Going on Vacation? How to Water Your Cannabis Plants While You're Away

The safest way to keep your cannabis plants alive while you're away is to have a friend look after them and keep everything running smoothly. If nobody can, set up a self-watering method before you leave (an automatic watering system, drip irrigation, water-retaining gels, clay spikes or wick watering) and transplant small plants into bigger containers so they don't dry out. Leave them locked in with no water and you'll lose all your progress.

Beyond the friend option, there are several ways to keep a weed plant cared for while you're gone.

Which watering methods work while you're away?

Automatic watering systems

An automatic watering setup can be super simple or fully loaded, depending on what each grower needs and what they want to control, like pH or EC (electrical conductivity, a measure of how much fertilizer is in the water), or neither. Giving every plant the same amount of water in short, frequent waterings keeps them well fed while keeping the roots well oxygenated, so the plants never dry out or sit in soggy soil.

The catch is that it costs money: you need a reservoir, a pump, a timer, tubing and a whole lot of luck.

Drip irrigation

Drip irrigation waters and feeds your plants one drop at a time. It's a low-pressure, low-volume system that automatically delivers water and fertilizer right to the roots in a very controlled, precise way. It has big advantages, but some growers warn that emitters can clog and timers can fail, and with nobody around to keep an eye on things, the worst-case scenario is losing the whole grow.

• 

Water-retaining polymers and watering gels

These products boost how much water and nutrients your soil or growing medium can hold. They're a great fit for keeping weed plants happy while you're gone.

One example on the market is Guerrilla Grow THC, a soil moisture additive. It keeps your cannabis plant hydrated and brings other benefits to the grow, increasing water uptake and speeding up plant growth.

Clay watering spikes

This is about as simple as self-watering gets. All you need is a clay cone and a plastic bottle full of water.

How do you use it? First, fit the clay cone onto the mouth of the water bottle, making sure it's on snug, and then push the cone into the growing medium. Once that's done, poke a couple of holes in the base of the bottle (which now points up) to let air in so your drip system actually flows. That way your weed plant stays evenly moist.

It's really important to check that the bottle holds enough water for the amount of time you'll be away from home.

Wick watering with a cotton cord

This is an easy and very effective DIY watering method. It works by capillary action: you run a wick, cotton cord, strip of fabric or similar from a bucket of water to your plant's container. There are two ways to set it up:

1- Set the pot on top of a water container with a lid that has a hole in it, and run a wick from the water up through the pot's drainage hole.
2- Place a water container next to each pot and run a wick from it into the soil where the plant is growing.

The key with this method is not leaving your plants sitting in standing water, because over a two-week stretch the roots can drown, or they'll drink everything and dry out. Even with oxygenated water, the odds of a disaster are just too high to leave a grow alone that long.

Plants in small containers dry out faster. If you'll be gone for more than a few days, transplant them into bigger containers ahead of time so there's more growing medium to hold and release water. 

On the other hand, if your plants are close to harvest, you might consider moving it up. After all that time, care and money, the smart move is to lock in a harvest you can actually get, and skip the heartbreak. If you do decide to harvest early, you can leave the curing to a grower friend, which is a lot less work than keeping living plants going. Here's our full guide with the best tips for curing your buds so they come out top quality. 

If you grow outdoors in the ground (not in containers), a solid tip is to pull weeds thoroughly and make sure there's nothing growing around your cannabis plants that could crowd, contaminate or harm your crop.

And if your grow is a bit more serious, make sure paths and beds are neatly edged. This is another case where whatever grows in while you're gone will be a pain to deal with when you get back.

As a cannabis community, we can't stress enough how much plant care matters. Beyond any growing, stretching, stress or training technique, what makes a grow succeed is the eye and attention of the person who tends it and checks on the plant day after day. 

There are different ways to make sure your beloved grow doesn't die from a few days of neglect, but what matters most is that your plants get the same care, attention, water, light and nutrition they get from you, so you don't stress them so badly that you come home to a struggling grow or, worst case, a dead one. 

Latest posts