So, I've started my first grow. I've helped friends maintain their grows before, and I'm kind of addicted to reading grow journals and looking at nug porn, so it's been something I've been wanting to do for a while. This is NOT an ideal grow situation. I'm dead broke pretty much until my disability payments kick in. I have three goals for this grow; The first is to start a grow in the environment I'll do a real grow in, so I can get an idea of potential problems before I invest money. The second goal is to see how far I can get a grow along while spending minimal/no money. Lastly I want to get my hands wet so I can decide that this isnt for me before I spend any real money. If, and I understand that it's really iffy, I get any product it'll be a nice little surprise. Highest hopes, lowest expectations and all. Everything in this grow is either going to be homemade, scavenged, or re-purposed. Scavenged meaning I found it somewhere, re-purposed meaning its from my house or borrowed from a friend, but can't/won't be part of my final grow operation. Currently I have two 1 gallon planters (scavenged) 4 light fixtures (two scavenged, two re-purposed) 2 42 watt 2700 lumen CFL bulbs (scavenged) 2 42 watt 6000 lumen CFL bulbs (scavenged) 10 bagseeds (free with the bud, I guess...) No idea on genetics, but everyone in Seattle at the time claimed that they had Northern Lights, so maybe it's Norther Lights. Maybe. All ten seeds came from a 1.5 gram bag. VERY seedy bud, but still had great flavor and was decently strong. Home made PH test strips, made from red cabbage and some art paper I had floating arround. Not exactly the most sensitive things in the world, but it should let me know if my PH gets TOO far out of whack. Soil is a mix of two parts miracle grow slow release potting soil, one part perilte, and one part peat moss, all scavenged. I have no vegging nutes, but I figure the soil will keep me going for a few weeks, and once I get into flower I have a bottle of flowering nutes designed for tomatoes. Additionally, I found a three bulb light bar, but I have to rewire the cord for it and find bulbs somewhere. So far, the only money I've spent for this grow is on the red cabbage, but that was for dinner anyway. I just used part of it to boil down for my testing solution. With all of this set up, the morning of Friday the 5th I put my seeds in a damp paper towel and set them on top of my computer monitor. By Saturday evening three of them had white tails sticking out, so into the first potter they went. By Sunday evening, another three went into the second potter. It's looking like two or three of the remainders will germinate, so I may try to find a third potter. I'm planning on running two weeks at 24/0, then switching over to a 12/12 schedule. Right now I feel ok about how things are running; my soil seems ok, I have good drainage, my home made test strips are showing my water to be close enough to neutral that I can't tell a difference and my runnoff water from the drainage holes is only VERY slightly base. Any advice is welcome, but remember that even a purchase of a few dollars is hard for me since I have an hour drive to the nearest Walmart and money is super tight. Pictures if I have any growth, and wish me luck!