Choosing a Home Cultivation Location

So you’ve finally bought your own setup to grow indoors and, after what felt like forever, it’s arrived. You think you've got everything ready to go but let's ask one of the most important questions: How do you know you've chosen the right spot to set it up? Whatever you're growing, location is important.

Whether it's flowers, food, mushrooms, medicine - the only limits are your ability to tend to the plants (also, uh, local laws of course) and your ability to control the environment... So you really want to avoid setting yourself up for failure! 

For some lucky people, their choice might work fine - with no problems. Others might encounter odd struggles with controlling the grow chamber’s environment and don’t realize that it’s their location that is giving them a problem more than anything else. If you’ve never grown plants in that area before or you’ve never had a grow tent or anything in this specific home, you might even be aware why a location could be unsuitable until you start growing there… So we figured now would be a good time to give folks a few things to check for or avoid when choosing their ideal cultivation location.

FIVE MAJOR AVOIDANCE RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. General Safety and cleanliness: This is not meant to shame anyone or anything, but you really need to be cautious about where you grow plants. Not only can plants suffer and take on problems from cleanliness issues, but your furnace is just not an area you want to grow near potential leaks of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and a whole lot of other potential chemical hazards. We shouldn’t have to say it, but maybe don’t plug in hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of grow equipment into bad wiring? Whatever you’re growing - keep it clean as much as possible, whenever possible, without leaving any trash or grime or stray soil or dust alone. Ever. Keep it as clean as possible - that cannot be stated enough!
2. Poor temperature control: Grow setups are not really meant to be used everywhere on your property. A shed that doesn’t have any ability to control the temperature, a cold garage, or a stuffy attic are not going to be ideal spots. Plants have an ideal temperature range for both day and night - so you’ll need to dial that in. If your attic is generally 75+F at all times, only plants that love the hottest conditions will succeed but there’s still more concerns.
3. Humidity and mold concerns: Grow chambers are meant to help prevent contamination but there’s only so much that can be done if you’re growing in a mildew-y basement. Even locations such as a bathroom are often unsuitable just because of how much the humidity will spike during showers - which can cause water buildup on your high-quality LED lights used in a grow or built up water along the walls could cause mildew… And do I really need to explain how a toilet in the same room as the grow is a no-no? 🤢
4. Sensitivity to sound or light: Many people stick their grow chambers into a bedroom without realizing all that comes with it. It’s not just space being taken up, there are fans running inside plus potential small amounts of light leaking out… Even when it’s bedtime. Some people start off okay with the situation but as they turn up the power for extraction or their light’s power, it gets louder or they need to ventilate the chamber more so they keep a door off - allowing light to flood out. 
5. Sensitivity to privacy: Some good people might value privacy with their setups - sometimes they’re growing plants that can be very sensitive or they have pets or children that could cause trouble. If you know your cat loves to eat plants, maybe don’t keep a bright, warm chamber filled with plants in easy access for your little fur baby… And if you have neighbors, even in a legal homegrow state, it still would be in your best interests to keep things out of sight from prying eyes with a stealth box such as The Armoire. Discretion is the better part of valor!

So now that you’ve got an idea of where not to grow, you’ll also want to consider running some tests around your home. Before you start growing or maybe with the barebones setup, and get a little scientific with some testing before planting.

What’s the temperature throughout the day? Check at many different times of day. How much will your setup increase the general temperature near there? Is there airflow or will you need to do some extra ventilation to make it work? There’s a lot of questions to consider but you can put a thermometer somewhere and write down data for anywhere from 2-7 days so that you know what you’re getting into.

Keep in mind things like whether a door is open or not, how much direct light shines through a window there, other warming things in the room, and any one change you make to an indoor environment (which includes the weather outside) will likely change the data around your setup. Heck, you won’t really know what to expect until you’ve grown in a single indoor location for 2+ years before you really know all of the ins and outs of your location… So be open to change and potentially moving your whole setup to another location in your house if it’s necessary. 

You’ll be growing like a pro in no time, but be sure to set yourself up for success.

Written by Kyle Hamilton