hi guys and gals. i havent grown anything yet, im still doing research, reading. i just have a few questions. and id appriciate any advice or comments. thanks so seeing as im new to this whole thing and im not a very handy man, im looking at buying a hydroponic all in one system. nothing fansy, small simple and relatively inexpensive. i was wondering what a system like this can yield once i get growing it down right. what are your thoughts on the system itself? do you recommend something else? http://www.stealthhydroponics.com/produ ... 121&xSec=2 also for my first grow do you recommend a certain strain? i like blueberry and northern lights. ive only had northern lights once. this is the only exotic ive ever tried. in my area all the good stuff goes up north where its worth more. i live on the border of texas and mexico. anyways, is there one thats a little easier to grow? and a little more forgiving on a newb. and finally what would you suggest as a grow room. i can either use a garage or a tough shed like backyard storage. something like this http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=h ... arnBG.html well thats about it for now. as i said im still in the research phase, the actual growing process wont be for few months. thank you for any and all comments good or bad. i thought of another, what is prolly a long list, of stupid questions, but does a set up mentioned above have a big noticeable increase in electricity bill. so much so that it could raise a red flag? thank you again.
I wouldn't recommend going hydro on your first grow. I would get one grow under your belt using soil, then do hydro. With hydro, there is less room for error, so a small fuck up with hydro could kill all your plants. Also with hydro, if the power goes out you have to manually water. Just some things to think about. As far as yields go, its really hard to give you an accurate estimate because of all the variables. I would recommend Northern Lights as a good strain for the first time grower. It is a forgiving strain, very resistant to pests and mold.
Have to remember that your space will need to be light tight. You will be surprised how many cracks and openings are in one of those little buildings, especially when you have several hundred watts of light inside. At times you might think it is shining through the siding. Im in texas too. in Houston. Personaly I use a drip system. Something similar to General Hydroponics water farm. I think what you are looking at would work good too. Those might be a bit close together for growing full grown bushy plants but that would work great for a sea of green grow. There are others available that will accomodate even more plants and might be less trouble. Maybe something like this http://airlinehydroponics.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?item=263 Thats what they use at the hydroponics store I go to. They have several other systems too, many of which can be all connected together with a single tank used for nutrients. As far as your light bill. Let's say you run 1000 watts of light for 16 hours a day. That is 16 KWH per day X 30 days = 480 KWH per month. I have read that a good place to shoot for is to stay under 500 KWH per month additional usage per month. This would get you pretty close to that and who knows, 400 might be the number in your area. There are things you can do though. First of all do all of those things they say to do about conserving energy like weather stripping and insulation etc. That will make a huge savings as will replacing any old outdated appliances with newer energy efficient models. These things work great but are expensive. Something else less expensive to do is to change out all of the incandescent bulbs in your house with CFLs. These really do save energy usage. Be sure that your air conditioner filter is clean. Do those little things and that will probably cut back enough on your usage that no flags will be thrown. Hopefully this helps.
ok awesome. well i guess ill try to grow in soil first. prolly 1 plant to get a feel for it. sweet another texan. only thing that sucks in my part of texas is that all the good stuff moves north. so im stuck with crap schwag :*( stupid question, for a practice grow in soil, would 1 of the many seeds that come in my regular ounce of crap schwag be used? would hate to spend the money on good seeds only to fail horribly wasting my money. i dont know anyone near me that i can get a clone or good seed from. let me know and again i am truly appriciative of the info and help. really am.
I wouldnt worry too much about whether your first grow is in soil or hydro. Each have advantages and disadvantages. Problems will show up faster in a hydro grow. They can usually be corrected faster and easier too. My first grow was hydro and I didn't have any problems. Many times what you buy on the streets wasn't grown under optimal conditions nor was it shipped, stored or anything else in a way that will preserve it's best taste and punch. The mere fact of allowing it to go to seed diminishes quality greatly. Usually the bagseed that you grow will be a lot better than what it came from. Smoking some that you raised from a pup always seems to make it better too. I'm sure you won't be sorry. Something you might think about doing. Sell an ounce of your grow after it is harvested and send off and get some good seeds from a seedbank. I'm sure you wont be sorry about doing that either. Happy Growing