Planting Instructions for Hemp Seeds
Soak your seeds in a small amount of water overnight
Spread and wrap your seeds inside a damp dish towel and keep in a place where you can assure that the towel won’t dry out. Check the seeds daily to see if they have begun to sprout, and re-dampen the towel as needed. It can this take 3-9 days for all the seeds to sprout.
When you see a small ‘tail’ showing on a seed, plant the seed either in at least 4” cells, small pots, or recycled plastic containers with good drainage holes poked in the bottom. Alternatively, you can direct-seed outside in a well-prepared garden bed with 3-foot spacing (which will be thinned later to 6-foot spacing).
When the plants reach about 4-6” in height and before their roots become cramped in their containers, transplant to an area with full sun, and space the plants 3-5 feet apart (you will be removing the male plants later, which will reach an idea 6-foot spacing). You can also grow them in large pots or 5 gallon buckets filled with soil, with drainage holes drilled into the bottom. I use a mix of homemade compost and perlite as a potting mix, but you can purchase good organic potting mix in many garden shops, hardware stores, or whole food markets.
You won’t know which plants are male or female until they mature, but if you’re growing for maximum potency, and if you have neighbors growing medicinal cannabis or CBD hemp, you’ll want to remove the male plants as soon as you can identify them. Look for pollen structures forming on the as shown in the diagram below. When you pull the male plants, you can juice the leaves or add them to blended smoothies. It’s important to watch your plants closely and remove the males as soon as you can. You also have to watch the female plants as well, since sometimes they can generate their own male branch which also need to be removed!
See this link for more information on sexing your plants: https://www.leafly.com/news/growing/sexing-marijuana-plants
6. As the daylight begins to lessen below 12 hours, you’ll see the plants flower, and mature at a faster rate. They can become quite large—5 feet tall, 3-4 feet wide! If you like in an area with high winds, you may wish to stake your plants, which is best done when they are smaller.
7. Watch the tiny white-ish bumps on the flowers—these are called trichomes—that’s where the potent medicine is. Stay tuned here to learn when to harvest and how to dry your hemp plants.