Featured: 34th Street Seed Co

Make sure the seeds are away from any light, moisture and high temperatures. It is best to keep them in an air tight opaque container in a regulated temperature area like your fridge or cellar.

Germination is the first and most important step to starting your grow! Please follow our suggested method below for the best results.

1. Use water PH'D to 6 to dampen a piece of paper towel (it should be wet but not dripping).
2. Fold the piece of paper towel flat in your seed case (recommended). Place seeds on the paper towel at least 2 inches apart. Cover gently with remaining paper towel and close the seed case.
3. Place in a warm, dark area (25-28C) like the top shelf of a cupboard or on-top of the fridge. Keep away from strong lights & the cold.
4. Check your seeds every 12 to 24 hours.
5. Germination can take 2-3 days or even up to a week for some seeds (natural variability). You will see the seed split and a taproot appear.
6. Once the taproot is showing noticeably, it is time to plant the sprouted seeds!

We do not suggest using the following methods as they may result in a poor germination rate. Do not plant your ungerminated seeds directly into your medium as a number of issues can arise preventing germination. Do not soak your seeds, if done for too long you can drown the seeds preventing germination.

The seedling stage is probably when the plant is most vulnerable to experiencing growth issues and chances of failure. A few things to consider is to make sure the pot you have the seed planted in has very good drainage and you very sparsely water your plant and to only add more when you notice the soil is completely dried out. overwatering is one of the most common issues seedlings are effected from.

Always be sure to start your plant indoors at first and if using a growing light to keep the light about 6" away from the plant (depending on how powerful it is).
Humidity is a key factor as well as seedling plants prefer high humidity levels, this will change through the plants life cycles.

If you notice your plant stretching to very tall heights with a thining stock it is a key indicator that the seedling is not getting enough light, you will need to either bring the light closer, increase how much light time the plant is getting or potentially look into a more powerful growing light.

You can also add a small fan onto the seedlings to help them strengthen their stock muscles which will help with future growth.

You know you have gotten into veg after about 3 weeks of seedling stage and the plant looks to have stabled out. If you have started in a smaller pot now would be a good time to transplant to a larger home, we like to suggest using 10 - 20 gallon cloth pots for better drainage and to make sure your plant does not get root bound.
At this point if growing indoors you will want to keep your lighting schedule set to 18 hours on and 6 hours off, be sure to check your tent? growing area for extra light leakage when the room is dark, this can effect future growth. If growing outdoors you will want to slowly acclimate your plant to the outdoors by bringing it outside for short periods and slowly extending this until it is ready to live outdoors (note this should only be done when the weather has become warm enough out and your nighttime temps are staying around the 17 to 20 degrees Celsius mark).

During Veg most growers want to try to keep their plants as bushy and grow more vertically as possibly and not have it grow straight up like a tree. A number of things can be done to help this be done. Topping - is a process of actually cutting the top of the plant at a node to encourage the growth of more stocks instead of just the one.

LST (low stress Training) techniques can be tie downs where you physically tie the plants branches down towards the ground training the plant to grow outwards more than straight up, another option is by setting up a Trellis.

HST (high Stress training) can be like stem breaking where you very gently twist the branch stems ever so much breaking the insides so it grows back stronger, Please be sure to watch a video before attempting.

When growing indoors you can flip your plant into flowering by changing your lighting schedule from 18 hours on to 12 hours on a day, if growing outdoors you will see this happen later in the summer naturally when the days start to get shorter (usually around August depending on your location).

When your plant starts to go into flower there are a few things to expect,
1.  You will begin to notice little hairs start to appear these are just the beginning of what will become bud sites.
2.  The plant will start to stretch quite a bit, using tie downs or a trellis can help if your growing indoors.
3.  Your plant will start to get thirsty! keep an eye on your medium as with all that stretch she will be drinking a lot more.

This is the perfect time as well to double check the sex of your plant, 34 Street Seeds are 99% feminized but there is always a rare chance you could find a male plant in your grow, and if you do it is best to remove the plant before it has the chance to pollinate and lower the potency of your other plants.
You can distinguish male and female plants by checking the nodes and seeing if it has developed calyx with pistil hairs (female) or banana shaped pollen sacks (males).

When your plant is in late flower there's a few things we like to suggest before being ready for harvest. One thing we suggest especially if you are using any form of grow nutrients with your plant is to flush it 2 weeks prior to harvesting using straight water PH'd to 6 and for the final 2 weeks just use water to feed your plant with no nutrients.

Knowing when your plant is ready for harvest is tricky, we like to suggest keeping a detailed record of your grow so you know how many weeks it has been, you can find how many weeks of flower each genetic usually has on its page. You can also tell it's ready by using a jewelers loop to check the trichomes. Trichomes are the small hair like outgrowths that will develop on your leaves and buds of your plant, they tend to resemble sugar or snow. As your grow progresses they will slowly change from being transparent to becoming milky white and then amber in maturity. We usually like to suggest harvesting when you see about 30%-40% of the trichomes have turned to this amber colour and the rest are milky white.

When your plant is ready to come down you will first need to dry it out.

We suggest hang drying your plant in a dark room that has the temperature around 15-20 degrees C and have the humidity between 55-65%. You can also trim dry which is the process when you trim your buds while they are wet and then placing them onto racks to dry (most prefer hang drying). The drying process can usually take about 1 week but check your plant often to make sure it has properly dried out.

Curing your grow is an integral step to make sure you have tasty aromatic cannabis. To cure you will need an airtight container like mason jars, C-vault or even grove bags as well a Boost or Boveda 55-65% humidity pack and keep it in a dark area with cool temperatures as sunlight can degrade cannabis. You will also need to burp your container to release moisture and replenish oxygen once a day for the first week. We suggest curing for at least 2 weeks prior to sampling your grow but the longer the better in most cases. Curing helps break down chlorophyll which gives it it's grassy smell/ harsh taste leaving you with a smoother smoke.

Traditional Cannabis plants are your photoperiod type plants they typically have an 8 week vegetative time and 8-9 week flower time depending on genetic. the change that makes the plant change from the vegetative stage to flower stage is done by the shorter days essentially the plants getting less light, this usually happens in late July / early August depending on your location. If growing indoors you can spark this change when you want by changing the light schedule from 18 hours on everyday to only 12 hours on. when this switch happens expect the plant to start stretching and getting a lot taller!

Auto-flower plants don't require a change in the lighting schedule to switch from vegetative stage to flower stage and will do so automatically. Auto-flower plants also have a much shorter growing time being completely finished between 70 - 90 days after first planting. Be aware that Auto-flower plants are typically smaller only reaching 3 to 4 feet high so expect smaller yields than normal Photoperiod plants. Also Auto-flower plants can be sensitive and if stressed can jump into flower early making for an even smaller plant and yield. To try and avoid this from happening we suggest the following.

1. Start your plant in the pot you want it to finish in and never transplant.
2. Don't top or any high stress training, low stress training is okay but try to keep it at the minimum.
3. Keep a consistent light schedule through it's whole life (we suggest 18 hours on, 6 hours off).

Visit www.34streetseeds.com