Seedling Stage
The hardest part, if you survive this you are good (typically speaking)
Here I will cover the first part of growing cannabis. Earlier I covered germination, I will briefly hit that again.
Take your seeds, drop them in distilled water and put somewhere warm and dark (I use a cabinet in my living room). Check them in 24hours and give them up to 72 hours. Once you see the tail (tap root) emerging you are good to go. I will have a picture below that shows what mine look like when I plant them. (there are other ways of germinating I covered and different people recommend different ways, paper towel, direct germination etc).
Once the seeds are ready to go, you have your tent up and running, the temps and humidity are solid and you pre soaked your soil 2 or 3 days ago, you are ready to start growing. Take your finger and poke a hole in the center of your pot / soil about .5inch deep. Carefully take the seed and drop it in the hole, if you can try to get the tap root facing down into the soil, this makes it easier to make its way up. The seed will likely survive regardless but if you can try to do it that way. (my huge girl I have right now was not planted with tap root down and is doing amazing so don’t feel bad if you cannot). Just make sure to be very careful because the tap root is very fragile, I take a little plastic soup spoon and use to scoop out of the cup and drop into the soil.
Once you get it in the soil lightly cover it, do not pack it down just lightly spread it over and fill the hole. Take a few drops of water, if you have a liquid syringe drop 2ml or so of water over top of the soil you just covered the seed with, if no syringe just use a cap full or so of water from a bottle water top.
Since you pre soaked your soil you should not have to water for quite a while at this point. Once the seed sprouts and comes above soil it will get its water from the environment. Some suggest using humidity domes, essentially a piece of plastic with holes they put over the sprout and spray it down to keep it humid. I personally just run my humidifier around 70% and do not use the domes. It is just one less thing I have to worry about and that I could do wrong. So keep your humidity up around 70% until it gets its second or third set of leaves.
Once she gets 2 sets of leaves or so and once your soil is dry you can begin to start lightly watering it. Cannabis prefers a dry to soaked water cycle meaning it likes to dry up and then likes to be soaked, not like some houseplants that need to be watered daily or kept moist. I always start out with less water, lets say a 3 gallon pot will typically use 1 gallon of water once its grown. I will do a liter or so for the first couple of waterings as to not drown the roots and make sure they can breathe etc.
Once you do water it, you want to make sure to water around the outside. You can see in the picture below how I did not water near the stem (the pic is deceiving but there is no water by the stem), I went in a circle around the outside. This will make the roots have to search out water and get bigger and stronger, it also allows them to breath and not get drowned while still small. Another way to look at is, if you look at the top of the plant, if it was outside and getting rained on the leaves would push away the water to the outsides. Imagine that and that is where you want the water to be.
The other thing you want to make sure of is that your plant does not stretch out. You want it to stay sort of low so it does not get too tall and fall over. You may have to move your light down closer to keep it from stretching. I will have examples down below of what it shouldn’t look like and then what mine looked like just after seedling stage so you can see what to expect. If it does stretch you can add soil and try to bury part of the stem and support it. If it does start to fall or seems like it may, you can use a toothpick or something to support it up for time being.
This stage will last 10 days or so give or take and it will be the slowest part but be patient. Once you get through this part it is super fast growth and they tend to be more resilient. I know this is a lot to take in but this is really the hardest part and most involved since it is little and needs us to keep it going.
Also do not add nutrients, regardless what kind of soil you are using, the 2 starter leaves that come out from the seed have enough food built into it to support the plant for 2 weeks or so (give or take). Also depending on your soil you may be good for 4-6 weeks.
Below is the seed once it is germinated.
Below is what you do not want. This means it is trying to get closer to the light source. You need to either turn your light up or move it closer.
This below is my last seed I planted, this was actually deeper than I meant to do but it still survived. Aim for about .5inch for best success.
This is how your girls should look, they are not stretched out and super tall.
