I'm in VA so growing isn't legal yet but should be as soon as next year. I'd like to try a grow to see how the plants will do in containers in my back yard and start getting my technique down. What is a good stand-in for cannabis that won't result in a felony?
Posted Jul 9, 2020, 12:17 PM UTC
Tomatoes are the closest in my experience. But they are more difficult. So if you can grow tomatoes well, you’ll be able to grow marijuana great. Get the heirloom indeterminate varieties though. The hybrid shit grows small and are too easy. The fruit is trash too on the commercial varieties.
The last good batch of tomatoes I grew were heirloom blacks. Frickin gorgeous. We ate them like steaks.
train tomatoes
u can top, bend, lollipop.. etc
Yep, and they grow in a similar fashion as far as side shoots. They need way more support though.
Heirloom tomatoes are so much better than the regular grocery store tomatoes that it's like they're not even the same thing.
100%. Heirloom tomatoes grown right have more in common with mangos in terms of flavor than store bought garbage.
I've heard tomatoes are similar in their treatment, most comparable to autos though and bear in mind they don't smell like cannabis does when it flowers. Also you could get away with the same sort of nutrients and feeding schedule as a test run.
I've grown some tomatoes from seed and also cannabis using the same bottle of biobizz grow nutrients and they've both shot up and done really quite well considering their conditions.
This is bad because my tomatoes are a perennial shitshow. 😟
Practice makes perfect my friend, my tomatoes are substantially smaller than my cannabis plants but still growing nonetheless and disease and pest free!
I cannot seem to get rid of mosaic virus on mine. I've bleached everything.
Honestly I think tomatoes are a hell of a lot more susceptable to disease than cannabis, I had problems with early blight but my cannabis has seemed to power through everything without a hitch. Pretty sure the bottom leaves of my tomatoes are facing the same issue, I just pruned them off and haven't seen any more of it.
Find yourself a hardy outdoor strain, generally an indica dominant and it should be alright outside as long as you take care of it properly.
3 years in a row, my plants have pox.
Getting practice at gardening will always help. Watering seems to be a challenge for most new growers.
I find tomatoes almost too easy, peppers are slightly more difficult (shoutout to r/PepperLovers and r/HotPeppers )
I would just grow a variety of veggies. I learned how to lst and hst on orange habanero and ghost chili plants. Tomatoes would prob be good for the watering and nutrient side.
Yeah. I'll definitely give the LST a try with peppers. This, btw, is exactly the kind of advice I'm looking for. I won't be growing this year, but I want to learn the technique so I can go into the first one with confidence, and I've got zero experience training plants outside of multi-cropping lettuce in containers once.
Hemp
Am I going to have a hard time explaining the difference to cops, though?
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Hemp isn't cannabis.
Hemp is indeed cannabis, it’s right in the scientific name of it...
No, it isn't. But I would rather not explain slowly to a cop that my 18' weed plant isn't exactly weed per se. This despite the stellar reputation of the cops for being good listeners.
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Hemp is federally legal and you are allowed to grow in all 50 states. Before a cannabis plant turns to flower it is considered hemp. There have been several instances of police wrongfully confiscating hemp crops which has lead to decreased enforcement of cannabis growing. Unless you are growing a whole garden, it would be easy to do 1 or 2 next to tomatoes.
Yeah, you're missing that I don't want to have the conversation with the cops at all, man. I know my rights and I have an, I think, accurate idea of how much good that will do me in the moment. When I can grow legally, I will do so with gusto, but until then I intend to keep the lowest of profiles.
You can grow hemp in non industrial settings. You asked what will be the most similar and the answer is hemp.
Unless your neighbors are snitches you shouldn’t be worried about any police at all. They don’t have the bandwidth to check people’s gardens and without flowers the smell is negligible.
Well, shall we say then that I do not wish to spend several thousand dollars for the required minimum investment in equipment, permits, and lab fees, or do the mountains of paperwork which are required to legally grow industrial hemp in Virginia and leave it there? EDITED TO REMOVE unnecessary snark.
Also, dude, let me be clear. I am not trying to disrespect your expertise. You clearly can grow some lovely bud and I recognize that skill is involved there. But everyone has a different level of tolerance for risk. I'm just trying to clarify mine here as involving zero potential interactions with law enforcement.
Va requires a license and you have to register where your grow is.🙄
I still have a hard time believing that we are still stuck in a paradigm where once you cross an imaginary line, a particular plant becomes "against the rules".
I really hope you get good grow laws. Luckily in MI, we got really good laws. I can grow 12 plants and have 10 ounces at home and going over is a civil infraction.
That's what we need in VA. Grow laws that allow for hobbyist and experimenter growing and breeding.
I'm lucky enough to live in a rec legal state too, but thinking of all those people just like us sitting in jail cells across the country for the same thing we enjoy is maddening.
same thing with poppies, grow them to make tea for ones ownself and they're illegal. Grow them as ornaments and they're legal.
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I'm curious about this too. What do people who are growing the amounts that are legal do with their weed that puts them over the limit? Give it away? Is there a legal means for hobbyist growers to sell their excess to dispensaries?
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Yea, it does seem out of balance. Who knows why they did it that way. Maybe 4 clones, 4 in veg and 4 in flower? I still think the laws need work. There should be zero limits or regulations of any kind on home grown cannabis.