A bill legalizing marijuana in Canada is expected in 2017. Signals suggest that the drug will be available to recreational users through controlled, retail outlets, but recreational marijuana consumers may not be permitted to grow their own pot at home. Currently, only medical marijuana users have legal permission to grow their own plants for therapeutic use.
Bill Blair, parliamentary secretary to the justice minister and, predicts home-grown pot will not be viewed the same way traditional intoxicants such as booze are.
"It is not like tomatoes, it is a substance that poses certain significant social and health harms," he has said.
Nevertheless, many marijuana users will want to know how to produce their own personal crop once the legislation makes pot use less legally risky. Jim Hole, owner of St. Albert’s Enjoy Centre, knows people will want to know more about how to grow good marijuana. Notwithstanding Blair’s distinction between tomatoes and weed, Hole notes that actually growing plants requires certain knowledge, whether you’re growing them to make a salad or to get high.
“I think it’s come from really something you don’t really talk much about to landing on the front burner with legislation maybe coming down next year.
“People are, at least, wanting to know more about it even though there isn’t going to be a massive rush of people thinking it’s something they should be growing inside.”
Hole has had customers who he suspects have been buying equipment such as grow lamps for the purpose, without advertising it.
“They won’t tell you, but they buy grow lights for that purpose, as it is. I think they’ll be more overt with it.”
Hole predicts that, depending on the legislation, the availability of seeds will be more common.
“From there on in, it’s just another crop. It’s not like it’s a plant that’s extremely difficult to grow.”
News stories about marijuana busts often include mention of hydroponic cultivation. That method is more complicated than growing a plant in a pot, Hole says.
“A lot of people get enamoured with growing without any conventional soil, and they decide to venture into hydroponics, but they need to know their chemistry because you’re providing all the nutrients artificially, and you also need to understand the PH of your hydroponic solution. You have to understand salt fluctuations. So you’ve got some real challenges with that.”
Conventional potting soil is best for growing whatever people are trying to grow indoors, Hole says, “because it does all the work for you.”
One crucial ingredient for any kind of growing, indoors or outdoors, is light.
Getting the light right is one of the biggest tricks in growing any plant indoors, including marijuana, Hole notes.
T5 fluorescent lights will be the game-changer, regardless of what indoor plant you’re growing. With grow lights, you’re looking at low wattage lights with the light spectrum the plants need: red and blue, especially.
How far away from the plant you place the light will really determine how much light it gets, not the wattage. A good grow light also emits little heat, which is good for plants.
Hole says LED grow lights are also coming to the market, but they’re still quite expensive, compared to fluorescents.
If someone wanted to grow marijuana indoors, they’d need “a pretty solid array of lights over the top to really give those plants the extra growth that they need to produce the THC in the crop.” The amount of light required will be more akin to a tomato’s requirement than an African violet’s, Hole says.
Marijuana also flowers best when it gets light at only certain times of the day, much like poinsettias, Hole says. Both plants require “so-called blackout periods when there’s no light, so they can flower.” The heaviest oil production is in the marijuana flowers.
Hole says horticulture trade magazines are keen on exploring marijuana cultivation as the legal climate evolves, but Hole has no plans to get into the marijuana business.
“Are we going to do it? Not a chance. Am I growing any in my house? No way. It’s not my thing, but I’m not trying to cast any moral judgment,” he says.
He has been asked to consider growing medicinal marijuana or to at least advise growers, and he has rejected the offers.
“I don’t think the skunky smell of marijuana wafting through our greenhouse during a wedding would be great. So there are a lot of reasons why I won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.”
Whatever the social and health issues Bill Blair identifies with marijuana, one thing people should know is that, according to Hole, it’s much more difficult to grow tomatoes than it is to grow marijuana.
