Setting Up Grow Enclosures
We would all love to have a full room in our house that is dedicated entirely to an indoor garden. Unfortunately not many of us have that kind of luxury.
The good news is that growing marijuana can be done anywhere, just be creative! There are many options you can pick from whether you choose a grow tent, closet, cabinet, or even a pc grow case.
You just need to ensure that you can provide all the elements needed to grow weed.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular grow enclosures.
Grow Tent
This is by far my favorite type of enclosure. Grow tents are inexpensive, easy to assemble, and come in all shapes and sizes. The nice thing about a grow tent is that it has everything you need packaged all together in one kit.
These grow tents have reflective walls that helps distribute light throughout the enclosure. This avoids the need to install panda film or using white paint to cover the walls.
These tents provide various locations to install inline fans allowing you to control the temperature inside the enclosure. Hooking up ventilation ducts are a snap with the built in ventilation ports.
Most importantly, a grow tent is completely sealed from the outside world. All openings on the grow tent are zippered shut. This makes it easy to control the environment inside the enclosure and, at the same time, prevent any light leaks.
The only real downside to a grow tent is that they are not very stealthy. These tents are most commonly placed out in the open inside a room, usually within range of a window to ventilate hot air out of the enclosure.
Depending on the size of the grow tent, a little creatively can help you disguise the appearance.
Grow Closet
Another good location of your indoor garden is your closet. Setting up a grow closet makes it easy to hide your garden from others.
Depending on the size of your grow closet, you can pack in a lot of plants and a lot of lights. Just be sure to prepare the walls by either covering them with reflective film or painting them with flat white paint to help reflect the grow lights.
There are two major concerns to think about when setting up a grow closet. Getting electricity and providing sufficient ventilation (link to ventilation page).
If your closet has electrical outlets, then you are a step ahead of the game and do not have to worry about providing power to your grow closet.
If you have a light bulb in your closet but no electrical outlet, you are still in luck. Using a simple light socket adapter can convert your existing light into an electrical output. This will be sufficient to power your grow lights as well as ventilation fans.
The difficult scenario is when you have neither electrical outlets nor do you have powered lights in your closet. You will then need to figure out how to get electricity in to your closet either by wiring in new outlets or using extension cords. We will touch on this in more detail in other articles.
If you have your electricity covered, you now need to figure out ventilation. Unfortunately most closets do not have a way to exhaust heat buildup. You may have to resort to cutting holes in the ceiling and routing air ducting into your attic and out a vent.
Cutting holes in your walls or ceiling may or may not be within your comfort zone. Nonetheless, you MUST figure out a way ventilate your closet if you choose to grow in it.
Grow Cabinet
If you need to be more incognito with your grow but cannot utilize a closet, setting up a grow cabinet may be your next option. You can purchase pre-built grow cabinets or build one yourself if you are somewhat handy.
A grow cabinet is great because it keeps everything very hidden and you can choose practically any size cabinet for your garden. On the outside, it appears to be a regular storage cabinet or drawer. However on the inside, you have your secret garden producing your favorite sticky icky.
Setting up a grow cabinet is similar to setting up a grow closet, it’s just on a much smaller scale. Make the walls reflective and cut holes for proper ventilation. You also may need to seal up any cracks or seams to prevent light from escaping out of the cabinet or you may blow your cover.
The limiting factor for the amount of plants you can grow will be determined by the size of your cabinet. It is recommended to choose the largest cabinet you can. This will allow you to grow more plants and make it easier for you to control the temperature inside.
PC Grow Case
Are grow cabinets still not easing your paranoia? Well if you need to be the next 007 secret agent of growing marijuana, then you might only be left with the option of a PC grow case as an enclosure.
With this grow enclosure, you are left with growing micro sized plants in a physical computer case. You can still achieve potent marijuana, but the yield will obviously be small.
Like the cabinets, you can purchase pre-built PC grow cases or build one yourself. It is, of course, recommended to purchase the largest PC case that you can fit in your location. CFL lights are the most commonly used grow lights in this enclosure due to its small space.
Any noise from fans or hydroponic systems are easily hidden. Since computers naturally make fan noise when turned on, it should not cause any suspicion from house guests.
Another tip that I have for you PC growers is to reduce the period of the vegetative stage. The goal here is to make the plants grow as small as possible. During the first few weeks of flowering, marijuana plants tend to stretch quite a bit. You can easily overgrow your PC grow case if you are not careful.
Shortening the vegetative stages will reduce the size of the plants before going into flowering. This will leave your plants with more room to grow once it’s flowered.
So many options!
Like mentioned above, you can grow marijuana practically anywhere. You just need to be able to provide light, air, water, and nutrients.
Each grow area is different and it may take a few trial and error attempts to get the area set up properly.
If you have the space available and are not private of your secret garden, then I will always recommend choosing a grow tent.
