One of the most important decisions you make as a marijuana grower is the specific location of your marijuana garden. You have two generic main options: outdoors or indoors. In each of these major categories, there are sub-options. For example, indoor marijuana growers can grow in:

  • A spare bedroom or other room in a house or apartment, or even in larger rooms.
  • In a basement or closet.
  • In a grow tent or grow chamber.
  • Large-scale growers use warehouses and other indoor space.

Outdoor growers can grow in their back yard, perhaps in a greenhouse, or on other property they own or control. If you grow at a remote outdoor site you don’t own and which you don’t have any official control over (such as a friend’s land), you’re doing “guerrilla growing.” In the photo accompanying this article, a marijuana grower spent two months walking in this forest to find a grow site that had adequate sun and access to fresh water.

If you choose to grow indoors, you need the following infrastructure:

• Controllable indoor climate.
• Reliable electricity supply (minimum 24-amp circuit).
• Security & Privacy.
• At least 80 square feet (200 or more square feet is preferable).
• Lockable door.

If you grow in a grow tent or grow chamber, you still need an indoors place to put the tent or chamber in. Grow tents and grow chambers aren’t meant to be outdoors uncovered.

If you grow cannabis outdoors, your marijuana growing space needs:

  • Privacy and security.
  • At least 7-8 hours of direct sunlight per day.
  • Reliable water supply.

You realize there are advantages and disadvantages for each of these marijuana growing locations. If you grow inside your home, you incur security risks, increased electricity costs for climate control and grow lights, and risk of fire or flooding. The good news is that only indoors do you have total control over your marijuana plants’ climate conditions, water and nutrients intake, pest and disease vectors, and security conditions.

When you grow pot inside your home using good security and cultivation protocols, your plants are way safer from police and other threats than growing outdoors. Indoor cannabis plants grown properly in a controlled environment can be 100% protected from spider mites, thrips, aphids, fungus gnats, russet mites, root aphids, whiteflies, gray mold, powdery mildew and other cannabis attackers.

If you grow pot outdoors, you risk your cannabis plants being harmed or lost due to drought and other weather and climate problems, as well as pests, diseases, police, rip-offs. But the benefits of growing outdoors (including in greenhouses) are that the sun, rain, and wind are free, and outdoor marijuana plants can grow much larger than indoor plants, producing many pounds of dried buds per plant.

Grow tents and grow chambers are sometimes useful, but there’s a wide range of quality between different brands. A sturdy, lightproof grow tent in an 8 x 8-foot size, for example, costs at least $700 if not much more. Many pre-fabricated grow chambers (sometimes called grow cabinets) are too small or otherwise poorly-configured to be of much use. On the other hand, a quality grow tent or chamber is a portable grow room. Using one saves you the considerable trouble of hanging reflective panda film on your walls, drilling holes, and otherwise altering the actual structure of your indoor space.

There’s that old saying that the best way to get where you want to go is to have a map. Creating a map for your marijuana growing venture means asking and answering the following questions BEFORE you choose where you grow pot:

  • Can I achieve total security if I grow inside my dwelling or some other building?
  • Do I have a spare room or other space to grow in?
  • Do I have nosy neighbors, friends, family, kids who might discover my grow op?
  • Do I have reliable wiring, electrical panel, air conditioning, dehumidification, water?
  • Can I afford my electricity costs to go up at least 40% per month?
  • How much cannabis do I want to consume per month?
  • How much money do I have to create my marijuana garden (start-up costs) and to spend on monthly, ongoing costs (such as electricity and water)?

If you ask yourself those questions and determine that an indoor grow op might not be a great idea, you ask yourself these questions about an outdoor marijuana growing situation:

  • Can I find a secure outdoor location with enough direct sunlight, access to water, privacy and security so my plants are healthy and won’t be discovered?
  • How much work and hassle will it be to grow outdoors, especially if I’m growing at a remote guerrilla site that has to be hiked into?
  • What’s the likelihood that bad weather, pests, diseases, robbers, police, floods, hunters, fishermen, fires or other negatives will affect the outdoor grow site while my plants are growing there?
  • Outdoor growing can produce a kilo or more of bud per plant. If I successfully grow a ten-plant outdoor garden and harvest 25 pounds of dried buds, what will I do with all those buds?

Only you can answer the questions presented in this article, and do the analysis and soul-searching required so your plan to grow marijuana is solid, thought-out, and very likely to succeed.

Every time you plan to grow, your situation is different. For example, I was planning an indoor grow op but one of my neighbors was a nasty person who I was worried might smell my cannabis grow op and nark on me. So I found a remote outdoor site, grew there, and took the money I made from that outdoor marijuana season to buy a house where there were no nasty neighbors.

Regardless of whether you choose indoors or outdoors, know this: growing your own marijuana is more cost-effective than buying it, and only by growing your own can you breed and otherwise enjoy cannabis that perfectly fits your needs and is clean, properly dried and cured, and safe.