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If you don’t have a spare room and your roommate or significant other won’t let you convert your master bedroom into a pot-growing den, that’s okay. You have other options. Virtually any size space can accommodate a grow room. Successful indoor grows can be smaller than two feet by three feet. Taking over an existing space in your home, such as a closet, cellar, or bedroom, is ideal. If you don’t have a suitable space readily available but know (or are able to hire) someone who knows a little about construction, consider building a room within a room. Other options include tents or specialized, compact growing systems designed for small spaces. Tents can be quite functional but sometimes have drawbacks in terms of maintenance and cleanability. With a little help, even a kitchen or bathroom cupboard can serve as a productive indoor grow space. Though you can prune and train your plants to operate in almost any space, a height of three feet or more is preferred to allow room for lighting and plant growth. (For help deciding on what kind of space is right for you, check out Room, Closet, or Tent? ).

You need a good power supply to be able to constantly run fans and lights, which tend to have a higher energy requirement than many other devices. Many first-time growers working in a small area can get away with using a standard grounded duplex outlet that is nearby. If you can, sketch out your entire room on paper before starting out. This way you can calculate the actual power needed for your grow and ensure adequate capacity. Depending on your chosen lights and fans, you may be able to get away with one power outlet, but in most cases you’ll need to spread out the power usage over multiple outlets or even borrow from nearby rooms so as not to blow a fuse or exceed breaker amperage. If more power is required, consider having a licensed electrician install more outlets running directly from the fuse panel.

Using the right type of water is critical to plant health. If using city water, you’ll want to make sure to check pH and hardness levels. Typically, pH should be in the 5.5 to 6.5 range, with a hardness of no more than 200 ppm (parts per million) of TDS (total dissolved solids). If using a private water source, in addition to pH and hardness, you may also want to check for heavy metals, salts, and residues from water softening, as these can inhibit normal plant growth and development. Investing in decent pH and TDS meters will help (these tools are also often used to monitor plant and soil health). If possible, use distilled water with TDS levels as close to zero as is practical. Reverse osmosis (RO) machines can purify standard tap water to this level and are relatively inexpensive. You can also buy distilled water, but this is more costly in the long run. Using water free from any minerals and solids will set a pure baseline that won’t interfere with the other nutrients and chemicals you give your plants.

Your grow space should have cleanable walls and floors. To create these, concrete floors can be sealed with sealant and a roller, or, if you want to enhance your space, you can opt for epoxy or a similar floor coating. Wooden floorboards should be covered and sealed. Walls can be treated with antifungal paints and sealed with latex or epoxy paint. Another option is to use fiber reinforced plastic (FRP). Each of these items can be found at your local hardware store at relatively low costs. Whatever material you choose, it must be nonporous and able to withstand repeated cleanings, often with harsh chemicals. Pay special attention to the transition between the floor and walls—it should be smooth and easily cleanable and should not collect debris or water. When this is not an option, a properly installed and sealed rubber baseboard can suffice. The goal of cleaning is to eliminate any mold, pests, or phytopathogens that may have found a home in your grow room in previous growing cycles.

Each group of plants you harvest represents a chunk of your hard-earned cash. Mistakes will happen, but the smaller the number of plants affected, the less costly the ramifications. Incorrect ratios of fertilizer may require dilution with more soil. Incorrect nutrient formulations may require dilution or the throwing out of prepared solutions. Even in the absence of outright mistakes, many growers have lost a crop to pests or accidents involving climate control or watering systems. It’s okay to have setbacks and even lose some plants now and then, but, especially when starting out, by going small you’ll minimize the impact on your wallet.

ROOM, CLOSET, OR TENT?

Your choice of space will have lasting ramifications on the life of your operation in terms of efficiency and manageability. No pressure!

The basic options for containing your plants are a purpose-built room, closet/cellar, or tent. (Once you know what you want to use, check out Time to Construct Your Space here .) Here are some advantages and disadvantages of each:

ROOM

For those with space : A purpose-built room, which can be the product of new construction or retrofitting, allows for optimal growing conditions when compared to a tent or a closet. With this approach, you can design and lay out larger, more advanced growing operations that will net bigger yields. Rooms tend to be easier to insulate and control environmentally than closets or grow tents. The additional space also allows for separate areas for germinating, vegetative, and flowering plants. As you can imagine, the cost of setting up and maintaining a full room is significantly higher than that of setting up a closet or a grow tent, but so are the rewards. Besides the increased space, purpose-built rooms typically offer the highest level of security, and odors can be more easily routed outside.

TENT

For those wanting a simpler solution: Grow tents have become mainstream over the years, and a variety of high-quality, affordable options exist. For those without a larger space available to commandeer, tents specifically designed for growing plants can be a good solution. Depending on the configuration, they are often covered with reflective material inside and have attachments for lighting and ventilation apparatuses. One of the drawbacks of tents is they tend to get beat up more readily, from rips and punctures to failing zippers. Tents represent the low end of the spectrum as far as security, and routing odors outside can be more cumbersome. Money talks, though, and if you’re just starting out, tents may present an attractive option.

CLOSET

For those wanting something in the middle: Somewhere in between a purpose-built room and a tent is the closet grow. Like rooms, closets are typically easy to insulate and offer good security and restricted access. Limited space and the challenge of keeping odors from penetrating the rest of your home are the major cons. That said, many expert growers started out with closets, and, if set up strategically, closet grows can still produce significant amounts of marijuana. The cost to outfit a closet is usually similar to or even lower than that of a tent setup. Cleanability is another factor to consider and will vary depending on your closet setup. Compared to tents and rooms, closets can face bigger challenges with ventilation, requiring you to bring in fresh air and expel odors, which is usually done through ducting and filters.

	PURPOSE-BUILT ROOM	CLOSET	TENT
Difficulty	Experienced	Beginner	Beginner
Cost	High	Low	Moderate
Accessibility	Best	Moderate	Worst
Working life	Long	Moderate	Short
Security	Best	Best	Worst
Cleanability	Best	Variable	Moderate

When designing your indoor grow, leave adequate space for infrastructure like lights, ducts, and fans. The lighting apparatus, which we’ll talk about in depth in Step 3: The Light , will typically need to be suspended and positioned above the plants to maintain light intensity. Using more powerful lights with highly reflective surfaces in your grow space can eliminate the need for this, but the lights themselves may require a bit of distance, so you’ll want to take that into account. Depending on your specific configuration, ductwork and related equipment may also take up a bit of your available height.

With standard pruning, many plants can still reach three to four feet in height before they are ready for harvest, with much of this height made up by the bud-laden main colas. In addition to plant height, flowering marijuana plants can often be bushy and require a two- to four-foot-diameter space. Some growers say marijuana plants do better with a little space in between them, but others have achieved prodigious yields and great-quality bud with barely enough space to move between plants. Marijuana plants can grow to extreme heights, so you’ll want to maximize the available height of your grow space (but plan for basic pruning and training to be part of your standard routine).

You need a little room in between your plants to perform inspection, maintenance, and some standard cultivation activities like repotting, watering, and pruning. If you’re using a tent, keep in mind that you’ll probably need the space outside it for maintenance and storage of cultivation supplies. If you’re using a closet or room, it’s often nice to be able to perform at least the majority of your gardening activities inside it and have peace of mind that your grandma (or grandson) is not going to pop over and catch you growing pot. Be sure to account for the space taken up by supplies that will be stored inside the closet or room, such as a small table or cart, extra growing containers, or fertilizers. Lastly, the biggest thing those new to setting up indoor personal growing operations most often overlook is the space required for the largest thing in the room: You! Ensure you have enough room to move about freely and perform your cultivation activities. You’ll be spending a lot of time in your grow space—make working in it as comfortable and ergonomically friendly as you can.

So, your state went legal for marijuana and you can grow six plants in your house? That’s awesome, but you might want to make sure the neighbors don’t find out, because your house can become a target for break-in or theft. If you have kids, you’ll also need to beef up security unless you like prison. Recreational marijuana, even where legal, is limited to those 21 years of age or older. This includes the growing process, and having unsecured plants in your house with kids around could be a criminal act. Your entire growing area should be under lock and key, and cameras don’t hurt either. It’s important to deodorize the air evacuated to any kind of common area or outside where neighbors might catch wind (literally) of what you are doing. Even if they’re pot-friendly, marijuana grows can attract attention from strangers, so the lower your profile, the better.

Your space should ideally be cool (65°F to 75°F) and dry. Whatever space you choose, you can often insulate and/or build walls as necessary to create an area that can be climate controlled, but this comes at a cost. Plants like consistency, so temperature and humidity swings in the cultivation environment can create challenges for your grow, even if the swings are temporary and ultimately corrected by equipment such as heaters, fans, and dehumidifiers. Controlling humidity can be cumbersome if you choose a space, such as a basement cellar, that lacks insulation or shares an exterior wall of your house. If your space is on the exterior of your house in a hotter climate, make sure the heat of the midday sun won’t pose an issue for controlling the temperature inside your grow area. When you plan your space, look at the worst-case environment scenario (such as midday sun in the height of summer) and design with that in mind versus the average environment. Even if a fluctuation in temperature from sun or climate rarely happens, it only takes one extreme temperature blip to ruin your plants.

Once your indoor grow operation is up and running, checking or watering your plants will become part of your daily schedule. If your indoor grow is inside your house, make sure you can access the space on a daily basis without interference from neighbors, roommates, or family members. If you choose to have an off-premises site, ensure the distance can be traveled easily from your home and that you don’t set off anyone’s suspicion by going to that same spot every day. Trying an indoor grow in the woods might present challenges when it comes to getting supplies and water, not to mention the security implications of not residing where you grow.