apartment growing

hey wassup and welcome to the city! ill see if i can answer some of your questions. its good that security is on your mind, always keep that up front. if youre going to grow and have roomies, remember, roomies have friends and those friends have friends. you may want to discuss it with your roomies before hand and make sure they are cool. as far as smell goes, the older and healthier the plant, the more the smell will become prevalent. you can mask it if youre growing low smelling plants easily with air freshners, candles etc, but this requires constant montitoring. its easiest to control when you know youre having company because you can prepare. if you go with the grow, try to get the room thats furthest from common traffic area. the smell will take over your room and some surrounding areas. ive noticed with four healthy plants, smell can quickly take the room and the most immediate area in front of the door of that room. timing will be critical, if you plan ahead, you can time youre lights for flowering basically for anytime that works for you. discretion is as much as you can provide. you can control your plants height through different methods, most popular is lst or low stress training, my journals and several others in the grow journals describe lst and you will find lots of pictures of before and after lst. height also would depend on how long you veg for, during flowering expect the plant to double in size. bagseeds a good choice to work with, just gather you seeds that gave you the best buzz when you smoked those buds, should work just fine. hope i answered some of your questions and good luck

 

When it comes to security the less people that know, the more secure you are. As nice as it would to talk with your flatmate and be to be like "Hey, you mind if I grow?" it's a security risk. You can make setups in your room that you're flatmates won't even know is there. But it will take time to construct. For optimal security I would recommend keeping them in the dark. There are ways to keep the smell down so it doesn't fill up your room and adjacent rooms. It's called a carbon scrubber. They are easy to make, I'll post links later if you want. You have to plan for many things. Storage of ferts. How are you going to get them into the house without your flatmates knowing? Or if you want, keep a some plants in your room so the gardening tools arn't so suspicious. Are you planning to start each grow from seeds? Or get a mother and then propagate clones from her? Do you want a perpetual grow? If so you'll need a chamber for veg and one for flower. If you're wanting to keep this grow secret and have a decent yield a scrog grow will be best for you. With a scrog grow you can flower in a dresser, and veg in a rubbermaid container. On top of all that, how are you going to cure the buds? Where are you going to put them? You could cure them in a Rubbermaid with metal racks and a carbon scrubber.

For a good perpetual stealth harvest it would take a dresser, about 3' tall, at least 2' wide and 2' deep. You could go wider, but if you go too wide then it will take up more room. Plus the bigger it is, the more someone will feel "Hey, this dresser has to have stuff in it, it has to function." You'll also need two rubbermaid's of various sizes. Of the top of my head I don't know how big. But they can easily be stacked on eachother in a closet and just look like storage. Those are the enclosures you'll need. If you like what I've said let me know, I'll give you links to various grows that will tell you how to do all three, a propagation/veg box, a flowering box, and a curing box.

Another way to keep this thing as secret as possible (if you're also hiding it from your flatmates) then you'll want to have the light schedule match their sleeping habits. Let's say they'll all asleep at 1, but you're not. Then make sure the lights will be on at 1 so you can get in their while they're asleep to maintain the plant.

It may seem like a lot of work, but once you got it all planned and built, it'll be as easy as butter.

P.S. know your state laws.

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?wtm_view=&Group_ID=4544

Ask yourself if it's worth the risk, and how much healthy paranoia you need to put into the planning.

 

Halogens for growing are out of the question. They don't work. The light I will show you, you can get for around $75. You'll NEED an HPS light for flowering. You will kick yourself for not getting one earlier if you decide not to get it now. Plus, it will pay for itself in your first harvest if done right.

As for the mother idea, what you do is plant the seeds, then sex the plants. You'll figure out if you even got a female from the seeds. If you got multiple females you'll want to pick the strongest of them all to be your mother. There are huge benefits to having a mother. It cuts down on the time. Instead of having to germinate, plant, wait to sprout and so on. You just take off some cuttings, put on some rooting hormone, and plant em. Plus it will help make your yields consistant.

Let's get to the lights.

If you're doing a small 3'x2'x2' grow you'll only need a 150w light. A 250w light will do great, but will generate more heat. So I would recommend a 150w light.

150w - $35.95

250w - $79.90

Using the this article you can turn either one of those HPS Security Lights into an HPS light with an external ballast. Which will help cut down on heat if you put it outside of the growbox.

Personally, I would recommend a small hydroponic setup. It's called DWC/MWC/SWC, depending on the size. Deep Water Culture/Medium Water Culture/Small Water Culture. It's a really easy, cheap and almost care free way to do hydro. And properly done Hydro can kick the ass of most ANY soil grow. You'll get a better yield with a hydro grow.

Now I'll give you some links. I've given these links out many times on this board, but theres a reason why, (aside from be being more than partial to these kinds of grows) they're efficient.

This link is to a post I made in another thread. The information in it will be extremely valuable. But I will outline what I think you should do with your grow.

Cloning/Veg/Mother box: Lucas' Rubbermaid clone/veg station--pic
I think you should make two of these boxes. One for a mother, one for clones and then for vegging. If you choose to not use a mother, then one will be fine. If you choose you don't want a perpetual harvest, and no mother. Then forget about it. But I think you will probably find that it'll make it a bit easier. If you do choose to do this. I personally would put more and/or different lights in the mother box. Like maybe some CFL's, 4 or more. Also if you choose to keep a mother in such small spaces you may want to have her as a Bonsai Mum.

Flower Box: Easiest DWC Technique Possible? Check this out!
I posted this in the other thread, and like with the other guy, I think you should imitate this grow as much as possible. It's such a great setup I can't help but want to share it with the world. In addition you'll want to find a way to make an addition of a Carbon Scrubber to this box so it doesn't stink up the room. But I would think about that later when you figure out what kind of dresser/cabinet you have to work with and your space restraints. I'll help you out with ideas later on if you need them.

Curing Box: How to build an odorless bud drier
You're going to need to cure your buds. This will be the stealthiest way to do it. Oderless and in a common rubbermaid container. You can adapt it easily to different containers. The items are easily found, and cheaply bought/made. This is one part of the grow I would NOT look past. It will help make great bud a great smoke if you let it cure properly, and it's ability to be stealthy is PRICELESS. Curing the bud can be a very smelly job. This helps eliminate that.

If you have any questions just ask. That's all for now unless I feel I forgot something.

 

Yeah, no problem man. I'm glad to help. I have a fascination, a weed fetish if you will with stealth grows. Theres so much more that you have to plan for in a stealth grow. Because you have to make it to where a person can walk right by it, and not know it's there.

 

mustard i would love to hear more..i am currently growing outside and i would like to move it inside..so any advice would be great..

 

Give me some more specifics Greg. Plan on doing a stealth grow, if so where, in a room or in a closet? What are space constraints. How much money can you spend. What style of grow would you like to do?

 

it would be in my closet, i dont know how i would make my grow box or what to make it out of and plus i have other people in the house to worry about so smell is something i would have to be on top of.. so just looking for some suggestions

 

You'd probably want to make it out of plywood, or something similar.