Hello to everyone, I'm new to growing Marijuana and I was wondering if you guys could give me some advise. My main problem is space, I'm planning to grow behind my bedroom in a cabinet that is only 4.5 feet high and 5 feet wide but 13 feet long. So here is my first question, is it possible to grow the plants horizontally so I can use the whole length of the cabinet? My second question is about the lighting, I was thinking to use LEDs to save energy and to reduce the risk of fires but I don't know if they work or not. Has anyone ever used it? What are the results? Thank you for taking time to read and eventually answer to this post, I hope my english is understandable! Marqo
So far as I know there is no way to grow horizontally, the plant needs the natural upward growth; however, most indicas are short and bushy on their own, and there are modes of enticing outward growth rather than upward. A long-wise SOG of a bushy indica (or indica pheno) sounds like your best bet to me. I looked into LED's and they are generally not liked by the growing community; as to why, I'm not fully sure, maybe someone else knows as I'm interested in knowing also. In a cabinet I would be worried about ventilation and heat/fire.. It would be difficult to put any heat-bearing lights in such a confined space, particularly right behind where you sleep. Since it's such a small space a little heat will go a long way; look for a high-lumen, low-watt bulb and use CFL's for the rest of the space (the stronger the better, energy savings are still better with higher wattage CFL's). Hope this offers a little insight! -LA
Yo Marqo, Your English is better than most people I see on forums, so you have nothing to worry about there. Many people have grown in smaller spaces than what you have (including me). So yes, you have a few choices. 1) Split the space, so you have veg and flower areas. 2) Train your plant, like usandthem said, or better yet, SCROG it. (you can look that up on these forums, or Google it) 3) Grow a lot of candlestick colas. These are grown by using defoliation techniques. One main growth, about 2' tall. The bottom 6" are bare, and the remaining 18" is one big tall bid. Regarding lights, I would not recommend LED. I have used them, and they work, but not as well as HID lights. You might want to consider several low powered HID rigs ( 3-4 150w or 250w lights) These are small fixtures, and you can get them close to the plants. Perfect for shorter grows. In my 20+ years of growing, I've never had an HID light start a fire, nor do I know anyone who has. If this is something you are worried about, you can get some grow-room specific fire extinguishers that will automatically deploy upon a specific temperature (What I've seen, I think deploys at 120F). Sounds like a great space, to me!
Check out scrog growing its perfect for your space and you would essentially be growing horizontally.