First Grow Design: Feedback/Criticism more than welcome

Discussion in 'First Time Marijuana Growers' started by Green Chair, Feb 6, 2012.

  1. So, I'm moving out of my parents house into a duplex with 2 friends in June and the two friends that live in the place now want to start a small op for personal use in mid-late March. There's a detached garage that we are planning to covertly grow a plant or two in.

    The chambers will be made out of derelect refridgerators we pulled out of a junkyard. The reason we chose the fridges is bewcause they don't look out of place (they look functional, and maybe still are), scent will be more well contained, and the noise of the vent fans won't seem out of place either. One for vegetation, and another for flowering.

    The insides of both will be covered with 2mm mylar film. The vegetation fridge/cabinet/chamber will be illuminated off one Feliz 200w 6500k CFL in a Brightwing fixture. Inside is a hygrometer and thermometer to measure humidity/temp.

    The flowering cabinet has an intake and exhaust assembly using the motor from a deskfan to draw in air and a modified stanley blower fan/ diy activated charcoal filter for exhaust. Illuminated by a 200x Feliz 2700k CFL, the lower color temperature should match the photosynthesis during the flowering stage for more optimum development (correct me if I'm wrong here).

    The planting medium will be soil for this first attempt. As for the strain to be grown we are looking for a shorter sativa, but haven't been able to decide on a strain (looking at seeds from 420seeds)

    The concerns I mainly have are:

    Humidity/Temp: We are in Nebraska. 104F/90% humidity summers and -8F/ blizzard winters. Keeping optimum low humidity/65F-75F will be a problem in a detached garage. Does anyone know any creative solutions to this besides space heaters and de-humidifiers?

    Decent beginner satica strains? what do you guys recommend?

    Does everything check out?: basically, is this plan somewhat solid? what revisions would you guys suggest?
     
  2. Try world wide seeds. They have an excellent selection.

    You're heat problems will be worse in the summer. Heat is really easy to keep, and hard as hell to get rid of.

    A beginner sativa? Any good genetic sativa would work as long as there's no note saying it's a difficult strain. Pick what you want. I've personally wanted to try the Super Lemon Haze from greenhouse, it looks fantastic.

    Only unsolid part I see, is having it in a garage that sounds like people may see. It's better to have it somewhere that nobody will ever see it, then you don't need an excuse why you have 2 refrigerators in the garage that nobody can look in.

    Also, in a detached garage, I wouldn't plan on walking back and forth between the two with buckets of water or soil. I'm sure your neighbors may think it's odd that you're hauling a 5 gallon bucket into your garage.

    Yanawuteyemsayin?
     
  3. I'm a newbie here but I knew a guy who did a grow in his townhome detached garage back in Minnesota. He was growing 3 sativa strains 6 plants total(indica's are best for first grows-shorter flower, shorter height and a much stronger plant). His grow was a nightmare. He started in late January when it was zero degrees, cost him an arm and a leg to heat the garage enough just to have 70 day and 60 night temps(much too low) and from the outside you could clearly see it was warmer than usual in the garage being you'd see steam every now and then coming out on real cold days, the roof above the garage had almost no snow where as the rest of the roofs had 2-3 inches. Most townhomes/duplexes do not have existing heated garages, so it may be noticeable to people when one is heated. Electric space heaters are VERY high watt, my small one for my bathroom on cold days is 1300/1500 watts, running 24/7 in a cold garage would be a huge bill. Keeping your apartment door open to the garage and using your furnace to heat it would cost just as much because it would be running almost constantly. In the hot summer months it's even harder and more expensive to cool a detached garage. You guys will be spending megabucks on AC each month as all that hot air will constantly creeping in no matter how you cool it. Don't forget about pests, bugs, noises and noisy neighbors.

    FORGET the garage. Dedicate the smallest bedroom or even a closet to the grow. The garage is a no-no for grow ops.
     
  4. LOL Forget everything I said except the last part where you need to dedicate a room or closet to this grow.

    A DETACHED GARAGE? :eek:I thought you meant ATTACHED, and I see I typed detached when I meant attached.

    Under no circumstances, unless you're out in the middle of nowhere, should anyone have a grow op in a detached garage. NEVER.

    As for seeds checkout Attitude. There you can buy individual seeds in their mix and pick section and G13 and DNA have some great sativa strains that don't get super tall.
     
  5. Detached garages, garages, attics, sheds in general make poor growing areas because of the wild fluctuations in heat. Above 85 and the plant stops growing Above 120 and you can kill it. Below 60 and it stops growing below 50ish and your going to have some trouble. A garage can vary from 60 to 120-130 easily during the day. Your plan sounds good but could be ruined by your temperatures. You might consider some insulation in the area and some sort of vent.

    Or just buy a grow tent and do it inside. Also loose lips sink ships...your doing this with 2 other friends. Im sure you trust them but so did everyone else that got caught.

    Stavia plants grow big go with indica or a hybrid. Check out Attitude Seed Bank do a google search they send discreetly and fast.
     
  6. mistake: i meant to type indica, not sativa.

    and don't worry about loose lips. this is all under very tight wraps. the only people who actually know anything about it are us three.

    the only problem with having the grow indoors is simply: who is going to need to go into our locked detached garage besides us?

    the climate control is rather daunting, but i'd rather have the landlord drop in for a random checkup in the house and see everything in normal condition than having to shit bricks over him not going into this corner of the house that reeks like hemp and finding a felony charge.

    does anyone have any suggestions on climate controlling the interior of the fridges?
     
  7. also another revision -

    for the growing medium we're considering a basic DIY rubbermaid bubbler and doing a smaller SOG style grow.
     
  8. I'd check out http://forum.grasscity.com/do-yourself/121335-lets-build-bubble-bucket-*step-step*.html

    it's super easy to make and it's pretty cheap. and even if you don't know what your looking for the parts are generic enough that you can ask someone in the store without worry (yea i'm rather paranoid). If you don't to use such a large bucket just change the size but everything else would be basically the same.
     
  9. I recently bought 3.5 gallon bubble buckets off htgsupply.com 30 bucks each. After I factored in parts, driving around to get them then actual labor and also I don't own any power tools it was easier and cheaper to buy them.

    Also on a fridge...no dice on that one buddy. Those things are designed to trap temperatures inside...so as it gets hotter its all trapped inside. Then you have to have air flow...hows that work in a airtight container? Only way to cool it is really to plug it in.

    Buy a grow tent stick it inside the shed.

    Good luck.
     
  10. [quote name='"rhapsodyrcks"']I recently bought 3.5 gallon bubble buckets off htgsupply.com 30 bucks each. After I factored in parts, driving around to get them then actual labor and also I don't own any power tools it was easier and cheaper to buy them.

    Also on a fridge...no dice on that one buddy. Those things are designed to trap temperatures inside...so as it gets hotter its all trapped inside. Then you have to have air flow...hows that work in a airtight container? Only way to cool it is really to plug it in.

    Buy a grow tent stick it inside the shed.

    Good luck.[/quote]

    The htg bucket is a good deal I built a drip bucket and it was about $25 or so for just parts. Cant wait to try it out though.
     

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