Amendment 64 Allows Home Grows – Let’s Get Growing, Colorado

It is now legal for adults 21 and over to possess, use and grow cannabis in Colorado. With the opening of non-medical marijuana retail stores about a year away, there is no better time to set up your own home grow.

Under Colorado’s Amendment 64, any adult 21 and over may grow 6 marijuana plants at any given time, only 3 of which can be ‘mature’. I hope someday the accepted definition of ‘mature’ will be ‘ready for harvest’. Unfortunately, for now ‘mature’ means any plant with detectable flowers.

In this Weedist series we will explore different home grow configurations with 3 flowering plants, along with their expected costs and yields. No matter how much you smoke or eat, you can grow it all yourself.

For beginning growers, consider purchasing a book about home growing.

Greg Green’s “The Cannabis Grow Bible” is a complete guide to home growing, indoors or out. One of my favorite books about home growing, DJ Short’s “Cultivating Exceptional Cannabis” is no longer available at a reasonable price. I hope the publisher will republish it in the future. DJ Short is the breeder behind Blueberry and Flo, among others. His book is a short, simple and complete guide to growing some of the highest quality buds possible.

Recommendation – Grow 3 purchased clones at a time in a single space.

For those that want to grow their own without investing in much equipment or using a lot of space, a single grow area can be set up with a single light. Three clones (if using multiple strains, get strains with similar flowering times) can be purchased and grown to harvest, then three more clones are purchased for the next set. I highly recommend this option for growers, especially beginners, with easy access to clones. If you enjoy growing your own, you can add another area for vegetative growth and cloning later (see below).

This can also be done using seeds, but you either have to use feminized seeds or plant 6 seeds and later remove the males and any extra females. If you plan on breeding or making clones with your seedlings I recommend against using feminized seeds; The American Cultivator has a great article from the breeder at Tree Town Seeds explaining why.

Vegetative area and cloning schedule (optional)

If you do not have easy access to clones, want more regularly spaced (and less labor-intensive) harvests or you just do not want to pay for each set of clones, a separate grow space can be set up. This space, called the vegetative area, is lit eighteen hours each day. The vegetative area may be smaller and require less intense light than the main (flowering) area, which is lit twelve hours each day.

The vegetative area allows a grower to keep a favorite strain and make their own clones.

To get the most out of your garden under Amendment 64 without purchasing clones, one plant is chosen as a mother plant. This plant will decide several factors in your garden (namely flowering time, yields and effects) so choose a good one. The mother plant will need to be cloned. Cloning is a fairly easy skill to master, and is definitely worth learning if you have the room for a vegetative area.

Approximately every three weeks (1/3 total flowering time for the chosen strain to be precise) a clone is taken from the mother plant. Once rooted (after 2 or 3 weeks) each clone is planted in its container and allowed to grow to its desired vegetative height before being moved to the flowering area. Plants grow anywhere from 1′ to 3′ taller while flowering, so don’t grow your plants too large in the vegetative area or they can overgrow your space.

Since a new clone is taken every 1/3 of the plant’s total flowering time, there will always be 3 flowering plants, and you will harvest a plant every 2.5 to 4 weeks. The only drawback to this garden schedule is that you are likely to get tired of just about any strain if it is the only one you have. Since clones are already widely available in Colorado and will certainly become more available as soon as retail stores begin opening under Amendment 64, I recommend purchasing new clones frequently.

We in Colorado have the privilege of being the first to legally grow our own recreational marijuana. Let’s get growing, Colorado.