Continuous Yield Gardening: Vegetative Growth

In order to keep your continuous use garden in constant production, you’ll need a steady supply of plants that are ready to begin flowering. To do this, you can maintain a separate garden for plants in vegetative growth. As mature plants are taken out of the flowering room for harvest, they are replaced with plants from the vegetative garden.

The length of the daylight period controls flowering in cannabis plants. In the flowering room, the lights are run on a cycle of 12 hours on and 12 hours off. This short day length mimics the sunlight period experienced naturally as fall transitions into winter (in mid-latitudes) and induces flowering.

To prevent flowering and encourage fast and vigorous growth, a longer day period of 16 hours or more is best. Cultivators who grow strictly indoors generally run their lights 18 hours per day during the vegetative period. Outdoors, the natural day length can be extended with flood lights that come on before sunrise or at sunset (or both).

Where I live in Southern California, it’s warm and bright enough to maintain vegetative growth year-round. I use one small 150-watt flood light to maintain a light period of about 17 hours per day. A few hours of extra light in the morning and a few more at night extend the day enough to maintain the plants in a vegetative state until they are needed for the flowering room.

A short video of the vegetative area of my continuous yield garden can be viewed on YouTube.

To learn more about cultivating cannabis at home, having a quality garden guide on-hand is an indispensable resource. My favorite is Ed Rosenthal’s Marijuana Grower’s Guide, which is available for purchase on his website.

You can also keep up to date with cannabis cultivation trends from articles found online under the “Grow” tab at the High Times website.