Help planning out first grow. (indoor)

Do not go with autos as a strain for your first grow. Personally, I wouldn't mess around with the organic stuff either if it were me and just starting out. There is no magic combination with this that makes is "easy." If you understand how to pot these plants and will use a good quality soil to grow with, nutes aren't a big issue anyway. The closet sounds like it will work nicely as far as size goes. Heat really only comes into play when your plants go into flower mode. The size and density of your buds and the overall size of your plants in the end are directly relative to how much good flower lighting they get while in the cycle. Don't limit yourself to $100 as far as budget for your flower lighting. That is probably THE most important piece of equipment you will purchase in your grow setup and it's important that you get what you need to accomplish your goal. To only grow one plant, you could probably do it nicely with a 150 watt hps bulb for flowering. You can veg with simple CFLs which work nicely for the veg cycle and don't put off much heat. If it were me and I really truly only planned on flowering one plant, I would divide that closet in two...half for the veg space, half for the flowering space. The veg cycle is simply getting your plant to the size you want it to be for flowering...and I suggest you take your time and allow the plant to get some size on it before flowering if you want to get anything out of it at harvest. I see on here all the time where people will plant them and then in one month toss them in for flowering. Basically, they're trying to flower what I would consider to still be a "baby" and are astonished when they get no more at harvest than they do. If you use a good quality soil (preferably a formulated grow soil) and start your plant in a Solo cup giving it only properly pH'd water and excellent drainage (got to have great drainage always with these plants), you need nothing other than light to get it to growing. They first set about creating their root system and by confining the space they must root into, it takes less time to get the plant back to working on foliage growth. The foliage will just sit there until the root system is developed. When the plant gets taller and wider than the cup you have it growing in, transplant it into fresh soil and go one size up on the container. You have just resupplied your plant with fresh soil AND fresh nutes. Nutes are supposed to be started once a plant has had the opportunity to use up the nutes that come naturally in the soil. If you give your plant fresh soil on a regular basis as you pot it up in size, you won't need them until way way on down the road. Keep using this method to repot your plants until you get them in the container size you wish to flower in. We generally veg ours for around 2 to 2 1/2 months before they go into flower, generally harvesting a crop about every 10 weeks, but don't have to start giving nutes until about 2 weeks before they go into flowering because of the way we repot our plants. There are other alternatives to using 10 bottles of chemicals at a time as well. I use a dry powder nute combo sold by J.R. Peters called "Jack's." A good friend of mine in Southern California turned me onto it and had been using it for years. It's a powder you toss into your water as you're drawing it up to water that is very easy to use, the plants LOVE it and it's very inexpensive. I can buy enough, harvesting 25-30 plants every 10 weeks, to last me for over a year for under $15. Can't beat that with a stick. Organic is a great way to grow, but there is a lot of work in just getting together the things you need to do a totally organic grow and it is a whole lot more work and aggravation than most will tell you. Start off with a simple soil grow, watch your watering because over watering kills more plants than anything new growers do, use good soil and repot as the plant outgrows the old container and give good light. This should help you sail through the veg cycle. During the time you're vegging your plant, read up about what happens with the plant in flower. It's needs change, it's growth speeds up and it's a whole different animal than during the veg cycle. But you've got plenty of time to read up on that end of things so you are properly prepared when the time comes. Oh yea, you'll need a way to measure and adjust the pH of your water to a range of 6.3 to 6.7 to keep your roots open and healthy. So check into getting something to do that with and DON'T buy one of those cheap pH testers of Ebay and Amazon for under $15. Those don't work right and are a waste of money. You just need a reliable way to check and adjust it because it is very important to the health of your plant in a soil grow. Good luck. Hope this helps you a little. TWW

 

My opinion personally I think you're better off starting with autos! A lot of people may dispute that. But for your first grow autos are the easiest way to go! You could use roots organic as ur medium, there's plenty of organic soil's out there. Just never use anything at all with the miracle grow label on it! Even if it's perlite! because they add different things to it. You're going to have to go with CFL's if you only have $100 to spend on a light. Because the next step up would be LEDs mine cost me $130 on eBay. You're going to need an in-line fan as well. And if you're worrying about the smell you're going to need a Carbon filter. Unless you're not worried about the smell. You have a pretty big area for your grow so you're going to need to spend more than 100 dollars on lights for 4 x 4 space. You should just save up your money and then buy a good Quality light. Everything you want to buy for your grow has to be quality or it's just not going to last! And you won't get as good as results with cheap products! You definitely want good Quality products! that has everything to do with your grow! Good Luck with your Grow


Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

You can get a cheap 400w or 600w HID ballast off of ebay for $25.00 to $45.00, and also a cheap cool tube or cool hood reflector for another $35.00 to $50.00, and that in my opinion would be better than any of the leds costing that much or more. Now a lot of people will tell you don't buy cheap, but if its all you can afford or don't want to spend anymore it will still work, and will work just as well as the name brand stuff. Don't get me wrong, some things like a cheap ballast can get you in big trouble with the law, but even the cheap companies like IPOWER and such have fixed those problems. I am a caregiver, so many of my patients don't have a lot money, so when they want to learn how to grow their own medicine I help them buy the cheapest safest items to do that, so I know you can do up a whole 4 x 4 grow room including, lighting, ducting, filtering, meters, circulation, pots, medium, and nutrients for less than $250.00. Then you could easily grow 4 plants without having to spend a dime more. Then after that, it would only cost you around $50.00 per grow, for new nutrients and new medium. As for growing auto(s) vs photo(s), for a first grow auto(s) is a great idea because they don't require the maintenance discipline one needs to observe when undertaking the growing of a photo. One thing I repeatedly notice with first time growers is that they cannot seem to leave their plants alone. That's not bad if you play with them during their light cycle, but it is bad when you start messing with them in their dark cycle. Yeah, I see even so-called season growers do that and no matter what their excuse for doing it, it's dumb, PERIOD! Then there are those newbies who think they can keep a consistent lighting schedule without a good timer. Seriously I could list at least 20 other reason why a first grow should be an auto because if you did any of those BAD things growing an auto, it will not seriously affect your grow....

 

Meh, auto or not? I'm running some autos now for the first time and it's strange not having the control over them like you do photos
I also am on my first living organic soil, and agree with the Widdow white , a lot of folks complicate the shit out of it which seems to scare a lot of new growers away, I am a fairly new to indoor growing , but was spending a lot on nutrients so I did a bit of research, got on the build a soil. Com site and ordered me a package for 15$ shipped that was called a clackamas coot mix , I just had to buy some sphagnum peat and some perlite, and compost and worm castings, sounds like a lot but it's not bad,but I'm having stellar results with it and have just had to give the plants water ever since , ventilation, is nothing to skimp on either, and don't forget, these plants will stink up a whole house if not handled properly,
Best of luck

 

@Fataqui I wish you could get all that stuff for $250! Sometimes it depends where you live also? Don't get me wrong I believe what you're saying. But $250 for every thing thats cheap. Which if that's all he could afford then that's perfect? As long as he can make it work, and get everything dialed in correctly. here's my set up I payed about $370 to $400 without buying FF trio and soil and thermometers and seeds from Nirvana Aurora auto. Good Luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

Yes it's a 36x20x62. I'm using a Marshydro 600 278 draw. I'm growing Autos. I started 1/31 and 2/5 they still have about 2 months left, my tent is sealed no passive intake. Here's some pics if it helps?
Good Luck


Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

From Marshydro for $120? There not 600 watts there 278 draw from the wall. My plants love that light.
Good Luck


Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum mobile app