The cannabis cultivation on terraces is one of the most widespread in some countries due to its ease and low cost, especially compared to growing indoors. That it is easy does not mean that it is enough to put the seeds in a pot, because you also have to take into account a series of aspects to achieve a good harvest, and that is why we have created this article, where we will see the best way to grow plants of cannabis on terraces and balconies.
⭐ Requirements of the terrace or balcony
Cannabis cannot be grown on any terrace, there are some minimum requirements necessary for the harvest to be worthwhile, and the growing space has to have these parameters fairly well for the plants to develop optimally. Light, temperature, and humidity, these 3 variables together with your skill as a grower, and the genetics of the plants, will mark the future of the crop, but now we are going to focus on the basic aspects of the terrace.
- Light: Many people say that if your terrace does not receive at least 6 hours of direct sun, it cannot be grown there. That is not true, you can get quite decent harvests with 4 hours of good direct sun a day, even with less, but it is true that the more hours of sun the better. The orientation of the terrace is the most important, in the northern hemisphere it is preferable that they are oriented to the south, and vice versa, in the southern hemisphere it is better if they are oriented to the north. Another important issue that has to do with light is the possible light pollution of the terrace, but we will talk about that later.
- Temperature: In some terraces the plants can be cooked, and you have to be very careful with this. Depending on the architecture of the building, the sun can have an oven effect by heating the floor and the walls of the terrace, which gradually accumulate temperature up to 45º C. in some places. It is advisable to separate the pots from the floor of the terrace, putting bricks, pallets, or whatever you can think of to leave a space so that the roots of your plants are not roasted. This happens in summer, but if you do winter or spring cultivation, a little heat in the root zone would not be a problem.
- Humidity: Humidity has to do with ventilation on many occasions, also with the orientation of the terrace, since the terraces that are oriented to the north are always more exposed to humidity than the rest (In the southern hemisphere the opposite occurs) During the growth phase nothing happens if the humidity is high, but once there are buds you have to be very careful. The more ventilated the terrace is the better, first because the plants will have greater availability of CO2, and secondly because we will avoid the pockets of humidity that can cause the attack of fungi.
⛳ How to plant marijuana on a terrace in a simple way
Once we have clear the requirements of the growing space, let’s see what is needed for growing cannabis plants on a terrace. Luckily, you don’t need as many things as for indoor cultivation, and with very little money you can have your Maria’s garden for your own consumption at home. The basics are the seeds, pots, substrate, and fertilizers, and if you want good deals that contain all this look at the outdoor kit for feminized, or the outdoor kit for autoflowering. But if you want to increase your harvest in quantity and quality, do not forget the phytosanitary products and a PH meter, I will extend it to you below.
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✨ Which marijuana seed is better for outdoor cultivation on the terrace?
We recommend marijuana seeds that are resistant to insects and fungi, because plants are more exposed outdoors than indoors. It is also advisable that they be fast, discreet in size, and possibly their smell is not extremely pronounced, but this has more to do with pests of 2-legged animals.
If your terrace suffers from light pollution at night, autoflower seeds are undoubtedly the best for you, and if you let me advise you some, the ones you can see in the following list give spectacular results:
- Critical Plus Auto: Very resistant variety which produces large crops in record time. Every year it is one of the most sold for its delicious aroma and flavor, an all-rounder that adapts perfectly to the demands of terrace cultivation.
- Northern Lights Auto: For indica lovers, a versatile genetics like few others that always perform well. Its compact and branched structure is seen as the perfect discreet morphology for terraces or balconies that are in sight.
- Red Poison Auto: In addition to being fast and tasty, it is very pretty, with colors at the end of flowering that make you fall in love at first sight. Its cultivation is very simple, and it resists cold better than other varieties, ideal for northern or high altitude regions.
👌 Pots for growing marijuana outside on a terrace
The best pots for growing marijuana outside are white, because they do not get as hot as the others. If you want to take advantage of black pots or of another color, you can wrap them with aluminum foil, but if you do not want to complicate a lot, the ideal is that you use round white pots like the ones you can see by clicking here.
It is best to do several transplants, because this way the nutrients in the soil are better used, starting with a small pot, between 0.5 and 3 liters, then an intermediate one, from 3 to 11 liters, and then the final one, which it can be 15 to 50 liters or more, depending on the size of the plant you want to have.
📖 Substrates to get the best results
Although you can get big crops with coconut fiber, to have a top quality weed we recommend using specific soil for growing cannabis. There are different brands that offer mixtures that have shown good results, All Mix by Biobizz, Complete Mix by Top Crop, Canna Terra Profesional, they are 3 of our favorites, but there are some more.
📲 Fertilizers and fertilizers for outdoor cultivation on terraces
The food contained in the substrate must be tried to make the best use of it, that is why it is good to do transplants, but even so it is not unlimited, so you have to look for good fertilizers to get the best harvest possible.
A great solution is to buy a fertilizer kit from a well-known brand, since this way you have all the products you need at a discounted price. Within these options you have the Biobizz Starters Pack, Top Crop Starter Pack, or Canna Terra Starter Kit, which are from the same brands as the substrates that I previously recommended. You also have other good fertilizer kits like the Advanced Nutrients Starter Kit, Plagron Starter Set, BAC Organic Starter Kit or the Grotek Mega pack.
Biobizz Starters Pack is a kit of liquid fertilizers for marijuana, which contains all the necessary products to perfectly feed the plants in each of the cultivation phases….
Contains all the necessary fertilizers for growing marijuana
Of organic origin to get the best aroma and flavor
Easy to use and very safe products against fertilization
Unbeatable quality / price ratio
Guaranteed results
➕ Other interesting products
The insecticides and fungicides are 2 large growers allies and outdoor terraces in general. “Prevention is better than cure” says a Spanish saying, and it can be applied perfectly to phytosanitary treatments, since when they are used as preventives, many problems are avoided later. If you are concerned about the defense of your plants against the attack of pathogens, take a look at this kit from the Trabe brand because it can be very useful.
A PH meter is another of the best investments that any terrace grower can make. You do not have to spend a fortune, if you are not very spare you can throw with a kit of drops, but if you can spend a little more, I recommend this digital PH meter, which with a little maintenance can last you many years.
The arlita are expanded clay balls that are placed on the bottom of the pot as adrian,leaving a layer of about 2 or 3 cm. It is not essential, and it does not have to be clay, other materials are worthwhile, but it is very interesting so that the excess water is evacuated in the best way.
The 600 pH meter offers us results instantly, it has a digital display and automatic temperature compensation...
Range 0.0 to 14.0 pH
Resolution 0.1 pH
Accuracy ± 0.1 pH
Calibration point 1 (7.0) – Manual
Ambient Temperature 0 – 50 ºC
LED Display
Battery life 700 hours of use
Battery 1.5v Battery Button – 3 Included
🚀 How to grow marijuana on the terrace step by step
We are going to see in a summarized way the steps that must be followed to be able to successfully harvest a cannabis crop on the terrace for own consumption. If you want to see all this same information in a more extensive way, I recommend you look at this section of our blog where you will find a lot of articles about cultivation. Here you can see the most important:
- Seed germination: We prefer the napkin method, you can choose the one you like the most, if you click on the following link you will see many other germination techniques. The seeds can take 2 to 7 days to germinate, you have plenty of time to prepare the pots.
- Preparation of the first pots and the cultivation: If you are going to put a pallet or anything else to serve as a base for the pots and that they are not directly on the ground, now is the time. Then you can place the pots on top, create the layer of clay as a drain, and fill the rest with the substrate.
- Sowing the seeds: Once the seeds have germinated, it is time to put them in the ground, unless you choose to germinate directly in the ground of course. You have to be very careful not to damage the root in this step, and for that it is best to wet the surface of the earth in the center of the pot, make a small hole of an inch or two more or less in the wet area, and with great care we take the seed and introduce it with the root pointing downwards. For this mission you can use tweezers, which greatly facilitate the grasping of the seed. The seed has to be buried about 1 centimeter, and the first waterings must be careful not to sink or damage it.
- Watering: It is advisable to add a root stimulator to the first waterings, to enhance root development as much as possible and for the plant to grow as well as possible. In this article you can see how to water marijuana plants correctly, but if you don’t want to see it, I’ll summarize it in that you have to respect the dry cycle between watering and watering, and the base water has to be as soft as possible.
- Preventive treatments: Once the plants are 3 weeks or 1 month old, insecticides and fungicides can be applied as a preventive measure. Many people do not take these actions into account and then regret it, so I recommend that you do it to get the best harvest of cannabis on your terrace. Each week we will give you a product, alternating weekly an application of insecticide, and the next one of fungicide, until the plants begin to fatten the buds, which can no longer be sprayed.
- Transplants: Once you see that the pot remains small, or some leaves begin to turn yellow, you have to do the transplant. As during sowing, the transplant must be done very carefully so as not to damage the roots, never in full sun, and it is important to add a root stimulator for the next 2 or 3 waterings.
- Growth fertilizers: While you are doing transplants during the vegetative growth phase, you will be providing food to the plants, but what if I am not going to do more transplants and the leaves turn yellow? Don’t worry, that’s what growth fertilizers are for, such as BioBizz’s Bio Grow, Canna’s Bio Vega, or Top Crop’s Top Vega if you want them organic, or Plagron’s Terra Grow, Hesi’s TNT, or Grotek’s Solotek Grow if you want them minerals.
- Training, pruning, and shaping: There are ways to gain production in the cultivation of marijuana on a terrace, such as pruning, LST, or tutoring the branches, since this favors the use of light and internal ventilation of the plants. Most outdoor plants appreciate apical pruning or FIM, because the main tip is sacrificed but the creation of buds in secondary branches is enhanced. There are other ways to encourage branch production, bending the main tip or doing low-stress training, and whatever you prefer. Once in bloom, you can do a low pruning and defoliation to get the most of the light. Another advantage of pruning marijuana plants grown on the terrace is that you gain discretion, because you can keep a more compact size, but if you want to delve into this topic, I invite you to read this article that talks about how to hide a marijuana grow. The tutoring is very important to give shape to the structure of the plants and so that the branches can support more weight, do not forget it.
- Flowering stimulators: Once the plants begin to produce pre-flowers, it is time to start adding the flowering stimulator to the irrigation. This product causes the creation of more inflorescences, which later become larger and denser buds. Some of the best flowering stimulators for marijuana are Delta 9 from Cannabiogen, Boost from Canna, or Bud Ignitor from Advanced Nutrients among others.
- Treatment for the caterpillar: This is hardly taken into account, and every year it is a more destructive pest. Normally we see the caterpillar or the worm emerge from the buds, and then we want to act, but it is too late. The caterpillar comes out because a butterfly has gone at the beginning of the flowering of the plants to lay the eggs there, usually in early or mid-summer, so must be applied Bacillus thuringiensis or any other preventive against the caterpillar at that time or before, because if we wait for the problem to arrive, we will surely lose part of our marijuana harvest on the terrace.
- Fertilizers for flowering: There is a phase of the cultivation in which the plants are still growing but are already flowering at the same time. Depending on the genetics, this phase can last from 3 weeks to 2 months, and in that time you have to combine the growth fertilizer with the flowering stimulator, and start applying the flowering base fertilizer. We always recommend not mixing products from different brands, so if you have chosen Biobizz now it’s time to add Bio Bloom, if it’s Canna it’s Bio Flores, if it’s Top Crop it would be Top Bloom, but always remember what I’m telling you, it’s not good mix brands.
- Bud fattening: These products are normally based on phosphorus and potassium, and as you can imagine, they help the buds gain weight and hardness. There are several star products within this category, with Monster Bloom from Grotek, Bloombastic from Atami, or PK 13-14 from Canna being the most demanded by indoor and outdoor growers.
- Root washing: To get the most spectacular buds it is necessary to feed our plants with all these fertilizers that we have seen, but those same products can leave a very harsh and bad taste in the yerba if we do not carry out a good root washing before planting. harvest. The ideal is to wash the roots about 10 days or 2 weeks before cutting them, you can look at the description of the seeds to see the date of their cutting, or you can wait until you see that the hairs on the buds begin to wilt. If you click on this link you can see a good way to wash the roots of your marijuana plants grown on a terrace or balcony.
- Harvest: The best moment of cultivation, the arrival at the finish line, and when everything goes as it should, it must be celebrated as a holiday. How to choose the best time to harvest marijuana? Combining the point of maturity of the plants with the best day according to the lunar calendar, so I invite you to read this article that talks about marijuana trichomes as the natural marker that indicates the state of maturation of the buds, and this one that He explains how to choose the best day for the harvest marijuana according to the moon, both very interesting.
- Drying and curing: Many times we do not give it the importance it deserves, but a bad drying or curing of marijuana can spoil a well-grown crop. Drying must be done in a dark place, with a relative humidity of approximately 40%, and a temperature that does not exceed 25º C. If you want to see this topic in more depth, do not miss this entry in our blog that talks about drying and curing of marijuana.
✅ Advantages of growing marijuana on a terrace
The advantages of growing on terraces or balconies with respect to indoor cultivation are several and very interesting, so the harvest is greatly facilitated, here you can see them:
- Lower expense: Nature takes care to give you the light and air you need so that you don’t have to install lighting equipment or ventilation systems to grow cannabis. Rain in the growth phase can save you some watering.
- Higher harvests: There is no type of artificial lighting that can match the power and quality of sunlight, so the production of marijuana that is achieved on a terrace is usually higher than indoors.
- Ease: When you grow weed on the terrace you do not have to change the photoperiod from growth to flowering, the plants will start to flower when it hits them depending on the variety.
🔥 When does outdoor marijuana start to flourish?
You may have noticed that not all cannabis plants start to flower at the same time in terrace or outdoor crops, and this is very normal. Autoflowering varieties begin to flower outdoors about 25 days after germinating the seeds, there are some that do it some day before and others that can begin to flower a few days later.
But there are other factors that intervene when marijuana begins to flourish outdoors, such as the genetics of the plants. Indicas start earlier than sativas as a general rule, sometimes by much difference, it is not surprising that an Afghan begins to bloom in August, and a Colombian in October, grown in the same outdoor garden. The cold can also advance the flowering of plants, those that are grown at a higher altitude usually begin their flowering before the same seeds grown at a lower height.
🎯 Light pollution on the terrace, very bad or very good for growing marijuana on the terrace
When you do not have total darkness at night, we say that you suffer from light pollution, something that can be very bad for photo-dependent marijuana varieties (which depend on light to guide your body clock) but can be very good for autoflowers.
Before I told you that if you have light pollution on your terrace, the best option for growing cannabis are autoflowering seeds, and that is that if you put feminized or regular photo dependent ones, it is normal that they cannot flower correctly, they become stressed, and in many cases they will end being hermaphrodites.
But the opposite happens with cars, this type of plants can grow and flourish with any photoperiod, that is, with the hours of light and darkness that are, although the more hours and power of light, the higher the production normally. That lamp that you have next to your terrace will no longer be a problem, on the contrary, it may give you an extra production.
⚠️ Conclusion
Growing marijuana on the terrace is easier and cheaper than growing indoors, and more comfortable than growing outdoors in guerrillas or outside the home. Taking into account the requirements of the growing space, and following the steps we saw above, you can get crops that will cover all your annual consumption, and the best thing is that it will be of better quality than everything you can find out there.
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