You don’t need acres or ideal conditions to grow hemp – it is easy to grow at home, especially starting in the month of August. Let’s talk about some of the advantages to growing in August, potentially in a small space and intentionally growing smaller plants. Yes, advantages! Yes, intentionally smaller plants! Here are the solid reasons behind the how and why.
Growing hemp is like growing zucchini. Let’s explore this, in particular the more “problematic” outcomes from growing zucchini.
Too much to handle. If you’ve grown zucchini before you know it can produce more fruit than you can ever use and you are literally finding creative ways to give it away. This is absolutely true with hemp. A problem? A bonus? Just being honest. A 3′ tall hemp plant will likely give you more flower than you can imagine. Your mind, and your friends minds, will be blown. Now, imagine a 6′ tall hemp plant. Up to you whether this is a “problem” or not, I am here to give you honest options!
A lovely, big and fluffy plant, that shades your garden. Like zucchini, hemp can take over. By keeping it small, which hemp has no problem with, your hemp plants can top out at 3-4′ and leave room and sunshine for the rest of your garden.
How to Solve the Zucchini “problem”
Your solution to the zucchini “problem”, is to grow smaller plants. This is easy with hemp, you don’t need any special seeds or equipment. You will still have a humongous harvest. There are easy solutions:
- Start your hemp plants in August. Farmers do this for a variety of reasons, including having uniform, smaller plants at harvest. In August they can still go right in the ground and be ready for harvest in October.
- Prune your plants in August. You started your garden way back when and now you’d like to free up some space or sunshine for other plants. Prune and top your hemp to the desired shape and size before it starts to set flowers. Project Idea: Make juice/tea from leaves or DIY bouquets.
- Grow in a 5gal container. Hemp will adjust its’ final size to match the container it is in. It’s easier to keep happy and healthy in a 5gal pot, but you can also grow in 10gal or 15gal pots to get ‘bigger plants’ that you don’t need to fuss with that are ‘smaller’ than if you grew in ground.
The main point is that hemp is super versatile, and you can absolutely grow it starting in August and have a very successful, even better and more practical harvest.