First Growing Attempt

how long are your days? the plants need at least 18 hours of light a day to effectively grow.
When do your days get shorter? the plants will begin to flower at 12 hours of darkness a day
if your days dont get shorter and they stay relatively long (i dont know much about texas sorry lol) you can continue to grow it outside until you want to flower, then force flower by covering it with a bag/can/etc for 12 hours a day.

Blizted... hope this helped, good luck man

 

Dude,
Indoor and outdoor growing are completely different worlds. I suggest you read the guides before you decide and not only suffice with a few advices.

Open your favorite file sharing software and search for:

ready set grow (by high times)
ultimate grow (by jorge cervants)

 

Don't go telling my plants that they need 18 hours of daylight to grow effectively. Those numbers don't relate to outdoor grows. They (I believe)) have been established by folks who force the plants to do stuff that just ain't natural.

Where I live (right around 25 degrees N) we don't ever get even 14 hours of daylight and my plant has been thriving for over 5 months. She's 6' tall and now that the light has started changing, is covered in flowering buds.

Don't get me wrong, once I found out that she's a she, I have been taking cuttings and vegetating them indoors under 18/6 light until they outgrow my li'l box. Once sufficiently vegetated, I take them outside to finish and flower, and bring in another baby to raise.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do next spring when the days begin to lengthen. Hopefully I'll have enough buddage saved up to get be past the solstice and I can flower out another batch.

 

Whether or not you will be able to pull off an outdoor grow this late in the year really depends on when you typically get frost where you live. Unless you're right near the coast or way down south, you may have 3 months at best where you can grow. If the seed is from a plant that matures quickly, you may get some smoke. At worst, you will have a healthy plant from which to take cuttings that you can grow inside during the winter, and probably be able to root some more that you can set out early next year when the danger of freezing temps has past.

As for a budget priced lighting set up, I don't think you can get anything cheaper than CFL bulbs. Just get a boat-load of them. I'm using six mini-twist CLF lights in my box that measures about 3 square feet. I also have a 70 Watt HPS security light that I got from Home Depot to supplement when (if) I decide to flower my plants inside.

See if these photos give you any ideas. I'll be glad to answer any questions that may come up.


Shopping Trip


Assembly


Light Check


Results - Clone vegetated for 5 weeks.

 

Good question...sorry the pix arent all that comprehensive. I bought a 120V bathroom exhaust fan (in the NuTone box from the shopping trip) at Home Depot for around $12. It is in the left side of the light box. I just traced the fan and cut inside the lines. There is only a friction fit holding the fan in...that and the bottom is supported by the handle on the container. I'm trying to find the step-by-step that I read when I got the idea for my box. I'm afraid I was more into building it than I was in documenting it. Hats off to those who create tutorials.

The fan is that silver box attached on the left side of the box in this photo.

 

Yes, Low Stress Training (LST) you'll find a very informative thread stuck here in the City.

The trick (IMO) is to start early while the main stem is still tender and will bend gently without snapping. I use those elastic scrunchy things that my wife ties up her hair with and large paper clips. I take the scrunchy and loop it around the stem, hook one end of a paper clip in it, and then hook the other end under the lip on the flower pot. Even with LST, my plants were trying to grow out of the box. What I have been doing the past month or so is to veg in the box for 3-5 weeks and then take the plant outside to flower. It's still too early to be sure, but so far it looks like this is going to work.


Clone LST. Growing 5 weeks.

 

I wanted to LST my plants too, they are 4 weeks old now. But their stem is VERY weak, caused by over stretching while they we're still young. But how can I tell if a plant is ok for LST? can I like try to bend it gently and see if it can take it?

 

If the stems are that weak and the plant has stretched, try just hanging something from the stem a little more than half-way up. On my bigger plants I often just make a hook out of a piece of 12 gauge ground wire and hang it like an ornament on the branch to gently bend it down. As the tip tries to grow back up, I just move the "ornament" up the stem until it is long enough to fasten down with a scrunchy.

Everything you wanted to know about LST courtesy of DierWolf
http://forum.grasscity.com/absolute-beginners/122936-how-lst-low-stress-training.html

 

Yes, remove the moisture dome after the seedling breaks the ground. Let the soil start to dry a little before watering. You don't want the baby roots to drown or rot.
Don't subject the sprout to too much light and heat. I have always sprouted seeds under my gardenia tree, sort of open shade. If you're growing it under lights, you can get by with a small CFL lamp until the seedling is established.