Marijuana Grower's Handbook Read online

  Ed Rosenthal

  ASK ED© Edition Your Complete Guide for Medical & Personal Marijuana Cultivation

  MARIJUANA GROWER’S HANDBOOK

  Ask Ed Edition: Your Complete Guide for Medical & Personal Marijuana Cultivation

  Copyright © 2010 Ed Rosenthal

  Published by Quick American Publishing

  A division of Quick Trading Co.

  Oakland, California

  Print ISBN: 978-0-932551-46-7

  eBook ISBN 978-0-932551-50-4

  Cover photo: Mandala Seeds, Variety: White Satin

  Project Director: Jane Klein

  Project Manager: Angela Bacca

  Chief Editor: William Dolphin

  Editors: Angela Bacca, Hera Lee, David Johnson-Igra

  Additional Editors: Laurel Hubert, Patricia Hernandez, Eve Cohen

  Cover and Interior Design: Hera Lee

  Design and Production: Hera Lee, Alvaro Villanueva, Renate Woodbury

  All photographs by Ed Rosenthal and Angela Bacca, except where noted.

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication

  (Provided by Quality Books, Inc.)

  Rosenthal, Ed.

  Marijuana grower’s handbook / Ed Rosenthal. -- Ask Ed ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-932551-46-7

  ISBN-10: 0-932551-46-7

  1. Cannabis. 2. Marijuana. I. Title.

  SB295.C35R665 2010 633.7’9

  QBI10-600030

  The material offered in this book is presented as information that should be available to the public. The Publisher does not advocate breaking the law. However, we urge readers to support the secure passage of fair marijuana legislation.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  MARIJUANA

  Grower’s Handbook

  ASK ED© Edition

  Ed Rosenthal

  DEDICATION

  THIS SERIES IS DEDICATED TO PETE SEEGER.

  "GOD BLESS THE GRASS THAT GROWS THROUGH THE CRACK."

  Malvina Reynolds, "God Bless the Grass"

  THIS EDITION OF MARIJUANA GROWER'S HANDBOOK IS DEDICATED TO JACK HERER—KEEPING HIS PROMISE TO EDWIN "CAPTAIN ED" M. ADAIR III.

  "Look out of any window, any morning, any evening, any day,

  Maybe the sun is shining, birds are winging, no rain is falling from a heavy sky.

  What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through?

  For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago."

  Lyrics: Robert Hunter and Phil Lesh, "Box of Rain"

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Amerinada Dist., Sheldon Aberman, Al K., Arjan, Berkeley Patients Group, Ben Dronkers, Bill Graham, Bonnie and Clyde, Brian L., Brian M., Bubbleman and Diana P., Dennis Peron, Chris H., Current Culture, Doug Buddy, Elvis (not that one), Emerald Mountain Ministry, Etienne, G. Lee Ph.D. and DJ Sun Ph.D., Franco, George M., Harborside Health Center, Hugo Martinez, JD Petris, Jeff H., Jeff Nunes, John Sajo, Jonathon M., Jodi, John Lydon, June D., Kat, Keith Stroup, Kenny M., Kevin S., Kirk X., Larry B., Levi, Lydia D, Marc and Jodie Emery, Mark Lovinger, Mark Gray, Matt Q., Mike Aldrich, Mike D., Mila Jansen, Oaksterdam University, R&M Distribution/C.A.P. Controllers, Sensi Seed Bank, Green House Seed Co., Rachael Szmajda and Rick Pfrommer, Ram and Liz, Priv Doz., Dr. Habil Ewald Sieverding, T.A., Shawn B., Theo Tekstra, Tom Flowers, John Rosenwald, Corey X., Jerry, Vince, Tommy Chong, William Dolphin, Willie Nelson, Will and Anna Foster

  eBook SPONSORS

  Thank you to these companies whose support and participation helped make this eBook possible.

  ACCELERATED TECHNOLOGIES - WWW.GROWBOXUSA.COM

  AMAL GOLD - WWW.AMALGOLDNUTRIENTS.COM

  HARVESTMORE - WWW.HARVEST-MORE.COM

  MAGICAL BUTTER - WWW.MAGICALBUTTER.COM

  SEEDSMAN - WWW.SEEDSMAN.COM

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FOREWORD: TOMMY CHONG

  PREFACE: KEITH STROUP

  FREE LEGAL BACKYARD MARIJUANA: MICHAEL ALDRICH

  ED'S INTRODUCTION

  PART I MARIJUANA THE PLANT

  How Marijuana Gets You High

  Marijuana the Plant

  Indica & Sativa, Ruderalis & Kush

  Choosing Varieties

  Quick Points: Marijuana the Plant

  PART II WHAT ARE PLANTS & WHAT DO THEY WANT?

  Marijuana Plant Life Cycle

  Photosynthesis

  The Limiting Factors

  Light

  Carbon Dioxide

  Water

  Nutrients & Fertilizers

  Temperature, Humidity & Air Quality

  Quick Points: What Are Plants?

  PART III SETTING UP YOUR GARDEN

  Your Goals

  Light, Space and Yield

  Plant Size & Number: Growing in the Limits

  Designing the Space

  Soil

  Hydroponics

  Security

  Quick Points: Setting Up Your Garden

  PART IV LET’S GET GROWING!

  Getting Started

  Vegetative Growth

  Flowering

  Quick Points: Let's Get Growing!

  PART V HARVEST & BEYOND

  Harvesting

  Restarting The Garden

  Post Harvest

  Quick Points: Harvest & Beyond

  GLOSSARY

  PEST & DISEASE APPENDIX

  SPONSORS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY - PARTIAL

  INDEX - SEARCH SUGGESTIONS

  FOREWORD

  by TOMMY CHONG

  All my close friends are pot heads! And one of my close friends is not only a pot head he is the expert pot grower who holds the distinction of turning more people on to pot than Cheech and Chong.

  I am talking about Ed Rosenthal, the pot-growing gardener whose Ask Ed column has helped keep the DEA busy chasing down the few hundred thousand or so pot gardens currently growing all over America. And not only is Ed a great gardener, he is also a great revolutionary, an “anti-establishment” hippie who likes to wear weird clothes and “out” the corrupt Federal officials who insist on enforcing America’s sadly outdated drug laws.

  When I first met Ed, he was facing 10 years in Federal prison for doing pretty much what he has been doing for the past 30 or so years—growing pot. The Feds insisted Ed broke the law, and Ed would agree with them—and then explain, “It’s a terrible law!” Ed is also a writer of books, an occupation I have just recently been exposed to. Ed’s books are treated pretty much like the “pot bible” when it comes to combatting disease, thieves, and other pests that could waste an entire growing cycle. This is another reason why I admire and respect this man. Writing is hard; comedy is easy.

  Writing is like masturbating when you have just masturbated. It’s not fun. But it has to be done, or else people would not have anything to read while they sit on the toilet.

  Now, notice how I headed right into the toilet when I called myself a writer? There must be a reason for that, eh? No, I am being modest about my talent as a writer but for good reasons, on the other hand, however (now I just made, what, three mistakes in this last sentence?), Ed is a writer. He is an excellent writer of how to do anything concerning pot. How to grow it. How to hide it. How to care for it. How to smoke it. How to stay out of jail while growing it. What to do while you are in jail for growing it. Ed has the whole field covered. Ask Ed.

  And I do on occasion ask Ed. I ask him why he thinks pot has stayed illegal for so long. His was an interesting answer.
A really surprising answer. And an intelligent answer. One I cannot divulge for reasons…well, to tell you the truth…I don’t remember his answer because I was smoking at the time we had that conversation, and you know us pot heads! I’ll remember the answer right after I stop writing this…whatever it is I am writing.

  Anyway, Ed is probably one of the most intelligent men I know, and he does have the answer to quite a few problems facing Americans today. So, if you have the time and the inclination, check out Ed’s writings. Read what he has to say. You may not be ready for him, but you are not alone. Even the United States Government had to back off when it came to arguing with Ed. They did back off, and I have to say that when the pot laws change and disappear, we all will have to take a moment before we light up that legal joint and say a silent, “Thanks, Ed Rosenthal,” because he stood in front of the government tank and faced it down. And he was totally zonked out of his mind when he did it.

  Thank you, Ed—

  Tommy Chong

  PREFACE

  by R. KEITH STROUP, ESQ.

  Ed Rosenthal, the best-known marijuana horticulturist in America, and the expert relied on by hundreds of thousands of marijuana growers when they want to learn the best marijuana cultivation techniques, is a friend and colleague whom I’ve known since the 1980s and ‘90s, when he wrote a monthly cultivation column, “Ask Ed,” for High Times magazine.

  We have, over the years, at times disagreed over style and tactics, but I have learned to appreciate Ed’s significant contribution to the movement to legalize marijuana in this country. He has been a leader in bringing the best cultivation techniques to a mass audience, and he has shown the political courage to stand up to the full force of the federal government, and lived to tell about it.

  As Americans first began to grow much of our own marijuana here at home—some with the goal of saving money, some to assure a high-quality product, and others to avoid dealing with the underground market—Ed clearly had a very positive impact on that movement. Any home gardener knows that although anyone can learn to be a successful grower, whether they grow vegetables, flowers, or herbs such as marijuana, gardening is not as simple as planting a seed and watering it occasionally.

  It requires a lot of expertise that generally can only be gained from a good book or a more experienced friend. Ed has long been providing accurate and detailed instructions to wannabe farmers so they could turn a good intention into a good crop. And he continues to provide that expertise today, with the publication of the 25th anniversary edition of Marijuana Grower’s Handbook.

  Personal cultivation is crucial. It protects consumers from the possibility, once marijuana is legalized, that big corporations take over the market. Tobacco companies, for instance, already have the land and processing plants available—but the marijuana they may offer could be too expensive, too weak, or otherwise not as high in quality as we have grown accustomed to during the Grow American Movement. Should that occur, we have the ultimate instrument in our hands: we can refuse to purchase their commercially produced marijuana and simply grow our own. Without the right to cultivate for personal use, consumers could end up with poor choices, poor marijuana, and no real alternatives.

  Ed Rosenthal has also always been an out-front marijuana legalization advocate, someone willing to push the envelope, often at some personal risk, to achieve social change. He was arrested by the Feds in 2002 for managing a nursery that supplied medical patients with starter plants in Oakland, California. He and the city attorney thought he was legally cultivating medical marijuana as an officer of the City of Oakland. Ed faced a possible 20-year mandatory minimum prison sentence; he refused to discuss a plea agreement.

  While that strategy might have seemed risky, in the end his courage was rewarded by the judge, who said Ed had justifiably relied on his status with the city, and sentenced him to only one day in jail, with credit for time already served. Ed had survived the best shot the Feds could take, and he is still standing.

  Ed Rosenthal is the best-known cultivation expert in America. He has written more than a dozen books on the topic; he is politically active and testifies as an expert in state and federal criminal cases. He was the recipient of the 2007 NORML Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing the cause of legal marijuana.

  Over the years, Ed and I have developed a friendship based on mutual respect, and we stay in touch and see each other several times a year at marijuana-related events in different parts of the country. The friendship is largely based on our common appreciation and enjoyment of marijuana, and our shared belief in the importance of making it legal. But even more to the point, we both believe that legalizing the personal cultivation of marijuana, along the lines of what Ed likes to call the “tomato model,” is the single most important provision we must achieve.

  I am delighted to give my thanks to Ed Rosenthal for leading the home-grown consumer movement in America, and for bringing us all closer to full marijuana legalization.

  R. Keith Stroup, Esq.

  NORML Founder and Legal Counsel*

  THE TOMATO MODEL

  The model for what marijuana legalization should look like is already out there. It’s tomatoes. More tomatoes are grown in America by home gardeners than are produced commercially. Yet there is a robust commercial market for tomatoes and tomato products of all types: canned, vine-ripened, organic, sauces, soups, ketchup, etc. At the same time, small-scale specialty cultivators do well selling their produce at farmers’ markets, and home gardeners with extra tomatoes share the bounty with neighbors as gifts, in trade, or through informal sales. Marijuana could be handled in the same way. Commercial growers can thrive side-by-side with home and specialty cultivators.

  Soma's Patio Garden

  FREE LEGAL BACKYARD MARIJUANA: THE TIPPING POINT

  by MICHAEL ALDRICH, Ph.D

  “God grows pot, why can’t we?”

  We’re very close to the tipping point in the marijuana legalization movement—“the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point,” as Malcolm Gladwell defines it in his book by that name, which Ed Rosenthal turned me on to when it first came out. The momentum for change has become unstoppable, but the legalization movement has been pushing for reform for nearly 50 years. The subtitle of The Tipping Point is “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” and that’s been the process. Gladwell borrows from epidemiology to identify key factors that determine whether a cultural trend will “tip” into widespread popularity. Gladwell says: “The success of any kind of social epidemic [movement] is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.” In the beginning, very few people may champion an idea, but they get it started. Gladwell describes them as Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen, charismatic types who bring things together, disseminate information, and sell the idea to the public—that’s us!

  Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Dr. Mead was one of the first world-famous women to espouse legalization of marijuana, but the early days of the movement were quite male-dominated. In this essay, I’d like to reminisce a little about how the marijuana movement got to this tipping point, identify some early players, and look at the issue of personal cultivation. My account focuses on the first stages of reform, especially in California.

  THE FIRST LEGALIZE-MARIJUANA ORGANIZATION, LEMAR (LEgalize MARijuana), sprouted up in San Francisco in August, 1964, when a brave young hippie named Lowell Eggemeier strolled into a police station, declared that putting people in jail for pot was ridiculous, and fired up a joint in front of the desk sergeant. His lawyer, James R. White III, drew up legal briefs showing the unconstitutionality of the felony marijuana laws, with quotes from investigative bodies such as the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894 and the LaGuardia Report of 1944, and published them in mimeo form as LEMAR Briefs. Eggemeier’s little act of civil disobedience started the whole mov
ement, and how it grew!

  The stage was set a few years earlier, in 1958, when beatnik Neal Cassady was busted in San Francisco for offering a joint to undercover narcs. Neal served two years in San Quentin for that, and Allen Ginsberg was infuriated. That anger fueled Ginsberg’s reaction to the LEMAR Briefs he read at his publisher, City Lights Bookstore. In 1965, Gins-burg founded NY LEMAR with Peter Orlovsky, Ed Sanders, William S. Burroughs, and Randy Wicker, who ran a little head shop in the East Village. The group held rallies and carried signs like Pot Is Fun and Pot Is A Reality Kick through the snow in front of the Women’s Prison. It made TIME magazine and linked us up with the world.

  The universal fear of dope back then was so great that one would not talk openly in a bus…

  THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE to public awareness of the issue was decades of relentless police propaganda against marijuana, backed up by always-negative “scientific” and “journalistic” articles about the herb. The multiple uses of the plant for medicine and fiber were forgotten. LEMAR hoped to correct that. As Ginsberg himself recalled, “The universal fear of dope back then was so great that one would not talk openly in a bus, for example, you couldn’t talk about changing the law, much less talk about smoking grass, for fear you’d be arrested.” Ginsberg researched, got high, and scribed “The Great Marijuana Hoax: First Manifesto to End the Bringdown” for the Atlantic Monthly in 1966, it became the centerpiece of The Marihuana Papers. This compendium of historic articles, along with such books as Pot: A Handbook of Marihuana, The Book of Grass, and 1 in 7: Drugs on Campus all contributed to public consciousness expansion.