Growing Methods & Notes

There are already great grow guides out there. Jorge Cervantes wrote the book on it, literally, and Grow Weed Easy covers the basics better than anything I’m going to put here. This page isn’t trying to compete with any of that.

What this is: notes. Things that worked, things I wish someone had told me earlier, a germination method I’ve hit 12/12 on and want to share, and a few things specific to running a vegan grow that don’t come up in the standard guides. If you’re brand new, read Jorge first. Come back here for the specific stuff.

Setting up the space

Get the tent sorted before seeds go anywhere near it. Fabric pots — 5 gallon is the right size for a single plant in a 3×3. Pot stands or risers under every pot so runoff drains freely and nothing’s sitting in wet. A heat mat on the tent floor during the seedling phase helps a lot if your space runs cold at all. Cold root zones stall growth even when everything above ground looks fine.

Environment matters more than most people expect when starting out. VPD, humidity, temp — easier to get right in an empty tent than chase it once plants are in there. The targets I run: veg around 65-70% RH, mid-70s temp, VPD around 0.6-0.7 kPa. Flower I drop humidity progressively, aiming for mid-40s by late flower, VPD around 1.0-1.2 kPa. Jorge’s guide goes deep on all of this. Get it sorted before you plant if you can.

Preparing ProMix

ProMix straight out of the bag is bone dry and will fight you on first watering if you skip this step. Fill a 5-gallon bucket halfway with dry ProMix, add water, and mix by hand until the whole thing is evenly moist. Squeeze test: grab a handful and squeeze. Little to no water should come out. Too wet, add more dry ProMix. Still dusty, add more water. Fill pots with the moistened mix and leave a few inches at the top.

Seeds: regular vs feminized

Feminized are simpler if you’re starting out — one seed, one female, no guesswork.

I lean toward regulars when I can. They haven’t been through the feminization process and tend to run a bit hardier with more genetic diversity in my experience. The tradeoff is you’ll get males in the mix that need to come out before they pollinate anything.

Natural sexing happens around weeks 4-6 of veg when preflowers show at the nodes. Tiny white hairs mean female. Little ball clusters mean male. Males come out the moment you’re sure.

If you want to know earlier, Farmer Freeman does DNA sexing for around $10 a test. Swab at week 2-3, mail it in, get results back before you’ve put too much time into something that’s going in the compost.

Germination

This is the one I really wanted to write down. Hit 12 out of 12 on the last run with this method across mixed seed types and mixed provenance — old seeds, new seeds, regulars, feminizeds, all of it.

Step 1 — the soak

Shot glass of tap water. Add 1-3 drops of hydrogen peroxide — plain 3% from the drugstore. Drop your seeds in and leave for 8 hours. The H2O2 softens the seed coat. Seeds can go straight from cold storage into the soak, no need to bring them up to room temp first. The water handles it.

Step 2 — paper towel setup

Thin cheap paper towel — single ply, dollar store grade. Thicker ones are harder to control moisture in. Soak it, then wring it out until it’s almost dry. Fold it once, place seeds between the layers. Set it on a plastic bowl lid (Glade candle lid, yogurt container lid, whatever you have). Add a small amount of water on top to moisten the surface. Cover with a second lid and tape the edges with masking tape. The tape isn’t critical but it holds the humidity dome better.

Step 3 — heat mat

Heat mat at 75°F. Put the sealed towel setup on it. Set a shot glass of plain water on the mat next to it — it evaporates slowly and keeps passive humidity up without you having to do anything. Slide the whole thing into a large drawer with the mat lining the bottom and close it.

Check every 6-8 hours. If the towel is drying out, add small amounts of water — keep it damp, not wet. Tap roots should show in 24-48 hours at around an inch long.

On seed storage: I keep seeds in black pencil cases with desiccant packs in the back of a mini fridge. Straight from there into the soak — no prep needed before germination.

Planting

Once the tap root is about an inch long, it’s ready.

Make a small hole in the center of your pre-moistened ProMix, just deep enough for the tap root. Sprinkle Mykos generously into the hole and on the root itself, following the dosage on the bag. Tap root goes down, seed shell up. Cover gently, don’t pack it.

For the first week or so, the goal is just keeping the medium slightly moist. Get a cheap mister from Home Depot or Lowes — like $10 — and use that instead of a watering can. A watering can in this phase will drown them and invite algae. A few spritzes around the base is enough. You don’t want to see standing water on the surface. The pre-moistened ProMix already has moisture in it, you’re just maintaining, not actually watering.

Heat mat under the pots at 72°F through the seedling phase. A clear dome or propped plastic bag over the tops holds humidity until they’re big enough to not need it.

From here

Once they’re up and growing, you’re into the actual grow — and that’s where Jorge and Grow Weed Easy are going to do more for you than anything here. Those are the resources that actually go deep on training, feeding schedules, environmental management, and the rest of it.

The biology behind why these specific choices — the ProMix, the Mykos timing, the alternating feeds, pH 6.0 — is on the Grow Methods page. This is just the sequence that’s worked.