again with all the same products listed below, except this time we decided to save the closet space and bought ourselves a grow tent to keep in the dining room instead. I much prefer the grow tent but the closet bins still work great if you want to save $100.
In the grow tent I’m also propagating some basil and thyme since there’s so much room for activities, and in the upper right you can (sort of) see my Aerogarden that I use to grow lettuce indoors. It’s so much better than store-bought leafy greens!
For step-by-step instructions, we used the Cannabis Grow Bible to walk us through the indoor growing process. Let’s just say “Bible” is an appropriate word for this book because it was a godsend and probably the main reason our plants yielded us any weed at all. This book walks you through every phase and digs deep into every detail of the process, so you know exactly what to prepare for as your plants grow and their needs change. If you read the whole thing you’ll have a botany degree when you finish, it’s that good. There are many variations of this book out there, as well as plenty of free blog posts and ebooks on how people grow their weed, so you might find one that works better for you than the grow bible, but I highly recommend having something like this on hand so you can learn as you go.
One reason we wanted to grow our own weed is because of the Northern Lights seeds we had from a friend. If you don’t already have seeds on hand, you can buy cannabis seeds online through Seedsman. They sell regular, feminized, and auto-flowering seeds from 80+ breeders around the world, so it’s likely they’ll have seeds available for your favorite strain.
Growing Medium
We chose soil for our growing medium over hydroponics because it required less of an investment to set up. We used a Foxfarms soil and perlite blend.
The seeds started off in a seedling domed nursery in front of a sunny window to make sure they would sprout. From there, we transferred them into the solo cups for a little more space before moving them into 3-gallon fabric pots filled with the perlite soil, which were then placed in the large plastic storage bin. The plants stayed in the fabric pots for the remainder of the grow.
We insulated the bin using Mylar sheets and a spray adhesive to cover the interior sides.
Lighting
We added some LED strip lights to the bin to keep light reaching under the leaves. These are the lights surrounding the small plants in the pictures. We ended up keeping them in there for the full length of the grow.
Once the plants outgrew the strip lights, we used this 600W LED grow light and an adjustable hanging system to hang the lamp from the closet rack.
We also made it very easy on ourselves with these mechanical outlet timers for when the plants started to flower. In this stage, your plants will require 12 hours of light and 12 hours of complete darkness, so if you use outlet timers to automate this process, you won’t have to worry about getting too high to remember to turn off the light.
Airflow / Odor Control
We regulated airflow with (4) 120mm computer fans and a 12 volt molex adapter, which can power up to 5 fans at a time. You can see where the fans were placed in holes cut into the side of the bin.
Once the plants get a little bigger, this 4″ inline centrifugal fan will keep the space breezy without too much noise. Attach it to this 4″ flexible dryer vent tubing.
This 4″x18″ carbon filter will keep your landlord’s nose out of your business. If that’s not enough, we also used this HEPA air purifier, which is a life-saver if you need to quickly get the smell under control. I use it all around the house to purify the air even when we’re not growing.
Temperature Control
We kept this temperature controller on the outside of the door so we could check the temperature at a glance.
This humidity and temperature gauge sat right inside the bin. It measures indoor temperatures and humidity every 10 seconds and has an alarm if anything goes off balance.
We also kept a small oscillating fan and ultrasonic humidifier going most of the time to help with airflow and humidity.
Water / Nutrients
This auto-drip irrigation pump and tubing system can be programmed to water your plants at whatever schedule you set, which is a must-have if you want to go away for the weekend.
The plants were fed using Fox Farm liquid nutrients and we just followed the directions on the bottle to determine what amount to feed them.
We monitored the water and soil quality using a soil pH tester, water quality tester, and a hydroponics pH control kit.
Make sure you have some nice pruning shears for trimming the leaves when the brush starts to get thick. Throw the leaves in a salad or smoothie for some tasty nutrition, or give them to your pets if they like leafy greens. My cats eat pot leaves like it’s catnip.
It took about 4 months for the plants to get to a point where we were ready to trim the buds and hang them to dry. We dried the stems on clothes hangers for about a week and a half before trimming the buds, then finally performed the ultimate test of smoking our first homegrown bowl of weed. We actually forgot to weigh the final product to see how much we grew, but we got high and we’re still smoking it months later so I’m going to call that a win.
For your home grow, remember that your first attempt is a big learning experience and that the amount of weed you’ll grow can vary significantly depending on your care methods, the seeds you choose, and the strain. Once you buy your setup and learn the process, you can expect to get more quantity and potency from your plants.