Teddys Cannabis Blog
How to Grow Cannabis Secretly at Home
Cannabis is a remarkable plant with incredible benefits. It offers so much if we set aside the clichés associated with it and examine its properties with an open, unbiased view.
As consumers, most of us love cannabis. What's not to love? Unfortunately, not everyone shares the same opinion. In some regions, cannabis cultivation is simply illegal, and in others, cannabis is still frowned upon due to misinformation.
So, if you want to enjoy homegrown cannabis, you should be aware of the risks involved. In most cases, it can lead to complaints from neighbors, eviction from your apartment, or even incarceration, in the worst-case scenario.
For these reasons, cannabis cultivation has evolved significantly over time, as more and more people opt for discreet indoor cultivation. Whether it's concerns about privacy, fear of legal restrictions, or simply seeking a controlled environment, the allure of growing cannabis at home without drawing attention is undeniable.
If you live in a region where cannabis isn't widely accepted, you'll need to keep your cannabis cultivation discreet. But how do you do that? You're in luck.
In this article, you'll find some tips on how to keep your cultivation hidden from your neighbors and even visitors.
Choosing the Right Setup
The environment plays a crucial role in indoor cannabis cultivation, as it directly affects whether the cultivation is successful or not. The location is particularly important, even if cultivation is done within your own four walls. Not every room is equally suitable, and potential problems, such as nosy neighbors who might discover the plants, should be avoided.
It's advisable to carefully choose the location, considering factors such as accessibility, ventilation options, and the frequency of visitors. Ideally, the chosen area should provide enough space to promote plant growth, be well-ventilated, and easy to maintain.
Another important aspect is the equipment of the cultivation site. When choosing the location, keep in mind that clumsy placement can attract attention and arouse unwanted curiosity. To prevent this, there are various ways to discreetly cultivate cannabis in your own home.
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Indoor Grow Room
The optimal solution for discreet cannabis cultivation is a so-called grow room. This is a specially designated room in your home where all the necessary equipment for cultivation is available, ranging from growth lights to ventilation systems, fans, and the ideal hydroponic system for your cannabis plants.
Using an indoor grow room allows you to cultivate multiple plants and lock the room at any time. However, not everyone has the opportunity to use an additional room in their house for this purpose. Therefore, this method is more suitable for hobby gardeners who only want to grow one plant for personal use.
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Grow Tents
In this case, you have the option to invest in a grow tent. Such a tent comes equipped with all the necessary equipment for cannabis cultivation, including ventilation systems, connections for lighting fixtures, and insulated walls made of special fabric, depending on the brand.
Grow tents are relatively inexpensive and compact, so they can even fit in your attic. However, they often stand out indoors. Your neighbors won't know about it unless they enter your home. However, if you're willing to spend more money, grow cabinets are also available. These represent an improvement over grow tents and can be designed to look like ordinary cabinets.
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Space Buckets
If you don't have available space in your home but still want to grow your cannabis plant, the option of space buckets is available. Here, you cultivate cannabis in a few buckets. This may sound strange at first, but it works great for personal cannabis consumption and is mysterious and easy to set up, making it ideal for beginners.
Space buckets have become very efficient and accordingly popular. Of course, this won't be appealing to people who want to grow multiple plants and achieve large yields. However, if you have limited options for indoor cannabis cultivation, space buckets could be a great option.
A space bucket is essentially a DIY project where you create an environment that allows you to control factors like light, humidity, and temperature. To get started, look for a suitable bucket at a hardware store. Since space is very limited, you can line the inside of the bucket with reflective material like Mylar to ensure light distribution and improve growth.
Next, you'll need to choose light sources. You can use either low-power LEDs or CFLs. Since the bucket is small, choose light sources that aren't too powerful to minimize the risk of burning the small plants.
The next step is selecting suitable cannabis strains for your space bucket. Autoflowering strains are best suited as they are quite compact. However, be aware that autoflowers available nowadays can grow into true giants. Just because they're autoflowers doesn't mean they'll stay small. So take your time to select strains that tend to stay small, or you'll end up with a large plant that overwhelms the bucket.
Start by germinating the seeds and then plant the seedlings in well-draining, nutrient-rich soil. You can create your own soil mix by incorporating perlite or vermiculite for drainage into the soil. As your plants grow, use training techniques like Low Stress Training (LST) to achieve an even canopy and improve the exposure of lower branches to light.
Training plants represents the simplest and undoubtedly natural method to increase harvest yields. Whether it's about training the plants to fit into a limited growing area or simply to achieve abundant flower yield, there is a suitable training method for every grow room.
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Balcony
If you don't want to deal with a plant in your home, you have the option to grow cannabis on your balcony. However, this requires more than just a cannabis plant and various camouflage features to keep the plant discreet. More on that later.
What's great about a balcony setup is that it's cost-effective and allows your plant to enjoy the sun. So, you don't have to spend money and time on growth lights. It's an excellent option and pretty close to a neat outdoor cultivation, but it comes with its risks.
To successfully grow cannabis on your balcony, you need to consider several factors.
Firstly, make sure your balcony gets sufficient sunlight, as cannabis plants thrive in sunlight. Find a location that receives six hours of direct sunlight daily. Then, choose containers that drain well to promote healthy root development. Fill these containers with high-quality potting soil that drains well and contains nutrients for optimal growth.
Choose a suitable cannabis strain for balcony cultivation. Don't opt for huge strains meant for outdoor cultivation. Sure, you're technically growing outdoors, but you'll still be using containers and don't want to attract too much attention. It's also advantageous if the strain adapts to your local climate.
Select strains with fast flowering times. Start by germinating the seeds indoors and then plant the seedlings on your balcony once they have developed a root system. As the plants grow, support them with stakes or trellises to protect them from the wind and promote growth.
Keep an eye on the watering and nutrient schedules for cannabis grown on the balcony. Since they are exposed to different elements, these plants may need more frequent watering. Regularly check for pests and diseases and take measures to protect your plants. This way, you can enjoy the benefits of homegrown marijuana even if you have limited indoor space.
Grow companion plants. Not only will companion plants mask the smell, but taller plants will also push your cannabis plant out of sight. When someone looks at your balcony, they'll only see a bunch of green plants and not the cannabis plant hiding among them.
Companion plants also have many other benefits, such as attracting beneficial insects or repelling pests.
Some of the best companion plants for cannabis are: lavender, sunflower, marigold, peppermint, calendula, alfalfa, dill, lemon balm.
Choosing the Right Strain
Once you've determined where you want to grow cannabis, the next step is to decide which strain to grow. If you want to keep your indoor grow room discreet, you should ideally choose compact strains that grow quickly and don't produce much odor. Which strains meet these criteria?
The best choice would be autoflowering strains. These strains follow an internal genetic clock to transition from vegetative growth to flowering, so they don't grow as tall as photoperiodic strains. The downside is that they produce a lower yield, but that's more than sufficient for personal use.
If you prefer photoperiodic strains, you'll need to select ones that are naturally compact and quick to flower. Such strains are much easier to handle – you don't want to try to hide a mammoth-sized cannabis plant on your balcony.
An aspect not to be overlooked when choosing the right seeds is shipping - without considering this aspect, your cannabis project will fail before it even starts. It's likely not easy to obtain seeds in your area if you're secretly growing cannabis. Therefore, you'll need to order seeds from a seed bank.
Look for reputable vendors or seed banks with good reviews and choose the right strain for you. Opt for discreet shipping, as most reputable seed banks offer this service. What exactly is discreet shipping? The seeds are shipped in inconspicuous packaging so that no one, including the delivery person and curious neighbors, knows that the package contains cannabis seeds.
Controlling the Cannabis Odor
One of the biggest concerns you should have when growing cannabis discreetly is the smell – it's a significant issue. Cannabis produces a strong odor that you might not notice anymore when you live with it because your nose gets used to the smell, but anyone passing by your house will immediately smell the cannabis odor. So, you have to hide the smell, and you can do that in the following ways:
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Planting herbs or flowers with strong smells
An excellent way to keep the smell of your cannabis plant secret is simply to cover it with another stronger smell, i.e., with strongly scented flowers and herbs. These companion plants will produce a smell that is stronger than that of your cannabis plant, so when someone passes by your window or balcony, all they will smell is the plants, not the cannabis.
The plants that are well suited to hide the smell of your cannabis plants are lavender, peppermint, basil, and thyme.
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Air fresheners
Companion plants don't work for every grower and aren't a hundred percent way to hide the cannabis smell. Therefore, you can also use air fresheners or odor eliminators, which are available in liquid or gel form. These are additional measures, so don't rely solely on them, but they can be useful if you have unexpected visitors in your home.
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Activated carbon filters
By far the best option to keep the smell of your cannabis plant secret is to use activated carbon filters. This device is located in your exhaust system and uses activated carbon filters to remove the cannabis odor from the air leaving the cultivation space.
Activated carbon filters are somewhat more expensive compared to the options listed above, but they are very effective. They don't hide the smell, they eliminate it. In short, they are supposed to remove 90% of the cannabis smell.
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Growing strains with low odor
If the smell is a concern for you and you still want to be on the safe side, you should choose strains that naturally don't produce much smell. Some of the best low odor cannabis strains are Ice, Jack Herer, Durban Poison, and Northern Lights.
We all love aromatic cannabis flowers, but sometimes you have to compromise if you want to keep your cannabis flowers discreet.
Avoiding noises
Odor is a concern that many growers think about, but few consider noise. Devices like fans, air pumps, and exhaust systems can create noise. Cannabis cultivation rooms are often noisy, so it's essential to keep the grow room quiet. Where does this noise come from? Mainly from the fans, blowers, and plant lights.
However, air circulation is crucial for plants, so you must also consider that. By investing in quiet duct fans and efficient ducting, you can achieve good ventilation without drawing attention to your setup. Duct fans help remove air from the grow room while supplying fresh air, thereby regulating temperature and humidity.
Additionally, the size and capacity of your duct fans ensure ventilation without unnecessary noise. A balance must be struck between air exchange and quiet operation. Ducting systems can increase ventilation efficiency by effectively removing heat and moisture generated during the cultivation process.
Here are some tips on how to keep your grow space quiet during cannabis cultivation:
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Invest in soundproof ducting to dampen the noise in your grow room.
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Install foam panels on the walls to absorb sound and reduce echoes.
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Use plant lights that generate minimal noise - LEDs are ideal.
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Place devices on vibration-damping pads to reduce sound transmission.
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Use quiet fans.
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Ensure that the exhaust fan hangs freely.
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Make sure nothing vibrates against anything else - this vibration also generates a lot of noise.
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Use air stones, hydroponics, filters, etc., that do not generate noise.
Summary
While it may initially seem like a considerable effort, it's relatively straightforward to conceal your cannabis plant from curious neighbors.
Here are some aspects to consider:
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Choose the appropriate environment for your cannabis plant, whether it's a grow room or space buckets.
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Opt for a cannabis strain that grows compactly and has a quick flowering time; autoflowering varieties are particularly suitable here.
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When ordering seeds, opt for discreet delivery to maintain your privacy.
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Control cannabis odor using activated carbon filters, air fresheners, and companion plants.
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Keep noise and light levels low or well hidden.
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Train your plant to keep it compact and short, contributing to effective camouflage.
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Keep everything secret to ensure maximum discretion.
By consistently following these steps, not even your best friend will be aware that you're growing cannabis. Keep Growing!
