Guide To Growing Cannabis

This is a beginner’s best guide to growing marijuana that puts everything in plain and simple English, and doesn’t go to deep into advanced gardening.  This is one of the best beginner’s guide to growing marijuana plants out there.

Indoor Marijuana Cultivation

Introduction:

Growing  marijuana  indoors  is fast  becoming  an  American Pastime.   The reasons are varied.   With the increased interest and experimentation in marijuana plant cultivation, it was inevitable that people would apply their knowledge of plant care to growing  marijuana.   Many  of those who occasionally like to light up a joint may find it difficult to locate a source or are hesitant to deal with a perhaps unsavory element of  society  in  procuring their grass.   There is, of course, the criminal aspect of buying or selling  grass;  Growing  marijuana is just  as  illegal  as buying, selling, or smoking it, but growing is something you can do  in the privacy of your own home without having to  deal  with someone  you don’t know or trust.   The best reason  for  growing your own is the enjoyment you will get out of watching those tiny little marijuana seeds you picked out of you stash, sprout and become some of the most lovely and lush of all marijuana plants.

Anyone Can Do It

Even  if  you haven’t had any prior experience  with growing marijuana plants in you home, you can have a successful crop of marijuana plants by  following the simple directions in this pamphlet.  If you have had  problems in the past with marijuana cultivation,  you may find the solutions  in the following chapters.   Growing a marijuana plant involves four basic steps:

1. Get the seeds.   If you don’t already have some, you can ask your friends to save you seeds out of any good grass they may come across.  You’ll find that lots of people already have a seed collection of some sort and are willing to part with  a few  prime seeds in exchange for some of the finished product.

2. Germinate the seeds. You can simply drop a seed into moist soil, but  by germinating the seeds first you can be sure that  the seed will indeed produce a  plant.   To  germinate seeds,  place a group of them between about six moist  paper towels, or in the pores of a moist sponge.  Leave the towels or  sponge  moist  but not soaking  wet.   Some  seeds  will germinate in 24 hours while others may take several days  or even a week.

3. Plant the sprouts.  As soon as a seed cracks open and begins to sprout, place it on some moist soil and sprinkle a little soil over the top of it.

4. Supply  the plants with light.   Flourescent lights are  the  best.  Hang the lights with two inches of the soil and after the plants appear above the ground,  continue to keep the lights with two inches of the plants.  It is as easy as that.  If  you  follow  those four steps you  will  grow  a  marijuana  plant.   To ensure prime quality and the  highest yield in the shortest time period,  however,  a few  details are necessary.

Soil

Your prime concern,  after choosing high quality  seeds,  is the soil.   Use the best soil you can get.  Scrimping on the soil doesn’t  pay off in the long run.   If you use unsterilized  soil you will almost certainly find parasites in it, probably after it is too late to transplant your marijuana.  You can find excellent soil for sale at your local plant shop or  nursery,  K-Mart,  Wal Mart, and even some grocery stores.  The soil you use should have these properties for the best possible results:

1.   It should drain well.   That is, it should have some sand in it and also some sponge rock or pearlite.
2.   The  ph should be between 6.5 and 7.5 since  marijuana  does not do well in acidic soil.  High acidity in soil encourages the plant to be predominantly male, an undesirable trait.
3.   The  soil should also contain humus for  retaining  moisture and nutrients.

If you want to make your own soil mixture,  you can use this recipe:   Mix  two  parts moss with one part sand  and  one part  pearlite or sponge rock to each four gallons of soil.   Test your soil  for  ph  with  litmus paper or  with  a  soil  testing  kit available at most plant stores.  To raise the ph of the soil, add 1/2 lb.  lime to 1 cubic foot of soil to raise the ph one  point.

If  you  absolutely  insist on using dirt you dug  up  from  your driveway,  you  must sterilize it by baking it in your  oven  for about an hour at 250 degrees. Be sure to moisten it  thoroughly first  and also prepare yourself for a rapid evacuation  of  your kitchen because that hot soil is going to stink. Now add to the mixture  about one tablespoon of fertilizer (like Rapid-Gro)  per gallon  gallon of soil and blend it in thoroughly.

Better  yet, just  skip  the whole process and spend a couple  bucks  on  some soil.

Containers

After you have prepared your soil,  you will have to come up with some kind of container to plant in.  The container should be sterilized as well,  especially if they have been used previously for growing other plants.   The size of the container has a great deal to do with the rate of growth and overall size of the plant.  You  should  plan on transplanting your plant not more  than  one  time,  since  the process of transplanting can be a shock to  the  plant  and  it will have to undergo a recovery  period  in  which  growth  is slowed or even stopped for a short while.

The  first container you use should be no larger than six inches in diameter and  can  be made of clay  or  plastic.   To  transplant,  simply prepare the larger pot by filling it with soil and scooping out a little  hole about the size of the smaller pot that the plant  is in.   Turn the plant upside down, pot and all, and tap the rim of the pot sharply on a counter or the edge of the sink.

The  soil and  root ball should come out of the pot cleanly with  the  soil  retaining  the shape of the pot and with no disturbances  to  the root  ball.   Another  method that can bypass  the  transplanting problem is using a Jiffy-Pot. Jiffy pots are made of compressed peat  moss  and can be planted right into moist soil  where  they decompose and allow the passage of the root system through  their walls.   The  second container should have a volume of  at  least three gallons.

Marijuana doesn’t like to have its roots bound or cramped for space,  so always be sure that the container you  use will  be deep enough for your plant’s root system.   It  is  very  difficult  to  transplant a five-foot  marijuana  tree,  so  plan  ahead.   It is going to get bigger.   The small plants should  be  ready  to  transplant  into their permanent homes  in  about  two  weeks.  Keep a close watch on them after the first week or so and  avoid root binding at all costs since the plants never seem to do  as  well  once they have been stunted by the  cramping  of  their  roots.

Fertilizer

Marijuana plants like lots of food,  but you can do damage to  the  plants if you are too zealous.  Some fertilizers can burn a plant and  damage its roots if used in to high a  concentration.   Most  commercial  soil will have enough nutrients in it to sustain  the plant for about three weeks of growth so you don’t need to  worry  about  feeding your plant until the end of the third  week.

The  most  important thing to remember is to introduce the  fertilizer  concentration  to  the  plant gradually.   Start  with  a  fairly  diluted  fertilizer solution and gradually increase  the  dosage.   There  are several good marijuana fertilizers on  the  commercial  market,  two of which are Rapid-Gro and Eco-Grow.

Rapid-Gro has  had  widespread use in marijuana cultivation and is available  in  most  parts of the United States.   Eco-Grow is  also  especially  good for marijuana since it contains an ingredient that keeps the  soil from becoming acid.   Most fertilizers cause a ph change  in  the soil.  Adding fertilizer to the soil almost always results in  a more acidic ph.

As  time  goes  on,  the amount of  salts  produced  by  the  breakdown  of fertilizers in the soil causes the soil  to  become increasingly  acidic  and eventually the concentration  of  these  salts in the soil will stunt the plant and cause browning out  of the foliage.  Also, as the plant gets older its roots become less  effective  in  bringing  food  to  the  leaves.

To  avoid  the accumulation of these salts in your soil and to ensure that  your  plant  is  getting all of the food it needs you  can  begin  leaf feeding your plant at the age of about 1.5 months.   Dissolve the  fertilizer in worm water and spray the mixture directly onto  the  foliage.   The leaves absorb the fertilizer into their veins.  If  you  want to continue to put fertilizer into the soil as well  as leaf feeding, be sure not to overdose your plants.

Remember to increase the amount of food your plant  receives  gradually.  Marijuana seems to be able to take as much fertilizer  as you want to give it as long as it is introduced over a  period  of  time.   During the first three months or so,  fertilize  your  plants every few days.   As the rate of foliage growth slows down  in the plant’s preparation for blooming and seed production,  the  fertilizer  intake  of the plant should be slowed down  as  well.

Never fertilize the plant just before you are going to harvest it  since  the fertilizer will encourage foliage production and  slow  down  resin production.

A word here about the most organic of fertilizers: worm castings.

As you may know, worms are raised  commercially for sale to gardeners.   The breeders put the  worms  in  organic compost mixtures and while the worms are  reproducing  they eat the organic matter and expel some of the best  marijuana  food around.   After the worms have eaten all the organic  matter  in  the compost,  they are removed and sold and the  remains  are  then sold as worm castings.

These castings are so rich that you  can grow marijuana in straight worm castings.   This isn’t really  necessary  however,  and  it  is somewhat  impractical  since  the  castings  are  very expensive.   If you can afford them  you  can,  however,  blend  them in with your soil and they will make a  very good organic fertilizer.

Light

Without light,  the plants cannot grow.  In the countries in  which marijuana grows best,  the sun is the source of light.  The amount  of  light and the length of the growing season  in  these  countries  results in huge tree-like plants. In most  parts  of North America,  however,  the sun is not generally intense enough  for  long  enough periods of time to produce the  same  size  and  quality of plants that grow with ease in Latin America and  other  tropical  countries.   The answer to the problem of lack of  sun,  especially in the winter months, shortness of the growing season,  and other problems is to grow indoor under simulated  conditions.   The rule of thumb seems to be the more light, the better.  In one  experiment we know of, eight eight-foot VHO Gro-Lux fixtures were  used over eight plants.   The plants grew at an astonishing rate.   The lights had to be raised every day.

There are many types  of  artificial  light  and all of them do different  things  to  your  plants.   The  common incandescent light bulb emits some  of  the  frequencies of light the plant can use,  but it also emits a high  percentage  of far red and infra-red light which cause the  plant  to concentrate its growth on the stem.  This results in the plant  stretching  toward  the light bulb until it becomes so  tall  and  spindly  that  it just weakly topples over.   There  are  several  brands  of bulb type.   One is the incandescent plant spot  light  which emits higher amounts of red and blue light than the  common  light bulb.   It is an improvement,  but has it drawbacks.  it is  hot,  for  example,  and  cannot be placed close to  the  plants.   Consequently,  the  plant has to stretch upwards again and is  in  danger of becoming elongated and falling over.   The red bands of  light  seem  to encourage stem growth which is not  desirable  in  growing marijuana.  The idea is to encourage foliage growth  for  obvious  reasons.

Gro-Lux lights are probably the  most  common  fluorescent plant lights.  In our experience with them, they have proven themselves to be extremely effective.   They range in size  from one to eight feet in length so you can set up a growing room  in  a  closet or a warehouse.   There are two  types  of  Gro-Lux  lights:  The standard and the wide spectrum.  They can be used in  conjunction with on another, but the wide spectrum lights are not  sufficient on their own.   The wide spectrum lights were designed  as a supplementary light source and are cheaper than the standard  lights.  Wide spectrum lights emit the same bands of light as the  standard  but the standard emit higher concentrations of red  and  blue  bands  that the plants need to  grow.   The  wide  spectrum  lights also emit infra-red, the effect of which on stem growth we  have already discussed.   If you are planning to grow on a  large  scale,   you  might  be  interested  to  know  that  the  regular  flourescent  lamps  and  fixtures,  the type  that  are  used  in  commercial lighting, work well when used along with standard Gro- Lux lights.   These commercial lights are called cool whites, and  are  the  cheapest of the flourescent lights we  have  mentioned.   They  emit  as much blue light as the Gro-Lux standards  and  the  blue light is what the plants use in foliage growth.

Now we come to the question of intensity.  Both the standard  and  wide  spectrum lamps come  in  three  intensities:   regular  output,  high output,  and very high output.  You can grow a nice  crop  of  plants under the regular output lamps and  probably  be  quite satisfied with our results.  The difference in using the HO  or  VHO lamps is the time it takes to grow a crop.   Under a  VHO  lamp,  the  plants grow at a rate that is about three  times  the  rate  at which they grow under the standard lamps.   People  have  been  known to get a plant that is four feet tall in  two  months  under one of these lights.  Under the VHO lights, one may have to  raise the lights every day which means a growth rate of ate least  two  inches a day.   The only drawback is the expense of the  VHO  lamps and fixtures.   The VHO lamps and fixtures are almost twice  the price of the standard.  If you are interested in our opinion,  they are well worth it.   Now that you have your lights  up,  you  might be curious about the amount of light to give you plants per  day.  The maturation date of your plants is dependent on how much  light they receive per day.

The longer the dark period per day,  the sooner the plant will bloom.   Generally speaking,  the  less  dark  per  day  the better during the first  six  months  of  the  plant’s life.   The older the plant is before it blooms and  goes  to  seed,  the  better the grass will be.   After  the  plant  is  allowed  to  bloom,  its  metabolic rate is slowed  so  that  the  plant’s  quality does not increase with the age at the same  rate  it did before it bloomed.   The idea,  then,  is to let the plant  get  as old as possible before allowing it to mature so that  the  potency will be a high as possible at the time of  harvest.   One  relatively  sure way to keep your plants from blooming until  you  are  ready  for  them is to leave the lights  on  all  the  time.   Occasionally  a plant will go ahead and bloom anyway,  but it  is  the  exception rather than the rule.   If your plants receive  12  hours  of  light per day they will probably mature in  2  to  2.5  months.  If they get 16 hours of light per day they will probably  be blooming in 3.5 to 4 months.   With 18 hours of light per day,  they will flower in 4.5 to 5 months.  Its a good idea to put your  lights  on  a timer to ensure that the amount of  light  received  each day remains constant.   A “vacation” timer, normally used to  make it look like you are home while you are away,  works  nicely  and can be found at most hardware or discount stores.

Energy Emissions In Arbitrary Color Bands
40 Watt Flourescent Lamps
In Watts and Percent of Total Emissions

Daylight          Cool White         Gro-Lux        GroLux WS
Light Type               Band           Watts   %            Watt   %          Watt   %          Watt   %
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~~~
Ultra-Violet             -380        0.186  2.15        0.16  1.68         0.10  1.42         0.27  3.16

Violet                   380-430     0.832  9.60        0.72  7.57         0.70  9.67         1.07 12.48

Blue                     430-490     2.418 27.91       1.98 20.78        1.96 27.07        1.22 14.29

Green                  490-560     2.372 27.38        2.35 24.67        1.02 14.02        1.24 14.49

Yellow                560-590      1.259 14.53        1.74 18.27        0.10  1.42         0.83  9.77

Orange               590-630      1.144 13.21       1.69 17.75         0.44  6.05          1.36 15.93

Red                    630-700      0.452  6.22        0.81  8.47          2.86 39.55         1.86 21.78

Far Red              700-780      0.130  1.53        0.07  0.81          0.06  0.80           0.69  8.10
==================== ===========  ==========  ==========  ==========
Total                                      8.890 100.0          9.52 100.0        7.24 100.0        8.54 100.0

Temperature and Humidity

The ideal temperature for the light hours is 68 to 78 degrees fahrenheit  and  for  the dark hours there should be  about  a  15  degree drop in temperature.  The growing room should be relatively  dry  if  possible.   What you want is a resinous  coating  on  the  leaves and to get the plant to do this,  you must convince it that  it needs the resinous coating on its leaves to protect itself from  drying out.   In an extremely humid room,  the plants develop wide  leaves and do not produce as much resin.   You must take care  not  to  let  the temperature in a dry room become  too  hot,  however,  since  the plant cannot assimilate water fast enough  through  its  roots and its foliage will begin to brown out.

Ventilation

Proper ventilation in your growing room is fairly  important.   The  more  plants you have in one room,  the more  important  good  ventilation becomes.   Plants breathe through their  leaves.   The  also  rid themselves of poisons through their leaves.   If  proper  ventilation is not maintained, the pores of the leaves will become  clogged and the leaves will die.   If there is a free movement  of  air,  the  poisons can evaporate off the leaves and the plant  can  breathe and remain healthy.

In  a small closet where there are only a few plants you  can  probably create enough air circulation just by opening the door to  look  at them.   Although it is possible to grow  healthy  looking  plants  in  poorly  ventilated rooms,  they would  be  larger  and  healthier  if they had a fresh supply of air coming  in.   If  you  spend  a lot of time in your growing room,  your plants will  grow  better because they will be using the carbon dioxide that you  are  exhaling  around them.   It is sometimes quite difficult to get  a  fresh  supply of air in to your growing room because your room  is  usually hidden away in a secret corner of your house,  possibly in  the  attic  or basement.   In this case,  a fan will  create  some  movement of air.   It will also stimulate your plants into growing  a  healthier  and  sturdier  stalk.   Often  times  in  an  indoor  environment, the stems of plants fail to become rigid because they  don’t have to cope with elements of wind and rain.   To a  degree,  though,  this  is an advantage because the plant puts most of  its  energy into producing leaves and resin instead of stems.

Dehumidifying Your Growing Room

Cannabis that grows in a hot,  dry climate will have narrower  leaves than cannabis grown in a humid atmosphere.   The reason  is  that  in a dry atmosphere the plant can respirate  easier  because  the  moisture  on  the  leaves  evaporates  faster.   In  a  humid  atmosphere,  the moisture cannot evaporate as fast.  Consequently,  the  leaves have to be broader with more surface area in order  to  expel the wastes that the plant put out.   Since the broad  leaves  produce  less  resin per leaf than the narrow there will  be  more  resin  in  an ounce of narrow leaves than in one  ounce  of  broad  leaves.  There may be more leaf mass in the broader leafed plants,  but  most  people are growing their own for  quality  rather  than  quantity.

Since the resin in the marijuana plant serves the purpose  of  keeping the leaves from drying out,  there is more apt to be a lot  of resin produced in a dry room than in a humid one.  In the Sears  catalog, dehumidifiers cost around $100.00 and are therefore a bit  impractical for the “hobby grower.”

Watering

If you live near a clear mountain stream,  you can skip  this  bit on the quality of water.  Most of us are supplied water by the  city and some cities add more chemicals to the water than  others.   They all add chlorine,  however,  in varying  quantities.   Humans  over the years have learned to either get rid of it somehow or  to  live with it, but your marijuana plants won’t have time to acquire  a  taste  for it so you had better see that they  don’t  have  to.   Chlorine will evaporate if you let the water stand for 24 hours in  an open container.   Letting the water stand for a day or two will  serve  a dual purpose:   The water will come to  room  temperature  during that period of time and you can avoid the nasty shock  your  plants suffer when you drench them with cold water.   Always water  with  room temperature to lukewarm water.   If your water  has  an  excessive amount of chlorine in it, you may want to get some anti- chlorine drops at the local fish or pet store.  The most important  thing  about  watering is to do it thoroughly.   You can  water  a  plant in a three gallon container with as much as three quarts  of
water.   The  idea is to get the soil evenly moist all the way  to  the bottom of the pot.   If you use a little water, even if you do it  often,  it seeps just a short way down into the soil  and  any  roots  below the moist soil will start to turn upwards toward  the  water.   The second most important thing about watering is to  see  to it that the pot has good drainage.   There should be some holes  in the bottom so that any excess water will run out.   If the  pot  won’t drain,  the excess water will accumulate in a pocket and rot  the  roots  of the plant or simply make the soil sour  or  mildew.   The soil, as we said earlier, must allow the water to drain evenly  through it and must not become hard or packed.   If you have  made  sure that the soil contains sand and pearlite,  you shouldn’t have  drainage problems.   To discover when to water, feel the soil with  your finger.  if you feel moisture in the soil, you can wait a day  or two to water.  The soil near the top of the pot is always drier  than  the  soil further down.   You can drown your plant  just  as  easily  as  you can let it get too dry and it is  more  likely  to  survive  a  dry spell than it is to survive  a  torrential  flood.   Water  the plants well when you water and don’t water them at  all  when they don’t need it.

Bugs

If you can avoid getting bugs in the first place you will  be  much  better  off.   Once  your plants become  infested  you  will probably be fighting bugs for the rest of your plants’ lives.   To  avoid bugs be sure to use sterilized soil and containers and don’t  bring  other plants from outside into your growing room.   If  you  have bets,  ensure that they stay out of your growing room,  since  they  can  bring  in pests on  their  fur.   Examine  your  plants  regularly  for  signs of insects,  spots,  holes  in  the  leaves,  browning of the tips of the leaves,  and droopy branches.   If you  find  that  somehow in spite of all your precautions  you  have  a  plant  room full of bugs,  you’ll have to spray your  plants  with  some kind of insecticide.   You’ll want to use something that will  kill the bugs and not you.  Spider mites are probably the bug that  will  do  the most damage to the marijuana  plants.   One  of  the  reasons is that they are almost microscopic and very hard to spot.   They  are  called  spider  mites because  they  leave  a  web-like  substance  clinging to the leaves.   They also cause  tiny  little  spots  to appear on the leaves.   Probably the first thing  you’ll  notice, however, is that your plants look sick and depressed.  The  mites suck enzymes from the leaves and as a result the leaves lose  some  of their green color and glossiness.   Sometimes the  leaves  look like they have some kid of fungus on them.  The eggs are very  tiny black dots.   You might be wise to get a magnifying glass  so  that  you can really scrutinize your plants closely.   Be sure  to  examine the underside of the leaves too.   The mites will often be  found clinging to the underside as well as the top of the  leaves.   The sooner you start fighting the bugs,  the easier it will be  to  get rid of them.   For killing spider mites on marijuana,  one  of  the best insecticides if “Fruit and Berry” spray made by  llers.

Ortho  also  produces several insecticides that will  kill  mites.   The ingredients to look for are Kelthane and Malatheon.   Both  of  these poisons are lethal to humans and pets as well as  bugs,  but  they  both detoxify in about ten days so you can safely smoke  the  grass ten days after spraying.  Fruit and Berry will only kill the  adult mite,  however, and you’ll have to spray every four days for  about  two  weeks to be sure that you have killed all  the  adults  before they have had a chance to lay eggs.   Keep a close watch on  your  plants  because it only takes one egg laying  adult  to  re- infest  your  plants and chances are that one or two  will  escape  your  barrage  of insecticides.   If you see  little  bugs  flying  around your plants, they are probably white flies.  The adults are  immune to almost all the commercial insecticides except Fruit  and  Berry  which will not kill the eggs or larva.   It is  the  larval  stage  of this insect that does the most damage.   They  suck  out  enzymes too,  and kill your plants if they go unchecked.  You will  have  to  get on a spraying program just as was explained  in  the  spider mite section.

An  organic method of bug control is using  soap  suds.   Put  Ivory  flakes in some lukewarm water and work up the suds  into  a  lather.    Then  put  the  suds  over  the  plant.    The  obvious  disadvantage  is it you don’t rinse the soap off the plant  you’ll  taste the soap when you smoke the leaves.

Pruning

We  have  found that pruning is not  always  necessary.   The  reason  one does it in the first place is to  encourage  secondary  growth  and  to allow light to reach the  immature  leaves.   Some  strands  of grass just naturally grow thick and bushy and if  they  are  not clipped the sap moves in an uninterrupted flow  right  to  the top of the plant where it produces flowers that are thick with  resin.   On the other hand, if your plants appear tall and spindly  for  their  age at three weeks,  they probably  require  a  little  trimming to ensure a nice full leafy plant.  At three weeks of age  your plant should have at least two sets of branches or four  leaf  clusters and a top.   To prune the plant, simply slice the top off  just about the place where two branches oppose each other.   Use a  razor blade in a straight cut.   If you want to,  you can root the  top  in  some water and when the roots appear,  plant the  top  in  moist  soil  and it should grow into another plant.   If  you  are  going to root the top you should cut the end again, this time with  a  diagonal  cut  so as to expose more surface  to  the  water  or  rooting  solution.   The  advantage to taking cuttings  from  your  plant is that it produces more tops.  The tops have the resin, and  that’s the name of the game.   Every time you cut off a  top,  the  plant seeds out two more top branches at the base of the  existing  branches.  Pruning also encourages the branches underneath to grow  faster than they normally would without the top having been cut.

Harvesting and Curing aka Dried Marijuana

Well,  now that you’ve grown your marijuana, you will want to  cur  it  right so that it smokes clean and won’t  bite.   You  can  avoid  that “homegrown” taste of chlorophyll that sometimes  makes  one’s  fillings taste like they might be dissolving.   We know  of  several  methods  of curing the marijuana so that it will  have  a  mild flavor and a mellow rather than harsh smoke.

First,  pull  the plant up roots and all and hang  it  upside  down  for 24 hours.   Then put each plant in a paper  grocery  bag  with the top open for three or four days or until the leaves  feel  dry to the touch.   Now strip the leaves off the stem and put them  in a glass jar with a lid.   Don’t pack the leaves in tightly, you  want air to reach all the leaves.   The main danger in the  curing  process  is mold.   Dried marijuana smokes so good, The best dried marijuana will crumble but not turn into dust. Dry marijuana is a labor of love. If the leaves are too damp when dry marijuana you  put  them  into the jar,  they will mold and since the mold will destroy  the  resins,  mold will ruin your marijuana.  you should check the jars  every day by smelling them and if you smell an acrid  aroma,  take  the weed out of the jar and spread it out on newspaper so that  it  can dry quickly.   Another method is to uproot the plants and hang  them upside down.   You get some burlap bags damp and slip them up  over the plants.  Keep the bags damp and leave them in the sun for  at least a week.  Now put the plants in a paper bag for a few days  until the weed is dry enough to smoke.   Like many fine things in life, dried marijuana mellows out with age.  The aging process tends to remove the chlorophyll taste.

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