3 Reasons to Grow Your Own in 2022
Growing cannabis may seem intimidating, but the payoff is well worth it.
1. Save Money
One healthy cannabis plant can yield up to a pound of flower, depending on conditions. At your average dispensary in Massachusetts, that much product would cost you over $4,000. It’s pretty clear there is a huge cost saving benefit to growing your own.
But what about the cost of growing? While there is a variety of equipment on the market to grow cannabis, your basic set up should cost no more than $200 – even less if you are planning to grow outdoors. With that one-time spend plus some decent seeds, you are looking at a few hundred bucks total.
2. Know What’s in Your Weed
One huge benefit to growing your own is the knowledge of exactly what’s in your cannabis. These plants are excellent bioremediators, meaning they suck elements like heavy metals from their growing mediums. By using certain water, soil, and nutrients, you can be sure that your grow will be free of contaminants like heavy metals and pesticides. Yeast or mold contaminations are also much easier to avoid when growing your own, as you can keep an eye on your plants for some telltale signs.
If you want to take it a step further, you can get your products tested for contaminants as well as potency. Read more on what tests make sense for home growers here.
3. Grow Strains for Specific Effects
Certain strains are more likely to produce specific cannabinoids and terpenes, the chemical compounds responsible for the psychoactive effects of cannabis. Different cannabinoids and terpenes will lead to a different experience. If you’re looking for a specific effect, it can be hard to track down exactly which products in a dispensary will deliver.
But if you grow your own, you can tailor your cultivation and grow more of the cultivars that produce the compounds you’re seeking. Keep in mind that the chemical makeup of a cannabis plant depends on far more than just what strain it’s labeled. Growing conditions have just as much, if not more of an effect on cannabinoid and terpene content.
At the end of the day, the cannabis plant is a super interesting one to observe. If you enjoy gardening, cannabis would likely become one of your favorites to cultivate. It grows fast, and will do so just about anywhere. Get creative and experiment with different growing techniques – it will not only teach you a lot about the plant, but it’s just plain fun.
Happy growing!
