Having just finished my annual cannabis cultivation season, I was doing my customary grow-room cleanout and sanitization, when it dawned on me how many little gadgets, tools and super-cool grow-centric gear I have in my collection. No, not the big-ticket items, like grow lights or hydroponics systems — I’m talking about the inexpensive materials and […]
Author Archive | Gary Anderson
As The World Burns: What It’s Like Growing Cannabis During The Climate Crisis
It’s early August 2018, and a startlingly unprecedented percentage of our world is on fire, baking in record-breaking heat, or suffering through drought. Hundreds of thousands of California acres are on fire, with thousands of structures burned to the ground in the past four weeks alone. Officially, there are 15 major fires tearing through the […]
Humane Intervention: Preventing Outdoor Marijuana Attackers, The Peaceful Way
When you see outdoor cannabis trees towering head and shoulders over growers, with a couple of giant plants producing more bud than a typical home grow will ever produce, you likely want to rush outdoors and get to growing under the sun. But beware: Outside, there are many marijuana attackers, eager to devour and destroy […]
Higher Learning: Mastering Marijuana Grow Room Mathematics
I flunked math in the fifth grade and forever after feared numbers. Sure, we have technology to do simple calculations for us, but to make that technology work, we must first understand what we’re trying to calculate and then supply the raw data. Technology can’t do all our thinking for us, after all. The cool […]
Rookie Error? Not So For This Grow. Nine Common Grower Mistakes You Can Avoid
At one time or another, most cannabis growers make mistakes in their grow op that cost them both time and money. So, let’s unpack these too-common errors and see how best to avoid them. 1. Sudden Big Changes To Your Growing Methods & Materials I used to grow in a rockwool drip irrigation system and […]
Reflections On Grow Room Reflective Materials: Mylar, Panda Plastic Or Flat White Paint?
Every day you operate your indoor cannabis grow room, you’re forking out money on electricity to run your grow lights. Light is, after all, an essential nutrient for your plants. You want every watt of electricity that goes into your grow lights to generate light energy that reaches leaves, so they can engage in life-sustaining […]
The A-Tea: OIM Certified Organic Compost Tea Makes High-Value Plants Healthier & More Productive
Many years ago, when I lived as a happy hippie in an Oregon cultivation community, I went through my “it has to be organic” phase. It was a requirement in our cadre that, along with being vegan, driving a VW van, sporting dreads, a threadbare Bob Marley T-shirt, and lots of unruly body hair, that […]
Jack And The Bud Stalk: Understanding Your Marijuana’s Natural Explosive Growth Patterns
Explosive growth is a term you sometimes see in marketing copy for cannabis-growing products. I define explosive growth as a sudden, positive change in observable plant performance parameters. These parameters include: Production and maturation of new leaves. Thickening of stalks and stems. Height and diameter gain. Budding site development. Early floral development. Bud height, density […]