Grow Guide · Chapter 1
Weed Seed Germination: How to Germinate Cannabis Seeds
How to germinate weed seeds the way that actually works: paper towel and direct-to-soil methods, a timing chart, and the mistakes that kill seeds.
This guide covers how to grow weed from seed to cured bud, in the order the work actually happens. It is written by one person: me, Danny Danko, Senior Cultivation Editor of High Times from 2002 to 2020 and a grower, indoors and out, for well over 20 years. The photos are mine too.
Every chapter answers one question in its first paragraph, then gives you the numbers you need: temperatures, days, ratios, pH. Each one ends with the next step and the problem page that step prevents, so you can read straight through or jump to the chapter you are stuck on.
How to grow weed step by step
Start at the beginning. Germination gets a viable seed to a seedling with roots. Indica vs sativa explains what those labels do and do not tell you about a plant you are about to spend three months on. Male vs female shows you how to sex plants before a male pollinates the room.
From there the guide moves into the environment and the finish. VPD is the one number that ties temperature and humidity together, and the reason a room can sit at 75 degrees and still fail. Trichomes tells you how to read ripeness with a loupe instead of the calendar. Harvest covers when and how to cut, and drying and curing is where most decent grows get turned into harsh ones.
Those chapters are live now. More are being added, in order, so the guide stays a sequence rather than a pile.
Who this weed grow guide is for
Anyone growing a few plants at home for the first time, and anyone on a third or fourth grow who keeps getting the same mediocre result. If you have never grown anything, start with germination and read the chapters in order. If you have a plant in front of you that looks wrong, skip to plant problems, which is photo-led so you can match what you see before you read a word.
How it differs from forum advice
Forum advice is a hundred people describing a hundred different rooms. Some of it is right, and you have no way to tell which. This guide is one grower's method, done professionally for two decades, with the results photographed at each stage. Where a number matters I give the number and the range around it. Where something depends, I say what it depends on.
In eighteen years of answering Dear Danko letters, the most common question was some version of "what did I do wrong?" Most of the time the answer was in a chapter the reader had skipped. If your question is not answered here, send it to Dear Danko. If you would rather have the same material on paper, my books cover the same ground at a slower pace.
Cultivation is for adults where it is legal.
