Grow Marijuana with Hydroponic Gardening

In many states, the Medical Marijuana patient is permitted to grow marijuana. Indeed, growing your own marijuana is a good decision - particularly if your rate of consumption is high. Doing so also allows you to have unlimited supply of your favorite strain of weed.

Unless you own a vast estate, your best bet for growing marijuana is to grow it indoors using a hydroponics system. Prices for hydroponics systems are from $300 to many thousands of dollars. Different hydroponic systems greatly vary according to (a) amount of automation (b) one stage only vs. all-inclusive mother plant area, vegetation and flowering area. The latter is more preferred since you will have a permanent mother plant that allows you access to unlimited clones whenever you need them. There are also a few efficient low-end systems in Stealth Hydroponics. Their grow tents are great if you don't have a closet. If you want to go all-the-way extravagant, check out BC Northern Lights, the Rolls Royce of hydroponic gardening.

How To Grow Marijuana for the Medical Marijuana User who wants to grow their own.
Naturally, you want to grow as big a plant as possible. Note, however, that this can have a negative effect. Every plant, let it be known, requires at least 3x3 feet footprint. Going below this limit would affect the amount of lighting that gets to your plant. Another problem with trying to grow huge marijuana plants is that if you're not careful, they can grow right past the lights. A good rule of thumb to follow is that your plants will grow 1 1/2 feet during the flowering stage...so you must start the flowering process as soon as the plants reach to within 24" of the lights in their highest position. Usually, this occurs anywhere between 3 and 8 weeks from starting with a clone.

Searching for a source for clones is the true secret to successfully grow marijuana. This shall ensure that your plant will be female and that it'll survive (the most fragile stage in a plant life is the first two weeks). Once you have a clone, then you are automatically assured of a crop growing all-year-round.

Advanced nutrients are important to a good marijuana crop. Miracle Gro and other regular fertilizers will not work. It's wonderful that Stealth Hydroponics and BC Northern Lights offer a wide selection of this type of products. If you follow a thorough schedule of draining and refilling the water every two weeks and adding nutrients as needed, you definitely won't fail. Tap water, let set for about 10 minutes is perfect. Of course, give your plants that needed tender loving care: control the pH level, CO2, temperature and humidity. Note that in reality, Marijuana is a weed, so it would take quite a bit to kill it. Just one tip though, don't add the first round until two weeks after the vegetation stage.

Lastly, regarding lighting... Lighting is important. But you have a range of lights to choose from: silver halide, CFL fluorescent as well as other high tech lights. They'll all work just fine. Vegetation spectrum is in the 6000 Kelvin range and the Flower Spectrum is in the 2700 Kelvin range. Thus, it is useful to take note of both spectrums; but of course, focus more on the one that matches the stage where your marijuana growth is at.

About 12 weeks, that's the total time from cloning to harvest when you grow marijuana. Yield is around 4-6 ounces per plant.

The interesting practice of hydroponic gardening (the act of growing plants without using soil) is a highly misunderstood but widely known practice. Some view it with suspicion because they associate it with growing illegal substances; some see it as a deceptive science; some see it merely as a novel-but-expensive hobby. The truth is, hydroponics is a system utilized by hobbyists, gardeners, farmers and nations to grow strong, healthy plants of all kinds. Let us look at a few of the fallacies about hydroponics, and follow up with a clearer understanding.

There are many misconceptions about Hydroponic Gardening--which can be as easy or as hard as you want to make it.The first misconception is that hydroponics is used to "breed" controlled substances in secret rooms. Internet sources do not seem to help since they relate the concepts of hydroponics and illegal activity. But that is primarily because those spreading that information know how to use the Internet-not because every hydroponic garden is not a legal one. Statistics suggest that only a tiny percentage of hydroponic gardens grow these illegal substances. A large number of plants and vegetables do very well in hydroponic settings, and there are many good, honest gardeners using hydroponics to do just that. For instance, in Canada and Holland, farmers are using hydroponics to grow food on a larger scale. To suggest that hydroponics is a bad thing because people use it to grow illegal substances is to state that soil is a bad thing for the same reason. In other words, farming, whatever the method, is still farming - and hydroponics is simply one of the alternatives.

Second, a lot of people believe that hydroponic gardening is unnatural or artificial because it foregoes the use of soil. If these people knew better, however, they'd realize that the practice involves no chemical or genetic alterations and natural processes are not interrupted. All the normal ingredients for growing things in nature are provided to the plants just the same as if they're planted in soil: light, water, nutrients, and an anchor for the roots. In hydroponics, however, soil is replaced by other root-anchoring methods and nutrients, light and water are provided in ways that would optimize health and growth. Hydroponic plants, in fact, can be healthier and stronger than those grown conventionally-and without the use of additives. The process is more complicated, but the result is still the natural production of plants and food.

Lastly, others believe of hydroponics as a useless, expensive hobby. True, it's a fun pastime (and more often than not, a booming business), but this practice is nowhere lacking of usefulness. Hydroponics make growing food a possibility in almost any setting and environment-in the dead of winter, in the extended twilight of the polar regions, in places where soil is contaminated, and even in space. More significantly, this alternative method in farming makes the yield and quality of food-bearing plants better - as a result, food is made readily available to third-world countries and in places where famine is rampant.

Indeed, there's more to hydroponic gardening than what meets the eye - it's way larger than just an extravagant hobby, an unnatural process, and a hub for illegal substances.