by Sirius Fourside
You and I most likely share this opinion: Growing your own marijuana is the best way to obtain it!
But what happens when you’re growing your own cannabis and you run out? You may know how aggravating that feels, but I’ll sum it up with this: No grower likes running out of weed.
In the interest of breaking that cycle, we’re going to show you how to NOT run out of cannabis.
By using a few of these simple tactics, you can ensure that you have a steady supply of cannabis all year, every year.
1.) Know How Much Cannabis You Want
There’s no right or wrong, good or bad, or high or low answer for this, so as long as you’re taking care of what you need to, don’t worry about how much cannabis you want. Rather, you’re figuring out how much cannabis you want so you know how much you need to grow to stay in steady supply.
Once you know this information, you can come up with a good estimate of how much you’d need to bring in each harvest to keep your coffers full. For example:
- If you typically go through 0.5 ounces of cannabis every month, you know that you would need to harvest a minimum of 6 ounces of weed every year. (.5oz x 12 months = 6oz per year)
- If you typically complete 2 grows per year, you know that you would need to harvest a minimum of 3 ounces of weed per grow. (6oz / 2 grows = 3oz per grow)
- So, the amount you need to harvest per in oz =
((The amount you use per month) x 12) / (The amount of grows you complete per year). Using the examples above, you would get (.5 x 12)/2 = 3(oz per harvest needed to never run out)
This information will help to keep you from putting too much/little time and effort into a grow. For the example above, this person could have more cannabis than they need all year with a small grow tent and a cheap LED grow light or low wattage HPS.
2.) Use High-Efficiency Growing Techniques
There are several techniques cunning growers can use to drastically increase the amount of marijuana harvested from plants. I won’t go into the detail of each one here, but I would definitely recommend checking out our links for more information.
- LST (Low Stress Training) – Bend your plants branches to get more light to each bud site. Buds that are exposed to direct light develop faster and increase your yields.
- FIM’ing & Topping – These techniques force your plant to grow multiple colas (main stems covered with bud sites). More colas mean more sticky buds for you!
- Manifolding – An advanced version of topping. This form of training helps you create a ‘manifold’ which forces your plant to grow in a much more orderly and efficient manner. (Advanced!)
- Defoliation – This is an advanced technique that involves removing certain leaves from your plant to control growth and boost bud production in the flowering stage.
- Super Cropping – Super Cropping is a ‘High Stress Training Technique’ that involves planned breaks in branches. This done to get the plant to open up larger pathways in the branches as a natural reaction.
Since I’ve been employing these five techniques in particular, I’ve more than doubled the amount that I harvest while only barely increasing the amount of time I spend tending to my plants. While I’m sure you’ll find all the tips in this article useful, the high-efficiency growth techniques are the biggest reason I don’t run out of medicine.
3.) Separate Vegetative and Flowering Areas
Having separate areas for vegetating and flowering plants might not be practical for everyone, but it gives a huge advantage in that it allows a grower to start a second set of plants while the first set is still flowering. Vegetating marijuana is the most forgiving, so your vegetative area can be much smaller with a much weaker or lower-quality light than you use to flower.
With careful planning, you can time it so that you’re putting new plants into the flowering stage at the same time you’re harvesting the plants that just finished flowering.
Not only is this super efficient, but it eliminates the empty-tent time in between grows which is when your medicine seems to disappear the fastest.
There are even more advanced methods where you can use separate vegetative/flowering areas to have a ‘perpetual harvest’. Keep in mind that the perpetual harvest method is a bit advanced, and many people don’t need the amount of weed it provides, not to mention the planning it requires.
If having separate vegetating and flowering areas isn’t within your means though, don’t worry. You can still get a degree of that efficiency with…
4.) Back-to-Back Grows
If you’re serious about not running out of cannabis, starting your next grow right after your last one finishes should because a common practice. Back-to-back grows ensures that you always have cannabis growing, so even if you start getting low on weed, you already have your next harvest on the way.
Another benefit of back-to-back grows: Practice!
When you do back-to-back grows, not only do you keep your weed supply high, but you get better and better at making your cannabis more potent, healthy, and bulky. In time, cannabis growers can get so good from this that they don’t even need to do back-to-back grows anymore.
This leads to the last tip for today, which may seem like common knowledge…
5.) Keep Cannabis Seeds/Clones On Hand At All Times!
Most of the tips in this list are about making things more efficient when growing weed; they’re about shaving time off of things you end up doing anyway. This one, however, is about prevention.
Imagine this scenario: You’ve just finished a successful grow, and you’re preparing for the next one. You vacuum and clean your grow area, get the lights adjusted, and get the growing mediums ready. You double check everything… and it looks perfect. It’s time to begin an amazing grow… except… wait… you have nothing to grow.
That was me. I paid for the venue, got the lights and stage ready, sold out all the seats, and forgot to invite the band!
Now I always keep extra cannabis seeds on hand, and I plan what strains I’m growing ahead of time. That’s because ordering cannabis seeds online can set your next grow back by weeks, like it did to mine. And even after that wait is over, you still have to begin the next grow.
So just remember the lesson I had to learn the hard way, and consider seeds/clones as the first thing on your list since they take the longest to obtain of any cannabis grow supplies.
In the end, we could really boil all these tips down to: Grow smart, and never stop growing.
Just always have some cannabis plants growing, and you’ll be filling your weed coffers in multiple ways: harvesting your own weed, getting smarter about growing, and getting better at the actual task of growing this wonderful captivating plant.
About The Author: Sirius Fourside
Sirius started growing in 2007 and has extensive experience in all types of grow styles including soil, coco, and hydroponics. He co-founded GrowWeedEasy.com in 2010 with his now-wife Nebula Haze. His focus is on experimenting with new trends and technology for home growers, such as testing new models of LED grow lights and exploring different methods of hydroponics, automated grow systems, and fully organic growing.
Start With A High-Yielding Strain!
While all the tips and tactics above will help you stay in steady supply, the genetics of your plant also play a huge role.
That’s why growing a high-yielding strain can be one of the best ways to ensure you have top-notch bud all year long.
Here are some proven high-yielding cannabis strains that also produce top-quality buds:
Kushberry Moonrocks by MSNL – Remarkably Strong
Although we haven’t grown the Kushberry Moonrocks strain ourselves yet, according to our readers this enchanting new strain has remarkable effects and looks/smells beautiful. We were pleasantly surprised to find out it also tends to produce high yields.
Aurora Indica by Nirvana – Stays Short!
Attention stealth growers! If you want a high-yielding plant that is quick to harvest, and actually stays short, than this may be the strain you’re looking for! For those of you growing in a smaller setup, a plant that naturally stays short and bushy can make growing much easier, and this strain will maximize your yields!
Growing tips: This strain seemed to do better with relatively low levels of nutrients compared to some other strains. We started at half nutrient strength when growing Aurora Indica for the first time (picture in upper right – yielded a little over 7 ounces), and actually had to take nutrient levels lower to almost 25% strength to get the best results in flowering. Aurora Indica plants are easy to grow and respond well to training and especially supercropping. Harvest at 7-9 weeks for a stoney “couchlock” effect.
Buds: Dense indica buds that are covered in trichomes, causing a heavy, almost sedating effect (“couchlock”). Our buds smelled earthy, with some fruity, almost minty tones underneath.
Zweet Inzanity by Ethos – Big Yields!
Zweet Inzanity impressed us with her high yielding power and big, round, hard nugs.
Growing tips: This forgiving strain is extremely easy to grow, and responds well to FIMing/topping/LST and other training methods. It gets to a nice size – not too tall, not too short – and about doubles in size after the switch to 12/12. This strain takes about 2.5 months to finish flowering, and rewards you with great yields and chunky, round baseball buds. It tends to do best at relatively high levels of nutrients – we got great results feeding her at full strength.
Buds: Big yields. Dense, hard buds that sparkled, and highly potent yet friendly social vibes when smoking. Our buds smelled sweet and delicious.
FOR SERIOUS GROWERS ONLY
You’ve told me you’re looking for a complete guide to growing marijuana that covers everything, from beginner to ultra-advanced.
And the techniques on this page are only a few of the many paths to getting seriously killer harvests. If you want to learn ALL the secrets…
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I thought I already knew it all, but after I went through this grow bible, I discovered that there were still lots of easy ways I could increase my yields and grow even more potent buds! I find myself going back to it again and again for new ideas.
-Nebula
Jump to…
Cannabis Growth Control – Topping & More
Nebulas Manifold Tutorial – Mainlining Cannabis
7 Tips to Growing Top-Shelf Buds
