One major reason cannabis enthusiasts are hesitant to start growing is that the price to do so seems prohibitively expensive, but in fact that is just not the case. In reality, growing your own cannabis has a number of added benefits over purchasing it from a dealer. We’ll break this article into two sections: reasons why growing cannabis at home is a better option than purchasing it from the store, and what kind of equipment you need to get started for just $339.
Don’t worry! If you’re not sure where to begin, this article is for you—and we’ve put together a Basic Grow Kit for every new grower ready to take the next step into a better style of living! It includes a 4’ x 2’ tent, a VS1000 LED grow light, ventilation equipment, and a ton of great accessories you’ll need to get started.
Why growing at home is better than buying from the dispensary?
1. Cost
First and foremost is cost. The average cost of high quality cannabis per ounce in the United States is $318.84. At first, the amount seems manageable because most of us aren’t buying an ounce of weed each time we go to the store but our purchases can add up very quickly. In comparison, we have found that the overall cost of growing at home is significantly lower, especially as time goes on. And even though the initial cost seems high, the price actually is much cheaper than purchasing at a dispensary.
The cost to grow with a standard 4 x 2-foot grow tent kit, including nutrients, electricity cost, and seeds is significantly less than purchasing cannabis at the store. For example, the average grower will be able to produce about 12 ounces of White Widow in a 4 x 2-foot grow tent, making the value of cannabis grown in a grow tent outweigh the cost of purchasing the same amount at the store after just one cultivation.
Here is a price breakdown for growing at home:
Cost of equipment (4 x 2-foot grow tent kit): $339.99
Cost of nutrients per plant per harvest: $8
Cost of soil: $10/gallon
White Widow seeds: $10/seed
Average cost of electricity in the US: $0.12/kWh x 1890 hours of equipment operation (average over the entire grow) = $226.80/grow
Total cost for first grow: $614.79
Total cost for subsequent grows: $274.80
Amount of White Widow grown in a 4 x 2-foot grow space: about 12 oz.
Cost of 12 oz of White Widow from a dispensary: $3,826.08!
Comparatively, after your first harvest, you will have saved $3,211.29 on cannabis, and this includes the cost of equipment! It’s easy to see why so many people are growing at home!
2. Quality Control
Like any agriculture industry, cannabis requires pesticides, nutrients, and chemicals when grown in large quantities—losing an entire crop would be devastating for a grower so they do whatever needs to be done to ensure that their products get to market. There is no need to blame growers for this—it’s their livelihood and it does not differ so much from the requirements for edible food. But if you have ever been in a cannabis growing facility you were most likely required to wear a full-body safety suit. This is not only to not contaminate the cannabis but it is also to protect you from the chemicals that are used to treat disease and pests. There are a number of harmful chemicals used when growing cannabis. These include Myclobutanil, Imidacloprid, Avermectin, and over 300 other chemicals that are deemed safe to use by Colorado and other states.
In fact, reporters at the Denver Post independently tested cannabis being sold in Colorado dispensaries in 2015 and showed that there are excessive residual pesticides in products being sold there. This investigation led to major changes in pesticide use but there are still many health problems posed by these chemicals. This is also why you see a lot of cannabis sold at dispensaries that have been “washed” before sale. Of course, we are not blaming growers for using pesticides—pesticides are necessary for their work and most growers use pesticides that have been approved by the EPA. However, it is hard for a consumer to know exactly what has gone into growing their bud unless they grow it themselves.
3. Availability and speed
Another reason a lot of cannabis users have switched to growing their own plants is that they can control the availability. Cannabis is, in its way, a seasonal plant and large growers try to match their current cannabis selection of what is most popular at any given time. Dispensaries, too, have to make sure they are offering what the public is looking for and as tastes change over months, you’ll find different selections of weed. That’s great, but for those who find a special strain they love it can be a bit disappointing to lose it. Growing at home solves these problems, and also makes sure you don’t need to drive from dispensary to dispensary looking for that one strain you had six months ago.
When you start growing at home, you’ll discover the hundreds of varieties that you have never heard of, or you’ve heard of but have never gotten your hands on. It’s the ultimate way to experience cannabis fully. Seeds are available online and are usually delivered in one to two weeks and most seedbanks offer feminized and autoflowering seeds so you can get growing quickly. And you can even buy male and female seeds so you can start your own mother plant or make clones, and grow your favorite strain for years.
Speaking of speed, if you’ve gotten particularly attached to a specific strain, try finding the autoflowering strain of it. Autoflowers are an amazing development in the industry because you can grow a plant from seed to harvest in as little as eight weeks and you do not need to make any alternations to photoperiods (in fact, you can keep your grow light on 24 hours a day for even faster growth). Growing at home offers so much to cannabis enthusiasts.
What equipment do you need to start growing at home?
Getting growing at home is quite affordable. Vivosun offers an entire basic grow kit that will get any new grower going in minutes. We offer an entire grow system here:
The Vivosun 4×2 basic grow tent kit with a tent, VS1000 LED grow light, ventilation equipment, and accessories, all for $339.99.
Let’s take a look at all the equipment you need to start growing:
- A grow tent. A 4 x 2-foot grow tent is a great choice because it is compact enough to fit most places but large enough to hold more than one plant.
- A grow light. We recommend LED grow lights because they are easy to maintain and they are extremely efficient and have a longer use life.
- Ventilation. This includes a ventilation duct fan, ducting, ducting clamps, and a carbon filter.
- Accessories. This includes green-light glasses, which help make sure your eyes aren’t damaged by the bright lights and timers that help regulate photoperiods and on/off schedules for your ventilation.
- Fabric pots. For a 4 x 2-foot tent you should look for 2- or 3-gallon grow bags.
- Pruning shears. You’ll find these are extremely handy as you go through your grow—you’ll need to remove excess leaves and to shape your plants as they grow to give them the most room to produce colas.
- You’ll also need to use nutrients when growing indoors. Simply, potting soil does not have enough nutrients for an entire cannabis growth cycle. There are a ton of great nutrient brands on the market that will help you match nutrients with growth period. Additionally, we also recommend investing in pH and TDS meters so you can keep an eye on the amount of nutrients that are being/not being used.
We hope this was a helpful introduction to why growing at home is becoming such an attractive activity. We lined out a number of reasons consumers are moving away from purchasing from the dispensary towards growing at home but the real, number one reason growing at home continues to attract more and more people is that it simply is a great hobby. It is easy, fun, productive, and at the end of it you get some great weed! As you know, homemade goods are always better than store-bought; cannabis is no exception!
We hope this will help you on your growing journey!
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