What to Consider When Choosing to Grow Inside or Outside in Colorado
Having a green thumb never seemed more useful now that you can legally grow marijuana in Colorado. Growing weed in a residential area used to carry stigma, a smell, and a lot of stress and risky behavior. Now, it just makes you a resident of the great state of Colorado. Check out these unique grow methods for marijuana!
Now, living in one of the sunniest states in the U.S., as well as having record rainfall, the question really is: To grow inside or outside?
Table of Contents
Grow Method # 1: Growing Cannabis Outside
One of the biggest benefits of growing outdoors is the ample space you might already have. Most people with a backyard, or really any area that is tillable, are already halfway through the process of a growing spot. Ideally, you would like to have a south facing garden area to soak up as most of the sunlight time as possible.
Colorado’s location in comparison to direct sunlight is a little bit north of most of the rays. Meaning, if your garden is south facing, the sun will be rising and fall over your garden completely throughout the day. Also, a warm climate is always ideal. Given the right type of soil and nutrients, you are pretty set to use this grow method!
Starting from seed or clone?
When starting from a seed the process can seem extremely long. Plus there are quite a few eminent hazards that can crush your plant just as it’s starting to sprout. There is a risk for high winds, animals, and nosey neighbors. If choosing to grow from the seed stage some better practice is to start the plant indoors by a window to get the plant to a mature enough stage to have strong stalk as well as enough roots to retain and grab nutrients.
The other risk to seed growing, not knowing if your seed is male or female. If you are not aware of the risk of not knowing the gender, male plants are extremely detrimental to marijuana plants. If a male plant happens to pollinate your female plant it will “seed out.”
Purchasing “guaranteed female” seeds are a risk as well
“Guaranteed female” seeds have been sprayed or chemically engineered to produce buds, but they still carry the male genetics in them, which could also lead to “herm’ing out.” Basically the plant in its flowering stage goes from female to male. Even though there is quite a bit of work and risk to seed growing, part of the reward of seed growing is the feeling of starting from the bottom (now we’re here) and making it to the top!
Plus, the added conversation piece of being able to speak to the hardships of growing to a master grower will get you props and maybe even a few free nugs.
If you want to skip the hardships of starting from seed, clone growing is a very sufficient and easier way to make sure your plant grows to its full potential. All the same precautions should be taken as growing from seed but the added bonus to a clone is knowing what plant it came from and the gender.
Grow Method # 2: Growing Cannabis Indoors
Growing indoors can be a lot trickier than it initially appears. The benefits of growing indoors allow you to control a lot of the variables that could stunt or ruin plants in an outdoor grow. You can control the climate, amount of light, and even the intensity of the light to methodically produce perfect cannabis.
With this great power comes a great utility bill. Running the lamps, heaters, misters etc. needed can be extremely costly, especially if the insulation or ventilation is not pristine. For example, some 600w Lights can use as much electricity as a refrigerator! Also with creating the perfect growing conditions means you must create a perfect growing environment.
The cost of artificially recreating the soil, light, and water conditions can be quite monotonous. The upkeep is quite time consuming too.
You MUST oversee the conditions at all times
Marijuana plants can easily go into shock from the slightest changes in condition or the quality of the marijuana can deteriorate exponentially.
Now with all that said, indoor grows are perceived to produce some of the best ganja out there. Perfect conditions yield perfect weed. Simple as that. Plus, if you’re not out there announcing that you partake in your rights to the 64th amendment, then indoor growing has an added peak of being discreet.
And lastly, the indoor weed grow method season lasts 12 months long. If you really take a liking to growing marijuana and find a great amount of satisfaction in it then there than indoor growing is for you.
So really one is not better than the other, it is really just a matter of how much money, time, and work you want to put into growing some good ganja!
