Hella late to the party but I lived on a farm for a bit so I know a lil about cannabis. Note that my experience comes from grow ops with huge plants and not personal hobby use so im going off of that, and my memory is kinda shitty so bare with me.
First off, cannabis grows very similarly to tomatoes. They are dramatic like tomatoes when they need to be watered, get pruned like tomatoes, and i believe they thrive off of similar fertilizers.
Could be possible that the dude was gifted an indoor plant. Indoor plants, from my recollection, are much smaller, leggy, and only give off tiny buds but you have more control over growing conditions and i think they tend to be more potent? I think you harvest sooner than outdoor, too. Like we would MAYBE get a pound or two off a plant if not less. Iirc, indoors only really grow to around 4 feet, if that even. Also different strains have pretty distinct characteristics, i could have it backwards but sativas tend to put off fewer, smaller buds and are leggier than indica. This goes for indoor and outdoor. I'm thinking that having an indoor plant grown outdoors just wont work as well because of unpredictable lighting, temps, humidity, etc. Beyond this i never fucked with the indoor grow so i dont know much more than that.
If it was indeed an outdoor plant, it is way too early to be harvesting at that age. Outdoor clones (not seeds) are matured in a greenhouse til they are like 3-5 feet, then transplanted into air pots outside around May. Air pots allow for good drainage and airflow. They aren't harvested until around october, or when the first rains come. Again, this might vary due to the size of the plant, i figure a healthy hobby plant will get up to 4-5 feet.
Healthy plants start with super rich, healthy soil. Dont skimp on this, buy soil from a specialized grow shop, Or a local nursery that focuses on organic practices. Miracle Gro soil from home depot aint gonna cut it. You should be able to find shops like this fairly easily in california or the PNW.
You want to prune regularly, trimming off any sucker leaves on the inside of the canopy because those will siphon energy away from the buds and will inhibit airflow. You mostly just want an outer canopy, keeping the largest leaves to soak up the sun. Don't overdo it, though
These plants are dramatic/expressive as fuck. They only need to be watered when they tell you they need it. You can tell because their leaves will start to point up to the sky when they're dehydrated, then droop. When they are reaching up or starting to droop, thats when you water. Give em a good long soak til water starts running out of the airpot. They also need direct, all day sunlight.
For fertilizer we made a compost tea and used a bunch of organic stuff, i remember a fertilizer mix that we made using fish bone meal, but i dont remember the rest of the ingredients. I do believe that was a key ingredient, though. If you wanna get real nerdy, look up biodynamic cannabis growing. Some of it is out there and woo-woo, but a lot of it is really great advice for growing healthy plants.
Also, if youre going to be growing ground level, someone WILL hop your fence to come and top your plant or strip it once it starts to get really fragrant. Get motion sensor lights or something lol.
Happy growing! I dont even smoke weed really but i miss caring for them so much. They are really fun and special plants with a lot of personality
People really love capitalism so much that they will willingly sacrifice themselves to the beast. This seems to be where religion can really be used as a tool for subjugation, this man will willingly throw himself on the altar of the dollar and think that it is just the way of things, that the best man won, that he is supposed to have his life ruined in the name of the greater power. Yikes
Huh, thats so weird! Could be a runt, tho i dont think ive ever seen something like that if it looks perfectly healthy otherwise. Bonsai kush lol. Maybe it is the variety that someone else pointed out that doesnt mature based on weather. Or maybe a cold snap stunted it
How big are the buds? If it doesnt seem to be producing much more i would definitely trim a bit to see what happens