I have recently started frequenting many different growing forums and i've thinking about using a spare room for growing. This room is about 15 x 8 with an 8 foot ceiling. In this room i also have a 3 x 3 closet with the same height ceiling (which i plan to use to cure). I've been reading "The best of Ask Ed" by Ed Rosenthal and it's teaching me a lot about the type of care needed and all the "how to's". But what i am still foggy on is what type of hardware and supplies i should start with to more or less "get my feet wet". The room also has a window facing south and a room facing west. So it has a chance to obtain natural light throughout most of the day and i was hoping i could switch to CFL's at night. I know CFL's arent the most useful but i was hoping i could use them to understand what it really means to grow. tl;dr: What should i purchase to start my first grow? EDIT: I'm looking to spend about $300-$500 for the first grow.
You need lights, a good fan. If you get serious your 3 room can make a good vegging room. Figure 100 on nutes and soil, depending on how many plants. In a 15X 8 you can easily grow 20 plants. You need to keep reading, it is not a question with a simple answer. If you want more info, you"ll need to provide us with more.
You may not be feeling this but here me out. I strongly recommend doing a few plants to train yourself and to get the hands on experience in the least taxing way on your wallet and resources like nutrients and soil etc. I spent a few months doing nothing but research, then started my first grow in August, no amount of reading can get you ready for the hands on learning, that comes in time. If I could go back, I could have saved so much money, doing 1-3 plants to train myself the art of growing. I started with a shit ton of plants SOG style and just was in over my head. So to sum this up, I would suggest doing a few plants no more than 3 and just get comfortable with it, get a nice style and method down, practice all aspects, cloning even if you have a male, what better time to practice cloning when it is on a useless male. Practice some training methods different nutrients effects. Just get to know your growing surroundings, I wish I did before I jumped in. I am wrapping up my first grow and it has been a long bumpy trail but things seem to be looking good, I harvested one of my plants yesterday and was very impressed. I hope this has been insightful and check out my first grow!