Personal growth

An introduction to cultivating your own cannabis

When State Question 788 passed, it became legal for cannabis patients to have up to six adult plants in their home. But cultivating cannabis is no easy task. While cannabis is a weed (and grows like one), best results come from carefully managing your plants’ environment.

Jesse Sims started using marijuana to manage his pain without opioids and eventually began growing it. Now he works in Tulsa as a home grow consultant, helping cannabis patients grow their own medicine. His first piece of advice: Don’t go into it without research. 

“You’ll probably want to do a little reading first,” Sims said. “It’s just not your typical plant.”

In the wild, cannabis tends to grow tall with lots of leaves and relatively small buds. By managing a plant’s soil content, water level and light exposure, growers can cause their plants to stay short and produce fewer leaves, reserving the plant’s energy for producing more of the much sought-after buds.

Most growers operate inside where it’s easier to control the plants’ environment. While it is possible to grow pot in the unaltered Oklahoma climate, our unpredictable weather can severely hamper plant development. Sims says he has a few plants outside, but the recent humidity has kept them from reaching their full potential.

“They’re not finished and they’re not doing well because, well, the weather’s so weird. It’s too wet and it’s just not working,” Sims said. “But inside’s a different story.”

Still, growing cannabis inside requires a lot of time and energy. Carla Grogg is the owner of Grogg’s Green Barn, a gardening center in Tulsa. Her business hosts educational events for growers, and she’s had to learn a lot about cannabis in the last few years.

“I tell people [growing cannabis] can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be,” Grogg said.

Using living soil, rather than store bought potting soil, according to Grogg, can help those with busy schedules. It requires minimal input, rather than careful monitoring of soil nutrients like a commercial grower.

Growing indoors can be expensive as well. Grogg says a typical home grower can expect to spend about $1,000–1500 on equipment. However, one need not invest in a space-age aeroponics table to grow cannabis at home. “You can have one plant in a two-by-two tent. And I’m sure you could probably get that for $300 or $400,” Sims said.

Even experienced growers are still in the trial and error phase of their operations in Oklahoma. “The growers are, I hate to say it, but they’re going through hell this year,” Grogg said. “And some of them had great harvests, but they’ve had trial and error figuring this climate out.”

Growing cannabis is difficult, but it isn’t uncharted territory. With time, care and the help of experts, even a greenhorn can grow Oklahoma’s new favorite crop.