The South African sun is blazing and soon you could be too! There are enough gorgeous summer months left to sneak in an autoflower grow.
Growing weed can be as simple or complicated as you make it. Achieving monster yields with World Champion award-winning quality takes a lot of time, expertise and specialised equipment (all of which you can find in Zootly’s Grow range).
BUT if you’re a noob like I was, and you’re looking for a successful first grow that is cheap and simple, there really is no other option that makes as much sense as the Zootly Nest.
I germinated one indica and one hybrid seed (both feminised and autoflower) in mid-September, grew them on the windowsill of my flat using everything provided in the Zootly Nest, and am now waiting for my harvested bud to finish drying and curing. It was an exciting and rewarding process!
Here’s what you need to know:
Advantages:
- It comes with a soil mix that will provide your plant with all the nutrients it needs, in the perfect ratios. You don’t need to stress about adding anything to balance the pH, stimulate flowering, or prevent chemical burn. It’s perfect as is.
- Just add sun and water. But you do need proper sun. My north-facing windowsill received less and less sunlight as the sun’s path moved southwards for summer, and it really limited their growth significantly.
- The pot allows you to move your plants anywhere without the distress of transplanting them! This is such a huge plus. Grandparents coming to visit with awkward questions you don’t feel like answering? Simply pick up the pots and stash them somewhere out of sight. This works too if your sunlight situation changes and you need to move the plants around to find the best light.
- The Zootly Nest grow kit comes with an autoflower seed, which means your grow will go from seed to smoke MUCH faster than a traditional photoperiod seed, which relies on the changing sunlight hours of the seasons to change. Your seed will go from germination to harvest in around 3 months. It’s also feminised, which means you won’t be wasting effort on a plant that turns out to be male and not yield any smokeable flowers.
- It’s really not labour intensive at all. Once your plant is in the fabric pot, all you’ll ever need to do is monitor it and water occasionally. Then you just wait and watch it grow into your own bud! It’s so low effort you’ll have to stop yourself from fiddling with it unnecessarily.
- Friends, I can’t explain the joy of seeing your first weedling germinate between the cotton wool pads, then sprout in the jiffy pellet, then begin to flourish in the fabric pot. It is such a beautiful and gratifying process. The autoflower seeds grow so incredibly quickly that you can actually see the difference in a matter of hours, which is insane. I loved arriving home from work every evening and rushing over to my weed baby to see how much she had grown since that morning. It will bring you happiness at every step along the process, not only when you finally get to harvest.
Disadvantages:
- The fabric pot is really deep and thick, which means the centre part of the soil doesn’t dry out quickly. This makes it really easy to overwater and drown your plant’s roots, especially when the plant is still small and young and not using much water. If your leaves are suddenly looking all limp and droopy a few hours after watering, that’s a clear sign that the roots are surrounded by water and aren’t getting enough oxygen. They’re basically suffocating. I remedied this by carefully digging a small circular trench around the roots, so that air could penetrate and dry the water out while getting O2 to the roots. It seemed to work well, and the leaves had perked up again by the next morning. After this experience, I changed my watering technique. Instead of watering directly onto the roots, I watered in a circle around the stem. This can stimulate the roots to grow outward in search of water, and also ensures that the central roots aren’t sitting in soggy soil.
- If you’ve never grown weed before, I need to warn you about the smell. It’s one thing if you’re growing outside where the scent of the mature plant can dissipate easily, but if you’re using your Zootly Nest to grow indoor on a windowsill or under some lights, the smell gets very strong.
- Autoflower strains will never get as big as photoperiods, which is just the trade off you make when you want a plant that matures as fast as 11 weeks. Your yield won’t be huge, but it should be plentiful enough for a good couple of smokes.
Are you convinced yet?
There are a few months left of fantastic summer sunlight, so get planting now! It’s just R480 for the whole Zootly Nest which includes cotton pads for germination, a jiffy pellet for sprouting, a pot and all the soil and nutrients you need for a successful grow. And of course, a complimentary seed to get you started.
Shop it here: https://zootly.co.za/product/zootlys-nest/
