Growing your own cannabis for personal use

Growing your own cannabis for personal use In this week's gardening segment, Tony Ryma talks to master gardener James St. John about growing your own cannabis for personal use.

SUDBURY – Last year, the federal government made recreational cannabis legal. The government also announced its spending millions of dollars on educating the public about cannabis.

Each week, CTV Northern Ontario produces a gardening segment called Tony's Green Thumb.

After receiving suggestions from some viewers about doing a segment on growing cannabis for personal use, we have decided to bring you that segment.

However first, we want to let viewers know that CTV and the management at the northern Ontario station does not endorse or promote the use of cannabis or the growing of cannabis.

In this week's Gardening Segment, Tony Ryma was joined by master gardener James St. John at C4 Hydroponics to discuss the process of growing cannabis.

St. John says there are several techniques to grow the natural plant depending on the environment.

"Indoor and outdoor is a little different for techniques," explained St. John. When outdoors, "you want to make sure it gets planted after the risk of frost. When you're growing indoors, you have a little more control over the environment, so you can pretty much grow year-round, as long as you are following the rules."

The rules and regulations for growing cannabis state that you are allowed to have four plants per household and they have to come from a licensed seller. In Ontario, the only licensed seller is the Ontario Cannabis Store.

The germination process is relatively quick said St. John, explaining how growers will want to "keep it in the dark at first to germinate, and once it sprouts out of the ground, you want to give it a fair amount of light to stop it from stretching. Keep in mind, when growing indoors, you won't have a lot of room, as you would outside. And the variety is kind of specific as to the end height."

With four plants, St. John says the whole process would take between seven to 10 weeks before entering a second and equally important process, harvesting and curing.

"Keep in mind that if you're new to growing, don't be scared, it is a natural plant. There's plenty of information online as to people's different techniques to growing. You'll find something that works for you and I recommend taking a lot of notes so if something doesn't work out, you can always refer to your notes and tweak it a little bit."

St. John also added that it is okay to gift a little bit of homegrown cannabis to family and friends but it is illegal to sell.