Hey everyone. Looking for advice on my very first grow. I've only had bad times in the garden up until now, so I'm hoping that will change when more than tomatoes are on the line! I'll be growing ILGM's Gold Leaf feminized and White Widow auto, starting 2 seeds in separate 3 gallon pots. I bought the following items today (not affiliate links): Hydro Plus Grow Tent Room Kit 24"x24"x48" + Accessories Roleadro LED Grow Light, Reflector-Series 600W Yield Lab 4 inch 190 CFM Duct Inline Fan with 4" Carbon Filter Ducting and Clamps FoxFarm Happy Frog Potting Soil Only problem is I mindlessly purchased on my wife's Amazon account. I discovered this when she came in and gave me a hug and told me how sweet it was for me to take an interest in her desire to garden. D'OH! So now I have to figure out how to grow without her realizing, maybe by buying more equipment and hiding it in a corner of the basement. If you had to do this, would you buy the same equipment or would you swap anything out? For instance, I read that the light isn't ideal for the vegetative phase, so maybe I should get something else? Am I overthinking this? I'm probably overthinking this. I'm mainly growing for myself and I'm not a daily user, so a little will go a long way. I don't know if that changes anything, but I thought I'd mention it. Any and all advice welcomed. Thank you in advance!
I almost forgot. I'll have leftover seeds since I don't intend to plant all of them at the same time. Is it necessary to store them in a fridge or can I get away with a dark drawer in the basement? Would there be a notable difference in the shelf life/potency?
If the Gold Leaf isn't also an auto, then the auto will suffer from insufficient light when the non-auto is switched to flower. It will still yield, but not as much as if lights are 24-0, 20-4, or 18-6. A 4 ft tall grow space isn't tall enough. If your pot is 1 ft tall, and the lights must be 1+ ft away, then that leaves 2 ft of vertical room for vegetation, not counting the distance from ceiling to light. You can shorten the plant a little with topping and bending it down, but that's not much vertical height. Yes, you are over-thinking the light, but it's really only 165 watts. It will work fine for all growth stages. Breeders recommend keeping seeds refrigerated, but if they'll get used within a year or so, not refrigerating is probably ok.
Yes store them in uncooked rice in the freezer and with your wifes consent in fact be open and honest with your wife, even if Ru tv says otherwize see it as improving the relationship as most men young and old do have a medical reason to use it good luck
Agreed, definitely should keep things in the open with your wife. I think you'll find things would go more smoothly with 2 sets of eyes on the garden as well. My girl sends me daily temperature reports when she gets home and i can always count on her to adjust exhaust fan speed or open an intake vent, etc, etc. Four eyes are better than two, most of the time and it makes for a great bonding activity. Also, same as what bkarnaze mentioned above... would be better to grow autos OR photos at a time due to the different light requirements. With limited height, photos might give you more flexibility. You can flower them young and small. With autos, you're kind of at the mercy of going along for the ride until they decide to flower. You could try to find an early flower variety, or maybe find something with dwarf genes... "lowryder #2" or some sort of cross. I'm currently growing "Early Miss" autoflower (link to journal below) and it's supposed to be 70 days from seed to harvest. So far their height has been very manageable in my 6ft tent, with tons of headroom to spare (for now!). My next run is going to be "Berry Ryder", which is supposed to be a very short variety, very suitable to limited headspace. You could also look at using larger diameter pots and only filling them 1/2 or 3/4 full. So instead of a 3 or 5 gallon filled to the top, maybe a 7 or even a 10 gallon filled halfway. Best of luck!
I took your advice and told my wife I'd really like to grow some pot. It went pretty much how I thought it would. She completely shut me down. I fought the good fight. Believe it or not, I even brought Jesus into it -- you know, picking corn on the sabbath and all that, law is made for man, not man for the law, etc. We live in NC, so it's illegal. I'm the sole provider for a family of six. That would worry me if I felt there was even the slightest chance of getting caught, of course, but I work 100% remote, have no friends or unexpected visitors, and won't be dealing. It's not impossible, just highly improbable. I'd get struck by lightning before I'd get caught growing weed. Anyways, it's a good thing I wasn't asking for permission or this whole enterprise would be in jeopardy! I'm just gonna have to find a place to grow in secret. Our crawl space has 15 ft of clearance in certain spots, so I'll probably find a spot down there and dork out with marijuana on my lonesome. Totally makes sense to not grow autos with photos! I was thinking I'd get experience with both in one go, but overlooked the obvious with the different lighting requirements. I've decided to grow one White Widow auto indoors. It's supposed to max out at a height of 24", so I guess I could get by with 4', topping and scrogging, but I obviously can't use the tent I bought anymore and really didn't give sufficient thought to long term height requirements anyway, so I'll just get something a little taller this time. Thanks for the tip on storing the seeds. Into the freezer they go! Operation Tent Two is now officially underway! I'll try to post pics when I manage to get something growing. Thanks everyone!
