How to Grow Cannabis From Seed to Flower (with photos)

These seeds were placed in a moist paper towel and left in a dark warm place for 4 days. You can see the tap root emerging from the seed shell.

Gently place the seeds in a starter pot. If you can manage to point the tap root down, your seedling will sprout a little sooner.

This photo was taken about 2 weeks after the germinated seed was planted. It another 2 weeks it should be ready to transplant into a larger pot.

If you’re having a hard time maintaing the right environment for the seedlings, you can place a plastic bag over the starter pot. This will help hold moisture in the soil. Don’t leave it on for longer than a few days though, it will cut off fresh air from your young sprout.

This seedling is almost big enough to transplant into a larger pot. When the leaves are reaching out further than the mouth of your pot it’s usually a good indicator the roots will soon need more room to grow. This is usually around week 2 or 3 after sprouting.

After a week, the seedling on the left was ready to transplant. You can see the healthy white root growth holding the soil together. When transplanting you want the soil to be slightly moist and not dry. If it’s too wet, the soil will crumble and damage the roots during the transplant process.

Topping your plant is a technique used to easily increase the overall yield of your plant. By snipping away the new growth on a young plant, you will trigger the plant to grow multiple new branches from the cutting point. This will double the number of top branches; these usually grow the largest buds.

Give your plant enough water so that the soil is completely saturated. Bigger plants will require more water and nutrients than smaller plants. When the plant is small you may only need to water them once a week. When they get larger, your plants will require water more often.

Tying branches down will help your plants grow much more evenly. This is a type of low stress training that won’t damage your plants. By holding branches down and away light can reach leaves that were once in the shade.

Defoliating your plant at the beginning of the flowering stage will give you fewer bud sites, but larger buds overall.
Start by removing smaller branches and clusters that aren’t receiving light.

The plant will redistribute energy to the remaining bud sites. Your plant may look droopy after the process but will bounce back quickly.

During the flowering stage, keep an eye on the relative humidity around the plant.

When your buds are swelling up, they have a tendency to hold a lot of moisture.
Keep the humidity at 50% or lower and avoid getting water onto bud sites, too much moisture will promote mold growth.

The trichomes of the cannabis buds are where the majority of cannabinoids can be found. These small, tree-like structures also indicate the potency and ripeness of your plant.

For most of the flowering stage, they will be clear. They will become cloudy as the plant ripens, and slowly turn amber when they peak.

A spare closet is a great place to hang your buds to dry. For small harvests, the smell won’t be that obnoxious. If you’re harvesting several plants, you may want to consider using a carbon filter to remove the smell.

Buds are dry when the stems snap instead of bend. These buds are technically ready to consume or process. You can greatly improve their smell and flavour by curing them for up to a month.

Cure your harvested buds in clear reusable mason jars. Maintaining the relative humidity between 58% and 65% inside the jars and storing them in a cool dark environment will help the curing process. 2-way humidity packs are a great way to maintain that humidity level.