With the personal cultivation of the cannabis plant now legal in Malta, it’s safe to assume that a certain percentage of active users will now want to grow their own. The new not-for-profit model envisioned by the government allows adult residents aged 18 years or older to cultivate up to 4 weed plants and keep the produce.

But if you decide to start a new hobby, be aware of some limitations that the law imposes. You can only stash no more than 50 grams of dry flowers per household and cannot legally bring more than 7 grams outside. Public consumption also remains prohibited.

But—respecting these limits—nothing stands in a way between you and your first legal harvest. At the very least, it’s more socially responsible to obtain your drug of choice in this way instead of going to your old street dealer.

Advantages of Autoflowers For Personal Cultivation

Even the cultivation of a personal amount of bud by amateurs used to involve a rather steep learning curve. But things changed with the advent of autoflowers. Now it’s almost as simple as planting cannabis seeds and letting Nature take care of the rest.

Autoflowering cannabis has become a game-changer since this type of weed does not depend on the light cycle for the regulation of its flowering timeline. While traditional cannabis will only start to flower at the end of summer and fully mature in a couple of more months, autoflowers have their own internal clock that tells them to start producing buds in as little as 2–4 weeks from seeds. And the whole life cycle is correspondingly short — 10 weeks from seeds on average.

This speed is the first thing that makes autos so popular among amateurs and commercial growers alike. But the fact that autoflowers don’t mind the relative duration of days and nights has even more profound implications. It means that you can harvest your plants not only in fall but anytime during summer as well. Or even in spring. In fact, the Maltese climate will allow for year-round cultivation. That’s a hell of a way to beat legal limits. With careful planning, you can make sure to always have your 50 grams of fresh bud any day of the year.

Besides being fast, autos are also neither too big nor conspicuous. Despite now being legal, weed is sure to still carry its old stigma in the foreseeable future, and it’s nice to have a cultivar that you can easily hide from nosy neighbours.

And this type of cannabis is also very hardy, a great feature for amateurs and beginners who tend to turn their cannabis patches into killing fields. Traditionally, autoflowers were bred to withstand short summers and cold climates, but new genetics can tolerate hot and humid conditions just as easily.

How to Grow Autoflowering Weed at Home?

Of course, autoflowers aren’t something that you can only grow in your backyard. People cultivate them in indoor setups under artificial lights as well. It’s practically a sure way of growing your personal stash of super potent and aromatic weed. Here’s how you should proceed.

Equip a Grow Tent

Grow tents come in all shapes and sizes. A spacier, 1m2 option is more convenient to work with and can potentially bring you 10 times the legal limit per grow cycle. A smaller tent is also workable but makes it more difficult to control the heat generated by lights. Some people prefer to buy or build a rigid-wall grow box instead of a tent.

Install a cool-running LED grow light whose position above the canopy can be adjusted. You’ll also need an exhaust fan coupled with a carbon filter to scrub strong odours from the flowering plants. An oscillating fan will circulate the air inside, further decreasing high temps and making sure the plants get enough CO2 for photosynthesis.

To calculate the need for light and ventilation, as well as the capacity of the carbon filter, simply go to an online grow shop and see what they recommend. They also sell complete turnkey solutions.

Get Ready the Soil and the Nutrients

There are many mediums for cannabis growing, but we advise newbies to stick to a simple potting soil mix. Ten to twenty liters per container is enough to grow a large and high-yielding autoflower.

Buy some multi-nutrient formula, preferably one that comes in two bottles: one, rich in nitrogen (N), for the vegetative phase and another one, containing lots of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), for flowering.

The ratios of these three primary nutrients are expressed in N-P-K figures on the label. Cannabis also needs about two dozen lesser nutrients, such as magnesium, calcium, and iron, but bottled nutrients generally have them too. Besides generic products, shops sell those specifically formulated for cannabis. They’re the best.

Start Growing

Germinate your seeds between wet paper towels and put them in soil. In the first week or two, you’ll only need to water your pots. Later, you’ll start adding ¼ to ½ doses of veg nutrients into your water. When you see your weed plants start to flower, switch to the flowering nutrients. Make sure you never exceed the recommended doses and use water of good drinking quality.

With autoflowers, you can leave your light turned on 24/7. Or buy a timer to only run the light (and fans) for, say, 18 hours a day. Monitor the temperature and humidity and try to keep them in the comfortable range of around 25 °C and 40-60 percent, respectively. In about 2.5 months from seed, your buds will be fat and dense, and ready for harvest.

Where to Order Autoflowering Seeds

It’s always the best idea to turn to professionals, and in the realm of breeding autos, who’s more professional than Fast Buds!

This company was established in 2010 and has since focused exclusively on autoflowering cannabis. They have created more than 50 extremely potent strains with exquisite flavors and serve as a pipeline channeling the best genetics of the American legal weed industry to European home growers.

On the Fast Buds website, you can buy elite autoflowering seeds, using familiar payment options, such as credit cards, and have your discreet package promptly delivered to your door. So click the link and start filling your shopping cart with the best auto beans on the market.

Make sure to use the code MALTA20 to get 20% off all of the auto-flowering seeds before you checkout.

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