Hey guys. Hope you all are doing well. I've been reading these forums like crazy for the past 2 days. Tons of great information. So my girlfriend and I rented Pineapple Express a few nights ago. Pretty funny movie. My favorite part was the car chase when Saul had his foot out the windshield. I was laughing my ass off! Anyways, just a brief background about myself. I used to smoke A LOT of pot during my teenage years. Then I quit because I started my career and had to put a lot of focus on what I wanted to do with my life. Now I'm beginning to explore growing my own stuff because I would NEVER spend $125 on a quarter of quality pot. Can't believe people are charging that much! I ordered some seeds from attitude. Got the Northern Soul Femenized seeds. They are also throwing in some Thai Super Skunk seeds as a promotion I guess. I should have them sometime next week if everything goes right. This will be my first time to grow. I used to grow mushrooms and had pretty good success so I figure growing some pot shouldn't be any more difficult...right? The plan is to grow 1 plant to see how well I do. I will be growing this in a closet which is approximately 4'x4'. I'm about to go to Home Depot and pick up some CFL's (4x26w 6500k's and 4x23w 2700k's). I'm going to buy some of the clip-on style lamps along with the Y-Adapters. Going to try and find some organic potting soil as well. Oh and a couple of 5 gallon pots. Plastic is cheaper than clay I would assume. My newbie questions are... Is it safe to just plant the seed a half inch under the soil (needs to be moist from what I have read and to NOT overwater) and skip the "germinating" process with putting the seeds in a cup of water? I have read some people do it this way whereas others germinate using the paper towel method or cup of water method. Should I use all 4x26w 6500k lights during the veg stage from the very beginning? Or should I use 2 of the bulbs for the sprouting process and then switch to 4 bulbs once the plant has grown to say 6" tall? Can I start growing from the 5 gallon pot? Or do I need to start from a smaller container such as a cup or something and then transplant to the 5 gallon pot? I am sure I will come up with other questions as I go along but these two are the ones that come to mind as of right now. Cheers!
I am in the EXACT same situation except i saw that movie like 2 weeks ago, not one. And i found a friend with free clones he is going to let me experiment with.
yes is is "safe", but i prefer to germinate them. if you have a bad seed, you may be waiting a week or more for the sprout to pop out for nothing. germinating lets you know within 1-2 days wether or not you have good seeds you actually dont need light for the seeds to sprout, but using lights wont hurt them. once the seedling has sprouted i would use all 4 lights, no need to wait technically yes, but i would suggest using a smaller pot and transplanting when they are a few weeks old or when they need the larger pot
Hey man, I'm gonna be growing for the first time this season too. I hope luck comes our way I know it is possible to just plant the seed without germinating, it's just a little slower. Not sure about the lighting- as I only really know about the great outdoors You can start in any size pot you want, the less transplanting you do the better. goodluck!
i just transplanted my 6 sprouts that are 1 week old to bigger 3 gallon pots. I have 6 CFL, spread out over 6 big pots, that's not enough. You'll need a bigger setup I say you need 1.5 CFL bulbs per plant once you get to the big pots.
I think it's great when anyone is inspired to start growing. But what I don't understand is how PE did this...The movie has nothing to do with growing, and it doesn't even mention growing at all really. Just about an everyday pot smoker, and his dealer.
Thanks for the speedy feedback, guys. I just got back from Lowe's and Home Depot. Guess I need to more research than I thought. I mainly went to price compare. Lowe's is cheaper. I can get a 4 pack of 23w 6500k bulbs for $9.99. Home Depot only had a 2 pack of 27w 6500k bulbs for $9.99. I did pick up a couple of Y-Adapters for the bulbs and a 3 pack of Sylvania 23w 2700k bulbs. I'm going to go back and buy the clip-on lamps and the 6500k bulbs tomorrow. Where I started getting confused was the potting soil. I've read the organic potting soil is the preferred type. All I could find was Miracle-Gro and Scott's. I have read some people have said not to use those types. Maybe I should go to a nursery to find more options. I also started looking at plant food and fertilizer. I guess this stuff is going to be important during the flowering stage. I still need to do more reading. I'm going to read Grandpa's Grow Guide for the 2nd time to refresh my memory.
During the action scene of the movie towards the end, they showed all the pot plants growing in the warehouse. I started drooling and kept thinking about it over the past few days. Next thing I know I'm ordering seeds online and figuring out what supplies I need to buy.
look for BIG bags of soil. The small bags are often fertilized. Big bags are more untouched soil. Anyway you'll need over 30 liters of soil for just 3 plants. if you can arrange it ahead of time, place your germinated seeds in the pots that will support them through all cycles.
This is truly a sign of a cultural revolution. The most people ever on GC before was a few days ago! I mean im kinda new here...id been reading up for a few years but finally joined. I think everyone is going "fuck this black market bullshit". The gov. can thank themselves for all these new growers, theyre the ones that jacked the prices up.
That's why some people prefer feminized seeds. If you don't go the femmed route, though, how else will you tell if they are male? You have to grow them out at least some to determine which are which.
you cant know if they are girls or boys until they are a few weeks WITHIN the flowering stage. At that point, they should have been in the big pots already for a long time. Once you got your females, you can snip some clippings and start clones in the pots that were being used by males previously.
I'm going to try and hit a hydro shop nearby today and pick up some Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil. If they don't have any, I guess I will ask them what the next best soil would be for growing tomatoes. With the Fox Farms soil, do I need to add anything to it? Or is it ready to go straight out of the bag? Should I pick up any nutrients while I am at the hydro shop? I have read I should start feeding the plant nutrients 2-3 weeks after it sprouts.
I was just thinking you might as well leave them in smaller pots for the first week of flowering just to find out the sex, then transplant. It would suck if they went herm cause of it though...
They probably wont have FFOF. Im trialing miracle grow organic and its working really well. Make sure to get organic though, with the other mircale grow you might as well laden those plants with cancer. The plants were way N deficient before I transplanted them from hydro to soil and now theyre looking a lot better.
Going to pick up a bag of Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil tonight at a local supplier. Man, the more I read, the more I realize I am a total noob. So with this FFOF soil, I will probably not need to add any nutes for the first few weeks because it is so rich to begin with. Hopefully the strain I will be growing (Seedsman Seeds Northern Soul) can handle this soil because I have read some strains have trouble with the FFOF soil from the beginning. **EDIT** Found a thread where someone else asked the same thing. Seems like I should be OK based on most of the replies. As far as nutes, what should I be looking for? I have read about Fox Farms Big Bloom for veg and Fox Farms Tiger Bloom for flowering. Do I need both of these? OH, I also realized I probably don't need a 5 gallon pot as I intend on these plants only growing to about 2-3 feet tall, IF that. I'd prefer to keep them short as this is a closet grow. So I guess a 10" pot would be sufficient. I'd still like to grow the seed from the 10" pot and not have to transplant at all. But the more I read the more I think I should germinate it in a cup of water first before placing it in the pot. What do you guys think? **EDIT** I'm going to skip the germination process and plant it directly into the warm moist soil. I found this thread and the guys who replied appear to have some stripes on their belts. http://forum.grasscity.com/absolute...ination-before-planting-really-necessary.html Thanks so much for all the feedback so far. You guys rock!
Well, pictures always get a party started so here you go... Got me a big bag of Fox Farms Ocean Forest. I also picked up a bottle of Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom. Still need to buy the 6500k CFL's as well as fixtures to mount them in. So far I have spent over $100. Glad that tax refund came already.
I hope the hydro shops in your area aren't like the ones where I've shopped at in the past. Bad security risk in a lot of areas. Better to go to a nursery and get black gold soil. Works just fine. Don't forget perlite and vermiculite, UNFERTILIZED as well. Mix at about 60% soil and 20% perlite/vermiculite each.