Hi all, So this will be my first grow and I have everything else sorted but still confused as to what to use for my first grow, I'm wanting about 4 plants under a 1000w light in a 4x4 tent with the right cooling, the thing is I'm not sure where to start in regards to what to grow in? Super soil? The clay balls? Please point me in the right direction have read to many things and has made me confused !
When you have your seeds germinated, you can use Peatmoss+Perlite(or Jiffy) until it gets 3 pairs of leaves(not including the cotyledons and first true leaves with 1 blade) and then you can choose between coco or soil. In short, soil is more forgiving, easier to maintain and you won't get into trouble if you don't do anything strange with it. On the other hand, coco needs more caring and it's an inert medium so you gotta feed your plants using liquid nutrients. Some people say you NEED pH meter(ppm/tds/EC bla bla) but that's not something I can comment on. Personally I use soil and coco *in* my soil mix(varies between ~20% to ~50%) and I'm not a professional grower after all. More experienced growers will probably have more things to say about these stuff. peace
Thanks a lot for your input man, now the next question is how much do I need to water them? Water as in water with the nutrient mix and phycially pour it on? As I work full time and will be away some weekends, I think it's easy enough to set up a self watering system ? Something like this
You're welcome. Well, it depends on many things but keep that in mind 'if you underwater, chances are you can fix the problem but if you OVERwater, you may not have a second chance'(root rot in short) so don't overthink or overlove on watering. just learn to lift your pots and read your plants. The picture you've attached looks like a hydro(roots are in water rather than in soil) and I don't have any experience with that at all.
Yes actually you are right that's DWC so I guess my question is, can I still set some kind of self watering system up for growing in soil? Also what kind of yield will I pull from 4 plants in a 4x4 grow tent providing all goes well? Least a P? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
My first grow is in coco coke it's doing pretty well . So I think. Week 3 of veg in a 10 gal smart pot Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Coco, clay balls and rockwool are all inert media- theyre just something physical to hold the plant, which would be used for a hydroponic grow. If your worried about how often you can attend to them hydro could be something to consider. If you have a plant growing the old fashioned way in a pot of soil and you know your going to be busy and cant water it for a period of time and try to give it a weeks worth of water in one go you reach two problems a) theres a limit to how much water the medium will hold, it gets saturated and past that any more you put in just runs straight through, out the bottom of the plant and makes a mess b) once the soil gets close to saturation the water fills up all the air gaps in the soil, the plant breaths through its roots so becomes starved of oxygen until either it can deal with the excess water or the environment drys the soil (this is what people mean by over water). A hydro grow the roots are growing directly in to the liquid but the problem of overwatering is avoided by oxygenating the liquid, so the plant can breath it. Since Iv moved to hydro from soil/coco im happier about leaving the plants unattended when Im working away, but there are other things you need to think about
I think for your first time soul or coco coir is good but I wouldn't do dwc as your first grow . Just my 2 cents Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum