$$$$$ Cost of Gro

you can pull something out of a cheap grow... it might just not be at the full potential of what it should be but youll sure learn from it

 

Understood, I just hate seeing people buy stuff they need to start a grow that ends up not being used in the future, not to mention growing low yielding low quality buds. I never said it can't be done for cheap but I still recommend saving and buying the proper setup for your grows needs, vs buying hold me overs til you have the money.

 

I bought my dirt here and there (grocery stores) couple bags at a time looking for stuff that would drain well and no pre-fert. I spent about $200-300 on dirt and cfl bulbs. I had intended on 2 plants in my yard and 15-20 in the surounding forest. I had a hard time controling slugs and have holes sitting empty so some of that was a waste. I did have 2 survivors that are flourishing and seeming to be worth the money on their own plus 3 July first babies. I figured it'd be worth investing more. I went to the local hydro store finaly, should have done that sooner and just bought the right dirt, next year. I went out on a limb and aske them how they would spend my $300 I budgeted for nutes and tools and they actualy brought me in $40 under budget. I spent $75 on a ph pen alone wich seemed expensive untill I got home and found my water was 8+, used the remaining $40 to get some strong ph down and some spray to keep caterpilars from climbing my pot. So I've spent under $600 and am fairly confident just my 1 known female is going to save at least 3-4 times that much. Like anything if you make somwhat informed purchases you usual get what you pay for, your milage may vary.

 

God damn man, I use CFL's my buds are dank and I am pulling mad weight for my first grow ever, had i been able to get an HPS i would have, i will NOT however use a 1k MH to veg.. is fucking pointless considering 8xcfl close to the plants will do he same damn thing.

I have 2 plants flowering in my room, 2 in veg in my room and 1 outside. Then me and my co-op partners have 22 plants under a 1k MH Vegging and 10 under a 1k HPS. Yea we need more lights.. cant afford it right now. (This is part of a state legal collective grow fyi and is off site.

The HPS flowers so much better then anything I have ever seen.. .this is a given.

That said the power bill in comparrison to the cfl's well i dunno.. lets just see what weight is between plants.. right now I dunno i may go back to private instead of this new legal collective grow crap.

First i hate having partners and secondly, my cfls allow me a lot more control an cost effectiveness.

Its not like i need to grow mad pounds of bud. each cycle. 6 ounces or so every 8 weeks really is not anything to complain about.

 

Dude just do whatever you think you can manage. I'm brand new too but IMO i'm having great results. I mean i was able to partner up with a dude doing this 20+ years and now on medical so it helped when he gave me tips but honestly... just read through these forums.

Without the help of people like Deacon, Russy and others i'm sure i would have been far less successful.

 

Man, not being rude but you have made two post in this thread, and both of them were simply to state how little the rest of us know. That is negativity in a nutshell.

Nobody told this guy what to buy. He asked for ideas on grow cost, and we gave him what we have spent. This thread has shown it is much a matter of personal choice and budget as anything. Sure some of us spent quite a bit more on lights and equipment. Maybe that isn't because we are trying to go high dollar but because like everyone we had a choice to make about what equipment is best for our needs.

Personally, I went with my lighting not because of what it cost, but because people have demonstrated great yields and 90% of the problems you see with lighting on here are because someone tried to cheap their way out on some cfls. Well that, and I dont want my grow room looking like a bad science experiment running 20 cfl lights that have been proven to be less productive per wattage than hids.

Sure, an experienced grower may pull a better harvest from cfl's than a newbie. Give that same grower good hid lighting and equipment and he will blow your cfl comparison out of the water. There isnt anything wrong with wanting good tools to start with. That like saying you need to dig a hole, but would rather use a spoon than a shovel. Yea, they will both do the same job but there is hardly any comparison. In the end which one is best comes down to what size hole you want to dig.

 

Just get some small pieces of rubber of some type. Take those and put holes in them the size of the screws you are using to secure the fan. Place them between the fan and whatever you have it screwed into and tighten your screws down. The rubber should dampen the vibration from the fan and make it a little less noisy.

 

That analogy is an EXTREME over exaggeration. Comparing CFL lights to a spoon? LOL. Your right that CFL's will give you a smaller yield, but saying that it gives such a small yield that you are comparing it to a fucking spoon with HID lights being a shovel. That is god damn ridiculous.

 

It wasnt meant to be that literal man. As I said it depends on the job you want to do. Once you get over a few plants cfls just dont make sense from a cost or yield standpoint. Hids arent really all that expensive. I may use some cfls for a veg box, but I cant see trying to fully grow more than one or two plants with them.

So please forgive my inaccurate analogy. Either way, lets move on. No sense in spending time arguing about stuff that doesn't really matter anyway. The op has obviously made his choice of his first setup, and I hope it goes well for him. Hell I hope everyone's grow goes well.

 

Knowledge is the most expensive thing we have.

 

I like your business plan. Its small. Bare essentials. Many will say you need more to make the most of your space. But, I like how you are going to learn and develop your skills without getting "all the stuff"

You may want to invest in at least a couple low cost soil test kits and maybe some distilled water if you aren't going to get a ph meter.

 

Growing can cost as little as soil, seeds and a pot... Ive seen plants grow on peoples bedroom window sill and they've produced some of the nicest buds ive ever had the pleasure of smoking... All depends where u r ...

 

im less than $30 on my outdoor grow. wanted to get one or two harvests down before i consider an indoor op. if you keep your eyes open on craigslist and the like, you can come up on a lot of shit pretty cheap. got my 10 gal. pots for free (5 of em) and when i went to pick em up, the guy let me pick through his nutes (he was moving to an apartment so it was all getting dumped) and i got guano, and neptunes harvest fish fert free of charge (which got me through veg). spent $10 on super soil, which got a 70/30 mix with some compost from a neighbor. other than the soil i just picked up ff big bloom to the tune of $15, my wife is a baker so there is always a hefty supply of molasses around. so far so good if you ask me! could it be better? probably...

 

Nice! Have your wife bake edibles with your trimmings and some bud. I'm going to bake some cheese cake with my trimmings and some hash

 

i do the edibles first grow, but been baking for years. she gets all martha stewart on the shit... i just do peanut butter cookies. they last longer, mask the pot flavor well (the biggest complaint i got from people) and who doesnt love a peanut butter cookie?
and i can control the size/potency easier. occasionaly we do something special, peoples b-days and shit. she did irish car bomb cupcakes for our old roomate. gods gift to cupcakes... but didnt last more than a couple days.

 

LOL exactly, and if you even have a shovel to dig with! I personally had to start out small. I have 3 kids and am in college. Buying expensive lighting my first grow wasn't an option. I had to do a cheap closet grow with 4 small plants. With the yield from that, and the money I saved not having to buy bud for a little while, I was able to save up enough to get set up with more. I chose to invest in an outdoor garden, but the point is I had to work up. I would have loved to start off with a nice grow room full of the best, but I just didn't have that luxury.