Growing Your Own Weed - What is the Realistic Time Frame for Smoking Your Home Grown Cannabis?

What’s the Realistic Time Frame for Smoking your first Personal Grow?

Growing your own cannabis at home is one of the most enjoyable activities you can do with the plant. The entire process will challenge you and test your patience, however, if you can stick through it all, you’ll be rewarded with the fruits of your labor. In this case, some good ‘ol home grown bud!

While this idea might seem very appealing to many of you right now, there are a couple of factors you need to consider prior to starting up your own grow.

The elements you’ll need to consider prior to growing cannabis at home are the following;

Do I have Space to Grow my own bud? If so, how much can I dedicate to growing my plants?
How legal is it for me to grow cannabis? Am I willing to risk my liberty for cannabis? Is it a medical necessity?
What’s my budget for the cannabis grow? Have I contemplated the hidden expenses (Lights, Water, Nutrients, Pots, etc?)

However, in all likeliness the question on everyone’s mind is; “HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO SMOKE MY WEED FROM SEED TO JOINT?”

In order to answer this question, we’ll have to walk through the basics of setting up, cultivating, cropping out, drying and curing. Obviously, we’ll only be able to utilize estimates since every plant will fluctuate in its performance metrics.

We will also include some “time saving hacks” to speed up the process.

In terms of answering the first three questions; I have written extensively on growing marijuana – feel free to explore some of the growing tutorials here on Cannabis.net.

Now – Onto the Time Frame!

Pre-Grow Set Up (1-3 days)

Once you have acquired all of your necessary tools, the set up and installation can take anywhere from one day up to three. Most people try to do this entire deal in a single day, and it is very possible – however, depending on the complexity of the grow can increase the time needed to properly set it up. We will give this at least a three-day time frame to ensure that everything is working as it should.

In this phase you’re doing the following;

Establishing Veg/Flower Room
Setting Up Lights
Setting Up Irrigation
Setting up Ventilation
Preparing Soil/Hydro

Sprouting the Seeds (3-7 days)

In all likeliness, you’ll be sprouting while you’re doing the set up. We can the estimate at most an additional 4 days to have your sprouts ready to be transplanted in their starter plugs. The sprouts could be ready before this time, however, we like to err on “more time” as opposed to less. That way we can align our expectations and not suffer due to our own impatience.

Vegging the Plants ( 6-8 weeks)

In this phase, we’re providing the plant with 18-24 hour light cycles. We’re trying to promote as much vegetative growth as possible, as much root development as we can muster and to prepare the plant for Vegging.

In this phase, we can decide to force flower, or to wait for the plant to grow further. Some people even wait up to 10 weeks before they start flowering in order to promote yield, however, for most indoor growers, the typical 6-8-week window should be more than okay. You can play around with this depending on the performance of your strain.

Flowering (8-10 weeks)

Some strains might flower sooner, however, it is always best to allow your plants time to mature and produce more resins. You want to have roughly 80% of the trichomes on the plant to be an “amber” color. The red hairs should also be prominent.

We have a rule of thumb that goes as follows; “Whenever you think it’s ready to be cropped...wait a week”. This allows us to push the plant that extra mile. The cannabis flowering stage is when pugent aroma will fill the air.

You can also get more “sciency” in this phase by using microscopes or magnifying glasses to inspect the trichrome maturity. Nonetheless, this phase should at least take about 2-months for a good grow. Some strains might be slightly shorter.

Drying & Harvesting (14 days)

This part is critical if you want to push the THC levels in your strains and promote as much terpenoid, flavonoid and cannabinoid development. We like to flush the plant on day one, and then let it “dry” for about seven days in the soil prior to harvesting.

In the case of hydroponics, you might be able to reduce the “drying aspect” to about 2-3 days (in the container). After which, you’ll cut the stalk and then hang it in your drying section for an additional seven to ten days.

You’ll know it’s ready for the next phase when the branches break with a snap, but doesn’t “snap off” the branch. You’ll know this state the moment you reach it.

Curing (14 Days)

You might have thought that once it’s been dried – you can smoke it! While it is true, you probably will want to wait an additional 14 days prior to smoking it. Why? Because in the Curing Phase is where the magic happens.

Curing is incredibly important and while it’s not “absolutely necessary”, it is definitely recommended. In fact, to not do it is idiotic. It’s like saying “No, I don’t want better weed!”

Nonetheless, this process will take you about 14-days to complete. Once this phase is concluded – you can smoke your weed!

So How Much Time is that Total?

As mentioned – this is only a rough estimate, however, based on these calculations it will take the average grower roughly 21-23 weeks for a full grow from seed to smoke.

In terms of months, we’re talking about 5-6 months realistically. This can be reduced if you utilize a dual-chamber grow space and if you force flower sooner during the “vegging stage”.

We do not recommend reducing the “curing/drying” time nor the “flowering stage” as these are vitally important for THC development.

Knowing this, be sure to grow enough cannabis to last you six months. We have an article that calculates the average consumption rates of consumers – based on those models, you can grow the appropriate amount of cannabis to last you for six months.