I Like Big Buds -- How to Grow Bigger Cannabis Buds Indoors and Outdoors

As the legal cannabis industry grows and evolves, homegrowing has become a point of serious contention. For recreationally and medically legal states that do allow it, patients and growers are vocal in their pleasure for it. For states that don't allow patients, caregivers, or just the average Joe to grow their own plants, that means serious and vocal displeasure on forums, message boards, and subreddits that result in calls to legislators. Simply put, homegrowing cannabis is popular and will only increase in popularity as more and more states legalize medically and recreationally.

With that popularity in mind, it only makes sense that homegrowers are constantly looking for tips and advice on how to grow giant weed plants of their own, or how to fatten up buds before harvest. That's where we here at Where's Weed come in.

This article is going to break down the best ways to get the most out of your cannabis plants, whether you're growing indoors under some heat lamps or outside under the sunshine. We'll break down how to maintain and feed your plants, what products you need for a productive and fruitful grow, and how to maximize the bang for your buck.

Let's get right into it, shall we?

How to Grow Bigger Buds

Just like any other plant you would try to grow in a garden, you'll need to do some research and get some supplies before you even consider planting your first seed. It's important to note that some of these supplies change whether you're growing indoors or outside.

Here's a list of some supplies and things you'll need to grow your own cannabis:

Seeds
A light source (grow lamps if growing indoors, the sun if growing outside)
Pruning shears
Fertilizer/potting soil

Once you have those basic supplies, you'll be ready to plant your first seed and get your grow started. From here, we'll break things down into two different sections for indoor and outdoor grows. While much of the care is the same, there are some subtle differences you'll need to account for if you want to get the best out of your plants.

How to Grow Big Buds Indoors - Lighting

If you're looking for the secret of how to grow bigger buds indoors, there are a few key things to note.

First, you'll want to make sure your indoor heating lamps are powerful enough to get the job done. Like any other plant, cannabis needs the right amounts of light to thrive and produce the best quality buds. Without that, you're dead in the water to start. Your lights should be strong enough to provide 400 watts of light for every 13 square feet of growing space as a rule of thumb. However, when your plants are in their flowering stage, you'll want to crank the wattage up to around 600 for the same area.

This lighting aspect is incredibly important if you care about the size of the buds on your plants. Not providing enough light is a sure-fire way of getting small or uneven buds.

How to Grow Big Buds Outdoors - Lighting

If you're looking for advice on how to grow bigger buds outdoors, there's not much to offer in this section. It turns out that nature is pretty good at growing plants itself. That's because the sun is the most effective, consistent, and reliable light source you're going to have when it comes to growing cannabis.

As long as you plant your cannabis in good soil and take proper care of it as it grows (more on that later), the sun will do most of the heavy lifting for you as long as you live in a good, sunny climate. If you're looking to grow some plants outside in the Northeast in December, you're likely better off moving those plants inside and growing indoors for now if you're looking to get the biggest possible buds.

How to Grow Bigger Buds Indoors and Outdoors

Now that we've covered the biggest differences between growing outside and inside, we can cover some tips to use while growing. These next few sections are important for maximizing the size of your buds and getting the best out of your cannabis plants, whether you're growing inside or outside.

Picking the Right Soil and Fertilizer

Just like nearly every other plant that folks grow in their gardens, you'll need to make sure that the soil you're growing it in is conducive to producing the best quality plants. For plants you'll be consuming, like cannabis, you'll also need to make sure that the stuff you're getting produces the best quality, healthiest plants.

To get the biggest buds and best quality cannabis plants, you'll need to make sure you're getting potting soil and fertilizer that adds nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium at different stages of the plant's development cycle. As a rule of thumb, you'll want to provide the plant with more nitrogen-rich supplements during its vegetative state, then phosphorus and potassium during the flowering stage. It's also important to note that the pH balance of the soil should be regulated as well since pH problems in the soil you're growing in can lead to nutrient deficits.

This rule of thumb is for both indoor and outdoor grows. The same rules apply to both plants if you're looking to get the bigger and best quality buds.

Pruning Your Cannabis Plants

While it might seem insignificant, pruning your cannabis is essential to making sure your plants and the buds they produce are the best they can possibly be. Pruning, or removing the small shoots from the trunk and branches, helps your cannabis plants put all of their energy into developing massive buds.

When it comes to pruning your cannabis plants, you'll want to focus on the nodes. The nodes are little bumps that appear near the bud that develop during the flowering stage, and snipping them off will pave the way to bigger and better buds. As long as you get those nodes, your plants will focus all of their energy on producing top-notch, huge buds.

While you're pruning, you should also look to cut off any dead or small branches that aren't producing buds, so your plant can redirect the energy it would take to grow those new branches and nodes into the already existing buds.

In short, if you want to increase the size and quality of the buds you have already, your best bet is to give your plant no other choice than to focus on them. The best way to do that is via pruning!

Do you think you will try out growing your own cannabis indoors or outdoors? Let us know below in the comments!