newbie getting ready for first grow.. (lots of q's)

[dave2321]

Hi everyone, I'm Dave and this is my first post to the forum.. please dont flame for a lame post..

I stumbled across grasscity the other night, I have to say its the nicest site I've visited for a long time.. it's got a good forum too, thats why I'm asking 4 a bit of help here..

I've decided I'd like to attempt to grow a long term personal stash of greens to last me at least 6 months, ideally a year; as I can't afford to keep buying it..

Well, a couple of weeks of online research later and here I am.. ready to buy some seeds and hopefully end up with some nice bud. Heres the plan below, if you spot anything you think is bad/waste of time etc, please reply and advise, as I've not done this before... Any comments/help would be appreciated!


1. Grow Schedule: Seeds are labelled as having a flowering time of "50-55 days" for example - does this mean 50 days AFTER germination you can be looking to get ready for harvest or does this mean you can start seeing tiiiny flowers starting to appear (with many weeks still to go)... I'm still a bit confused on how long it will take to grow a plant from start to finish - heres my schedule plan from what I've managed to work out.. (I'm growing indoors by the way):

Week 1: Germination week (or however long it takes)
Weeks 2-6: Vegetation phase (24/0hrs)
weeks 6-10: Flowering phase (12/12hrs)
week 10ish: harvest that shit!

The overall plan is to have the stuff harvested and drying/curing at least before I go home for christmas.. to return in the new year with a good stash of bud... have i got the timing all wrong? I was talking to someone who could get me "hawaiian blueberry" or "avalon" seeds, neither of which I can see in www.overgrow.com/strainguide/ .. he reckoned that to grow them to their full potential they need to be grown for 6 months+ - is he right? This is where the confusion on growing times starts for me..

2. Setup - I will be growing indoors, in a cupboard thing that is about 2 feet deep, 4 or 5 feet wide and at least 7 feet tall. I did think about putting some sort of shelf in the middle to grow 4 shortish plants, but this would make lighting a problem for me. I will be growing in soil, with plant pots etc. Lighting/Nutes see below.. I'm guessing if I grew up 3 females, say to 2 feet veg then by maturity they would be about 5 feet tall each, depending on strain, i could be looking at around 250+ grams of bud?

3a. Fertilizer - I need some advice here particularly - I want to buy enough nutes for the grow, ideally online, becuase there are no gardening supply shops near me. If you hadnt realised already, I'm in the UK - this whole thing is being done on a budget so I can't afford any £50 fertilizers! Can anyone reccommend some worthwhile (chemical) nutes that arent going to break the bank, and will feed probs 3 plants for their entire life cycle.. or whatever, any suggestions will be good.

3b H2O2: I read about the hydrogen peroxide thing to add oxygen to the soil and kill bad bacteria.. I'm still unclear on the exact dosages, but I currently plan to include the h2o2 with my grow.. will it interfere with my chemical fertilizers? I've got some experience with chemistry, and this whole h2o2 thing makes a lot of sense... has anyone had experience with h2o2 with their grows they could share? thanks

4. Lighting - I've tried looking online for lighting stores for this kind of thing. The only thing I've really found was www.1-hydroponics.co.uk and their range of lights, which are a bit on the expensive side for me.. plan A is to buy a 250W mercury vapour light.. I did want about 400W of light but looks like that will be too expensive. Plan B: my friend runs an aquarium supply business, and can probably get me flou. tubes on the cheap - he mentioned something about proglo or pro someting.. I know thats not of much help.. He said he can get pretty much any flo. tube available in the UK at trade price for me.. so this presents itself - do i get £70's worth of flor. for the grow, or a single £70 MV lamp.. ? I dont want to spent loads on this whole thing, becuase once I've done it once, I'll prob sell the lights and do away with all the equipment..

5. Yield/Seed - I'm still undecided on what seeds to get. I want to grow 3 females (maybe 4 if their yield is a bit low), I'm not interested in males, cloning or anything like that. If anyone can reccommend something from the below requirements, I'd be very grateful--

- fast growing
- indoor seed
- highish yield
- "flavoured" (berries/candy etc) wouldnt go a miss but not essential
- mainly indica (60/40) or something? (this is more a suggestion)
- robust/good for the novice - dont want these things dying on me!
- not really expensive - £40 maximum for the seeds..

if you have any reccommendations, could you mention where to get them, ideally from a decent online seed store - based in UK would be preferred.

I think I've covered most of it.. Thanks for reading it through if you've got this far.. If u have anything to advise/comment on, it'd be appreciated.

cheers in advance 4 any replies

[XxFirexX]

Go to www.seedsdirect.to !! Very very great place to find seeds! Good quality seeds, and the guy who runs it (gypsy) is incredibly nice, and knowledgable!!

Just check it out...and also...check around the website for people like Sid with a link in their profile such as growfaq.com ...if its endorsed by Sid...its GOTTA be good!!


If you ever have questions about anything, check the growfaq, or click on the search button --^ wayy up there! Believe me, you arent alone in your questioning! more than likely, someone has already asked the same question!

Best of luck to ya! Post every once in awhile to let us know how its coming along!

_B_

[dave2321]

ok cheers mate, i'll keep reading.

seedsdirect was my 1st choice for buying my seeds.. thing is i sent a seed query email once and never got a reply, so thought it might be a dodgey site or something.. but i guess not. i'll probs buy from there...

any thoughts on the growing schedule?

[NaughtyDread]

"Week 1: Germination week (or however long it takes)
Weeks 2-6: Vegetation phase (24/0hrs)
weeks 6-10: Flowering phase (12/12hrs)
week 10ish: harvest that shit!"


to address this question, add a couple of more weeks to vegn and flowering.

week1 germ
week2 to week 7 (at least 5 weeks to veg, some people go 4 some people go 8 you can veg for how long as you want )
week 8 to week 16 flowering
week 16 harvest, depending on strain, most indicas harvest at 16 weeks from seed. sativas add an addtl 2-3 weeks flowering.

drying for a week, and then curing for 3 will give you bomb ass smoke.

so from start to finish maybe 20 weeks.

[dave2321]

okay.. due to a an early december deadline (as described in first post), the revised schedule is..

> start germination in about a fortnight
> 5 weeks veg. - end at ~25th sept
> 7 week flwr - end at ~14th dec
harvest and dry in this week
leave to cure till new year

sorted! might have to change to 4 week veg/8week flwr depending on what seeds I get in the end, but that'll be decided once things are underway...

i just need to find somewhere online to get a good lamp or two, and buy some fertilizer..

i'm going to buy the soil from a gardening store or something i expect.. if i recall rightly, cannabis is a lime-hating (acidic soil = good ) plant..

in other news i repotted my venus flytrap yesterday, i'm hoping its going to survive, they often die if you repot them :/

l8rs!

[barnaby_wylde]

LIGHTS...
forget the MV light, they r wank. get a HPS

250w HPS 49squid
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/...10570&ts=88232

70w HPS, 22coins, id get 2 of these. 1 for each shelf
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...ing/index.html

SEEDS
go with the seedsdirect seeds, the nirvana northenlightsXbigbud(NLxBigBud) they grow fast r good starter plant,, short, stocky and will give u a good chance of getting "bigbuds!" and ther only a 10a


UR SPACE
plant all ten seeds and if u lucky enough to get 6 fems u cud easy grow them in the space u have. there gonna b little so grow a few of em.

TIMING
get a move on, times runnin low....

[dave2321]

thanks 4 the pointers barnaby.

i will go with the 2x £22 lamps, sounds like a good deal. i did wonder about those merc. lamps, no1 really spoke much about them here..

i'm def going with seedsdirect.to... just need to find a nice seed 2 buy. pity.. they stopped that KC brains promo at the weekend... n/m!

i dont mind growing lots of smaller plants.. (re:NL/BB) as long as the yield isnt going to be half as much.. i'll check this on strainguide or sd.to or wherever..

ive decided i can start germination this coming monday.
not long to go!

cheers again.

[barnaby_wylde]

http://www.cannagenetics.com/modules...s_x_BigBud.xml

have a look at this link. ur'll c wot i mean about the nlxbb.

wot was the kc brains promo? ther still givin away the free skunk aint they?

[dave2321]

ok cheers. that certainly looks like a good strain...

the kc brains promo was £6.50 for a bag instead of whatever they used to be, plus something about buy 4 and get other shit free, plus the usual free skunk, basically u could get over 80 seeds for £26 or something like that. its all fully explained on the seedsdirect homepage, read it, its amusing! respect to him for doing that though.

another strain ive got on the short list is BOG bogglegum... what dya reckon? gets good reviews..

[craigiscool]

bog is the man. i want some of his sour bubble. i would buy a couple of compact flouros for vegging hen use the hps(s) for flowering. I have used 2 cfls, total 200w, for my entire grow so far. i cant afford a damn hps so the clfs are doing the job. A closet that size probabl germ ten seeds and grow the females. Should have enough space and with two 70w hps or just one 250w you should be damn fine. But if you want nugs for chirstmas better start growing now. My girl has been vegging since june i think... and i just flowered her middle sept. I too plan on having nugs for christmas or the new year.

[emeraldchild]

Hi there mate.

The grandpa link here gives a few ideas.

I get everything within reason off ebay.

I've just started on my plants, they are 8 days old.

I've got a 125w Envirolite grow lamp + sheld + bulb (£58 including P&P). The bulb it's self has a self balaster all in one.
Because I have it on all the time I am not using my contactor, which you use with a heavey light(in watts) that needs to be on timer.(Prob for the flowering stage, which is 12/12. 12 hrs on and 12 hrs off.

Also got a 400 HPS which I will use when kids have grown a lot more.

Soil - John innes No 2 - 4, Perelite, Vacumilite, - 3 part mix.

I made big mistake in using Mirracle grow. Kids seem fine with it, but going to change over to above just the same, as the advise came from experienced UK growers.

Use Distilled water, kept at room temp.

Sorry haven't got a clue with nutes or ferts. That bit I've got to learn myself.

Line your area with heat temp linning to keep the helicopters at bay, lol.

Some types are silver one side and white the other.
I've put white showing and silver against the wall. Put up with duck tape. (another ebay purchase at a bargain)

Fan - have a look on ebay. Sit back research and bid.
I've got a stand up tower fan (£26)

Odor control - there is some air cleaners on there that does it's stuff, plus cleans air of bacteria etc.
I've got two little plug in units that cost me £22 & free P&P.

Got a Digital PH meter coming and found only yesterday a mini temp gauge

I've wanted to grow since AUG. Only now got all equipment.

I hope info helps, but don't take it as law, because I am still learning myself.

Happy growing

Ps - get a camara, start a journal and get advise and ideas as you grow from others that don't mind giving it.

Good LUck