How To Grow Weed For Beginners Step-by-Step

There are countless weed brands on the market. Sort of makes you think, why bother growing your own cannabis? 

One reason that immediately comes to mind is cost. Growing weed could save you several bucks, and you’d be gaining a hobby simultaneously. 

The problem is time. If you grow your own cannabis plants to supply your smoking needs entirely, you’d need to invest quite a bit of time, especially if you like mixing and matching strains. The amount of time looking after a small grow op explains why companies can charge a pretty penny for their work.

At the end of the day, you’re more than capable of growing high-quality marijuana if you put in the time. In doing so, you’ll learn ample information to sharpen your cultivation skills and make you an independent pro grower. 

See below for more information about cannabis cultivation and how to grow weed from beginning to end. 

The first step in growing cannabis is deciding where you’ll grow your marijuana plants—indoors or outdoors. This choice shapes everything about your grow, from how much work you’ll need to put into the type of yields you can expect.

Each option comes with its own benefits and challenges, and the right choice depends on your space, budget, and personal goals.

Here’s a detailed look at both to help you make the best decision for your setup.

Indoor growing allows you to control every aspect of your plant’s environment, from light and temperature to humidity and airflow. This setup is ideal if you want consistent results or live in a place with unpredictable weather.

Pros:

• Full Environmental Control: You can manage light cycles, humidity, temperature, and airflow, which leads to more consistent yields.
• Year-Round Growing: Unlike outdoor grows, indoor plants aren’t dependent on the seasons, so you can cultivate cannabis all year.
• Privacy and Security: Growing indoors keeps your operation private, reducing the risk of theft or unwanted attention.

Cons:

• Higher Upfront Costs: Indoor setups require an initial investment in lights, ventilation, and other equipment.
• More Maintenance: You’ll need to monitor and adjust the environment daily, which can be time-consuming.

Optimal Indoor Conditions:

• Young Plants: Maintain temperatures between 20-30°C (68-86°F).
• Flowering Stage: Keep temperatures between 18-26°C (64-79°F).
• Ventilation: Use fans and exhaust systems to control humidity and airflow, preventing mold and other issues.

Outdoor growing relies on natural sunlight and climate, making it a more affordable option for those with the right outdoor space. If you live in an area with a suitable climate, this approach can yield impressive results with a smaller investment compared to indoor growing.

Pros

• Lower Costs: The sun does the heavy lifting for you by providing free light, and you won’t need to invest in expensive lighting equipment.
• Less Maintenance: Nature handles a lot of the heavy lifting, from light cycles to airflow.
• Larger Yields: Outdoor plants have more room to grow, often resulting in larger plants and bigger yields.

Cons:

• Climate Dependency: Your success depends heavily on the weather, and extreme conditions can impact plant health.
• Less Privacy: Outdoor grows are more visible, making them less secure.
• Pest and Animal Risks: Your plants are more susceptible to pests, animals, and other threats.

Optimal Outdoor Conditions:

• Climate: Choose a location with moderate temperatures—not too hot, not too cold, and not overly humid or dry.
• Watering: Be prepared to adjust watering based on the weather, as outdoor plants are more affected by rain or drought.

Once you’ve decided on your growing environment, it’s time to think about lighting.

Light is crucial to your plant’s growth, influencing everything from how quickly it grows to how much it yields.

Your choice of grow lights depends largely on whether you’re growing indoors or outdoors, and it can significantly impact your results.

Let’s break down your options:

1. Natural Light (The Sun)

Natural sunlight promotes optimal photosynthesis, and with the room to expand their roots and branches, outdoor plants often achieve larger yields than indoor cannabis plants.

• Pros: Zero cost, full light spectrum, large yields.
• Cons: Dependent on weather, limited to growing seasons, less control over light exposure.

2. Regular LEDs

LED lights are a great cost-effective option for indoor home growers. These lights are commonly available, energy-efficient, and can get the job done for smaller grows.

• Pros: Affordable, energy-efficient, widely available.
• Cons: May not provide the full light spectrum that cannabis needs for optimal growth.

For the best results, full-spectrum “grow LEDs” are recommended for serious indoor cultivation. Regular LEDs work fine for seedlings or clones, but they lack the full light spectrum and intensity needed for those higher yields.

3. Other Fluorescent Lighting (CFLs)

Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) can be used for cannabis growth, but they aren’t the best choice. They can work for small or low-budget setups, but like regular LEDs, they lack the power needed for high-quality yields.

• Pros: Low cost, good for beginners or small-scale grows.
• Cons: Low intensity, limited light spectrum, best suited for seedlings or small plants.

4. Grow LEDs (Best Option)

If you’re serious about indoor growing, grow LEDs are designed specifically for cannabis cultivation. They provide the ideal light spectrum for every stage of growth, from vegetative to flowering, and can be adjusted to meet the needs of your cannabis plants.

• Pros: Full spectrum, adjustable intensity, efficient, best results.
• Cons: Higher upfront cost, but worth it for quality yields.

Your choice of growing medium is crucial because it’s where your cannabis plants will establish roots, absorb nutrients, and grow into healthy, high-yielding plants.

The three main types of growing mediums you can choose from include:

• Soil
• Soilless Mix 
• Hydroponics (directly in water)

Organic soil or homemade compost provides plants with essential nutrients, making it easier to grow healthy cannabis with minimal fertilizers.

Soilless mixes like coco coir, perlite, and peat moss offer excellent drainage and airflow to the roots, but these mediums require regular nutrient feedings since they don’t contain nutrients like soil does.

A hydroponic medium involves growing plants in a nutrient-rich water solution without soil. This type of setup promotes rapid growth and high yields but requires precise monitoring and experience.

At the end of the day, homemade compost and natural soil will be your cheapest (and still effective) options. 

Nutrients are a great way to boost and enhance your growing medium. By adding nutrients to your soil, potting mixes, or water in the case of hydroponics, you might be able to find incredible results.

The amount of nutrients you use will depend on the type of nutrients you purchase and the strain you’re growing. A good budtender will be able to point you in the right direction in terms of the nutrients you purchase and how much to dose at each stage of the growth cycle.

Once you’ve chosen your growing medium, it’s time to pick the strain you want to grow and decide whether to start from seeds or clones.

1. Choosing a Cannabis Strain

Once you’ve nailed down your growing medium, it’s time to pick the strain you want to grow. This might be the hardest (and most fun) decision of the entire process. It’s not just about choosing between indica, sativa, or hybrid—there are thousands of strains out there, each with distinct effects, flavors, and aromas. It’s worth researching the strain characteristics before buying your seeds.

2. Starting from Seeds vs. Clones

Starting from seeds is the most common option for beginners.

Seeds come in three types: feminized seeds (which produce only female plants), autoflowering seeds (which flower based on age rather than light cycles), and regular seeds (which can produce both male and female plants).

Clones are cuttings taken from a mature “mother” plant that will grow into an exact genetic copy. They offer a bit of a head start since they skip the germination phase and begin growing immediately.

If you’re a beginner, consider starting with feminized seeds of a strain known for being easy to grow, like Northern Lights or Blue Dream. These strains require minimal grow experience and often produce quality cannabis buds.

When growing gets too much, skip the process with Bloomz’s Mystery Reserve THCA Flower. We understand the difficulty of growing premium flowers, so why not pick up strains you can guarantee are top-notch?

This Mystery Reserve line brings you Bloomz’s best strains and nugs of each week across all their high-potency THCA flower strains. And since each batch is limited, that means you’re getting the finest exotic flower of the week.

This makes it easy to find strains that pack a punch instead of doing the guesswork yourself. These strains are available in 3.5g, 7g, and 28g, reaching potencies of 30% THC and higher. Use code HERB25 at checkout for 25% off your entire order!

Starting your cannabis-growing journey can feel seriously daunting. If your seeds are low-quality, you might face many hiccups in your growing journey.

ILGM has been a trusted name is the cannabis seed industry for over 25 years. They leverage tons of growing experience and knowledge in their strain breeding and germination, making sure you get the seeds you need to grow healthy, strong buds. Their strain line-up is impressive, and we got some serious decision paralysis when trying to pick ones out (finally landed on Gorilla Glue feminized seeds).

We definitely see ILGM as the best place to buy cannabis seeds online, especially for those newer to the growing scene.

This has to be one of the most reliable Sativa-dominant strains on the market.

Brought to be the Amsterdam-founded, Cannabis Cup-winning seed company Dutch Passion, this autoflowering variant combines Skywalker Haze and Auto Amsterdam Amnesia genetics to produce an extremely powerful hybrid packed with 20-25%.

Auto Skywalker Haze’s terpene profile is equally intriguing, offering notes of lemon haze and citrusy spice. With harvest in roughly 11-13 weeks, expect massive plants that might need a bit more grow room. But the large yield and energizing effects are always worth it.

Grab your seeds today from Dutch Passion, the very first brand to introduce feminized cannabis seeds in 1997 and pioneer autoflower strains in the early 2000s.

For a truly stunning variety of seeds and clones, head to Flowgardens. This team takes pride in cultivating health and happiness through premium quality cannabis, and that doesn’t stop at supplying it.

They aim to help you grow the plants you’ve always wanted, whether that’s potent and dank or light and sweet. Seeds are available in THCa, THCa:CBD, and CBD, and clones are available in Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3. Check out the full variety of seeds below:

• Super Lemon Haze F8 Seeds
• Fruit Salad (Grapefruit x Abacus)
• Aruba (Paradise OG x Miracle Burn)
• Don Point (Point Break x Don Limon)
• Banana Kiss (Banana MAC x Abacus)
• Dancing Queen (Purple Haze x Abacus)
• Miracle Glow (Shaolin Gleaux x Miracle Burn)
• Johnny Meringue (Blue Meringue x Point Break)
• Lemon Shiver (Fabled x Britney’s Frozen Lemons)
• Lemon Glaze (Lemon Fritter x Super Lemon Haze)
• Banana Alien Burn (Banana Alien Kush x Miracle Burn)
• Tangerine Dream Seeds (Orange Glaze x Miracle Burn)
• Blueberry Lemonade (Blue Meringue x Super Lemon Haze)
• Lemon Vanilla OG (Paradise OG x Britney’s Frozen Lemons)
• Raspberry Lemonade (Raspberry Kush x Super Lemon Haze)

Order now from Flowgardens and take your grow to new levels.

If you choose the seed route, you’ll need to germinate your cannabis seeds. If you go the clone route, you can skip this stage entirely since clones are already rooted and ready to grow.

Germination is when a seedling sprouts from a seed for the first time. Once the seed has been germinated, it can be transferred to the growing medium.

If you are starting from scratch then two germination methods you can use include:

These are regular plastic trays with small openings that can hold small amounts of soil with a seed inside them. They can be watered easily and efficiently.

Some trays have heating systems that add to their versatility and simplicity. In other cases, you can just apply heat through your lighting. Either way, you should have a glimpse of your first seedlings in 3-7 days.

Once the seedlings have sprouted you can take the whole cube of soil in the tray and plant them where you plan on growing the mature flower later down the line.

The paper towel method is something you might have already done in fifth grade. In case you haven’t, then you probably already suspect it’s quite simple to do.

Just place a couple of seeds in the middle of a damp paper towel. Close the paper towel down the middle, put it on a plate, and cover the whole thing with a second plate. If plates don’t sound like what a real grower uses, then you might be able to find something to work with at your go-to hardware store.

Check on your germination process regularly and once the seedlings have sprouted take them and plant them in your growing medium of choice.

The vegetative stage is when your plant really starts to grow up. It’s left the seedling phase behind and is now developing into a young, leafy plant.

During this stage, you’ll notice the leaves, stems, and branches growing quickly, but there are still no buds yet—that comes later in the flowering phase.

This stage is all about building a strong foundation. Think of it as getting to know your plant: Is it standing tall and looking healthy, or does it seem a bit droopy? This is your plant’s way of telling you what it needs—more or less water, a nutrient adjustment, or perhaps a tweak in temperature or light.

Getting in tune with your plant is part of the process and the fun.

The more you observe and respond to its needs, the healthier it’ll be when it’s time to flower.

Treat this stage as an opportunity to strengthen your plant’s roots and set it up for a successful harvest down the line.

The flowering phase is when all your hard work starts to pay off. This is the stage where your cannabis plants begin to grow the buds you’ve been waiting for.

During this phase, it’s crucial to keep temperatures between 18-26°C.

If you’re growing outdoors, this can be trickier since you can’t adjust the weather, so it’s important to plan your growth cycles so that your plants hit the flowering stage when the days naturally start getting shorter—typically during autumn or fall.

1. Adjusting Your Light Schedule
If you’re growing indoors, switch your light schedule to 12 hours of total darkness and 12 hours of light. This simulates the natural light cycle changes that trigger flowering. Outdoor growers don’t need to worry about this, as the shorter days in fall will prompt plants to flower naturally.

2. Identifying Your Plant’s Gender
Identifying the gender of your plants is crucial at this stage. Only female plants grow the smokable buds you’re after, while male plants produce pollen sacs instead of flowers.

• Female Plants: Look for pistils, which are small white, hair-like structures that grow at the joints of the top branches. These pistils will eventually develop into the bushy flowers you’ll harvest.
• Male Plants: Instead of pistils, males develop pollen sacs—small green balls that remain unsprouted and won’t produce buds.

The trick here is understanding when is the best time to harvest your flower buds. The harvest window will start when your flowers stop growing white hairs. From there on out you’ll have three options to cut down your flower buds:

• Approximately half of the white hairs have turned darker for low potencies.
• When a little more than half of the hairs have changed for maximum THC potency.
• When most hairs have turned darker for potent relaxing effects but lower THC levels.

Picking and trimming are easy to do in theory. You just need to cut your flower from the plant with a scissor and then trim the buds from their stems.

Curing and drying your buds is the step where you put the cherry on top of this long process. This step makes sure that your flower is smooth, flavorful, and ready to smoke.

Rushing this process can lead to harsh, chlorophyll-heavy smoke, so it’s worth taking the time to do it right.

1. Hang to Dry:

After picking and trimming your buds, hang them upside down in a cool, dark place with good ventilation. A closet or a dedicated drying room works well—just be sure to avoid areas like kitchens or bathrooms, where humidity tends to be higher.

You’ll know the buds are dry enough when the thinner stems snap cleanly, but the thicker stems remain bendy. This usually takes about 7-10 days, but the exact timing depends on humidity levels in your drying space.

2. Curing Your Buds for Best Results

Once your buds are dry, remove any excess stems and give them a final trim for a cleaner appearance. Place the dried buds into glass jars, filling them to about ¾ capacity to allow for some airflow.

For the first 2-3 weeks, open the jars daily for a few minutes. This process, known as “burping,” releases excess moisture and prevents mold.

Feel the buds and make sure they’re not retaining too much moisture. You can also use humidity packs to help maintain the ideal environment inside the jars.

Curing can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month (or longer if you’re patient).

Once your buds are properly cured, they’re finally ready to enjoy! You’ve put in the time, care, and patience, and now you’ve got smooth, flavorful cannabis that’s ready to smoke, vape, or turn into edibles. Enjoy the fruits of your labor—you earned it!

I get it. This guide is pretty long. Although I’m quite proud of it, I’m also happy to steer you in an easier direction. The STRNG Seeds Premium Grow Kit is an excellent, effortless alternative to the lengthy and complicated at-home weed-growing process. This eco-friendly kit comes complete with:

• 2 high-quality coco compost mixes (over 3 liters of dirt when expanded)
• 3 autoflowering seeds from STRNG Seeds of your choice
• Biodegradable fabric container
• High-quality organic nutrients
• Instruction manual
• 1 germination plug

With the handy instructions, you can grow a flower-bearing plant in just 10 weeks. Whether you prefer indoor or outdoor grows, this kit can handle temperatures between 18–28°C. Choose from a long list of strains and guarantee the easiest grow of your life, thanks to STRNG Seeds.

Interested in growing your best friend? One popular option for those interested in growing their own cannabis is to start with clones. A clone is a cutting from a cannabis plant that, once rooted, can grow into a new plant, identical to the one it was taken from. For beginner growers, this method can save a lot of time and effort, as the process of germinating seeds and caring for seedlings can be quite complex and delicate.

Marijuana Clones Online offers a product that perfectly fits this purpose: the 6-pack clones. This product provides growers with six healthy, rooted clones, ready to be transplanted and grown into mature plants. Each year, their breeders release some of the most potent strains from their secret vault. Half of these are grown out, and the other half are made available to customers in the form of these clone packs. These strains are limited edition, and once sold out, they will be gone forever.

For those starting their cultivation journey, using clones can be an advantage as they can skip the germination stage, which involves sprouting a seedling from a seed and then transferring it to a growing medium2. With clones, growers can immediately start from the vegetative state, where the plant is already growing leaves and the grower can start tuning into the needs of the plant.

Equipped with the right information, growing weed doesn’t have to be challenging. What once seemed like a daunting task is now very doable with our beginners guide to growing cannabis in hand.

Get ready for your very own homegrown buds to emerge in no time.