Hello Blades! I am thinking about starting my very first grow op! I am looking for as much advice as possible and here is why; I am looking to start it with a friend and we have a strict budget of $550 with no equipment at all. Neither of us have much experience growing, I've grown for someone for a short period of time and that's about it. I am looking for the best route to go with $550 we were looking at tents but we are thinking weather or not it would be worth it because the ole "What if we fail". We have went to a local gardening store and they gave us some info but not all gaps have been filled. Can someone please help with the best route to go with a $550 budget and maybe throw in some tips to help? All help is appriciated.
Are you guys growing for personal use? Do you have a target amount in mind or just as much as you can possibly get? Also,is that a $550USD budget? As for the possibility of failure - It's all a learning experience, you might fail once or twice but that's how you learn. A couple of failures is worth the lifetime knowledge of how to grow for sure. Also, you might not fail at all and get that $550 back first harvest. If you've helped someone grow before you should be right to at least get a harvest whether or not it be a good one lol. Oh and $550 should be well and truly enough to be working with HID's, I wouldn't get a fluoro package personally. No offense to you Kouch
How many plants do you want to grow and how much do you feel that you need to yield to make three months of growing worth your time? For $550 you could do a 600w setup and have a quite nice yield.
I started with two plants in a closet. Two individual hydro units, a 250MH, 250HPS. Using the one 600 watt would make more sense- I got a dual (MH/HPS) on Amazon for less that $150. Hydro units are $70 each, or you could do DWC or soil and easily get in under $550. Good luck, mate.
Keep it simple and you should have plenty enough money to get a small grow going. It's pretty expensive when you start buying all the stuff to set up a grow, but dang...it sure is worth it. I would go with hps lighting for flower (plants love them and they are inexpensive)...probably the 600 watt light and start off growing 2 or 3 plants. You can get more harvest off 2 plants that are well taken care of than you can from 4 that aren't. I suggest starting with a soil grow which is generally much more forgiving than the hydro method for new growers just starting out.. Having sufficient lighting is going to determine how good your buds are, so don't skimp on the lights. While you are considering all your options, my advice would be to get on the forum in the "setup" thread and just check out what different people have. If you do your research BEFORE you dive in, you'll have a much better understanding of the process and will be much less likely to fail when you do get yours up and running. Let me warn you that you CAN get carried away with all this. LOL I started a little over 2 years ago and added up my expenses (the ones I could remember SO FAR), and I've got around 10K in that room. I started off with about 5K thinking I would have plenty to get it all set up and going...with money left over. Bahahahahaha!! There is never any money left over!! LOL We've put it together one piece at a time and are pretty happy with what we've got...finally. You'll never have enough money, so you've just got to figure out how to make the money you have work best for you. Two things that I highly suggest you purchase with your money are a GOOD QUALITY pH tester pen and a TDS/EC tester pen. Container grows thrive or suffer from pH range, so this is a big deal to the health of your grow. The TDS pen tells you how concentrated your nutrient solution is and helps you to NOT fry your plants. Listen, concerning a "budget" and nutrients.... You're going to need nutrients once your plants get large enough that they use up all the nutrients naturally in the soil. As you know, these nutrient packages can be quite expensive. I got really frustrated with nutrients a couple of cycles ago and was complaining about it on another forum. A good friend who has been growing for years in Southern California turned me on to "Jack's" by J.R. Peters. It is a water soluble powder that is easy as pie to mix up. I ordered enough to last a year or more from J.R. Peters website for $17.99. I've been using it for about 9 months now and have been totally thrilled with it. We generally flower off around 30 plants at a time so mixing nutes began to get really time consuming with all the mixing and crap you have to do with the usual nutrients. With Jack's, I can mix up a 5 gallon bucket of nutrients and pH it in about 5 minutes. I've never had healthier plants, so it might be something you want to consider since you guys are on a strict budget. Good luck and if I can help, let me know. TWW