I am new to growing and have an idea what i want but do not know how to begin. First off I want to do 9 plants or so and do not know how big of an area I need. I know I want to grow indoor, but do not know whether I should do soil or hydro. I have seen grow tents that look great but i am not sure if they are worth it. Any help would be great, thank you, Mac
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New and do not know where to begin.
- Thread starter Mac89
- Start date
wellfirst of all... if your only using one outlet/circuit, youll only have enough juice to maybe run 600w... if your have some wiring skills, you could run more power... but if you decide to run 600w, then I would say 3x3 or 4x3 or 4x4. then youll have to decide to vent your heat out or not. if you don't, youll use more ac power and need good circulation. and soil is more forgiving than hydro but coco seems to be the recommend beginner medium. Check out the coco section of the forums. I personally didn't buy a tent, but I think they could be worth it if you didn't want to deal with all the BS of building a room. instead I took the money for my tent and built a false hidden closet (sealed). and youll need to decided if your going to run co2 or not. if you use window unit ac, minght need a humidifier. it really all depends on your budget, space, and how concealed you need it to be. well hope that gets you started on your brain storming ideas.
greeners69
New member
if your just growing for yourself 400w hps should be enough. that could provide 6-8 oz per 3months. just one bulb veg n flower with it. id use soil as it is much more forgiving. forget about 1gpw go for .5 and be happy if you get it. over time you could learn some growing techniques and go for the 1gpw goal. i think one of the main things about growing inside is controlling the bugs seems to be the biggest problem. peace be with you and good luck.
keep it simple man, I'd tell anyone starting out to do a run or 2 in soil just because there's so many fine details and routines to get down before you wanna deal with the exacting science that is hydro. Soil is super forgiving and I guarantee that your gonna make a few mistakes and that buffer zone is gonna save your ass. I would go with a 1k bulb... more light = more weed
leadbyexample52
Member
I think electricity and pests are you two most important things two learn about as a new grower...as far as safety and costs,how many amps you got if it's in a house with a dryer dish washer ect. Bugs I could go on for days about bugs, I rather not poor salt into old wounds. I will just put it two you like this, you put the condom on first so you don't get herpes you don't get herpes then put the condom on...as far as soil or hydro..I think hydro is easier/cheaper with higher yields but that's just me, your plants will grow great in soil too, check out some vert if you haven't allready
einsteinlady
Member
do some in coco and do some in individual dwc buckets. just constantly feed at 600pm at 5.9 ph the whole time. that will get you thru the first harv
Have helped a lot of new growers start up and note the following.
If you have never grown plants of any kind before then I would keep everything simple and basic.
Don't tell anyone in the real world , or deal with anyone who has less to lose than you do , and you really don't want hangers on who think they are due cheap or free bud , rippers are more of a threat than the cops.
Don't pay much attention to youtube , full of bullshit and poor info.
Don't get oversold with hyped products you do not need at this stage , if ever.
Hand watered in compost is the simplest and most forgiving of inevitable mistakes.
Don't spend a fortune on nutes and additives , basic ferts intended for tomatoes will suffice for now.
Standard HPS and fluorescents are cheap and reliable , don't spend a fortune on LED,s right now.
Expect to get .5 gramme per watt at first , consider any more a bonus.
Its easier at first to discard males from normal seed than to deal with hermies from femmed later on , start twice as many seed as you need for flower.
You will spend a lot of time around them till the novelty wears off , don't fuss them to death.
Read up on mites and have a solution ready before it happens.
If you can wait a couple of months I would suggest running a crop of tomatoes first to iron out all the bugs , especially if you have never grown anything before.
If you know someone local who is a hobby grower , their advice and clones would be a great way to start.
Best of luck however you do it.
If you have never grown plants of any kind before then I would keep everything simple and basic.
Don't tell anyone in the real world , or deal with anyone who has less to lose than you do , and you really don't want hangers on who think they are due cheap or free bud , rippers are more of a threat than the cops.
Don't pay much attention to youtube , full of bullshit and poor info.
Don't get oversold with hyped products you do not need at this stage , if ever.
Hand watered in compost is the simplest and most forgiving of inevitable mistakes.
Don't spend a fortune on nutes and additives , basic ferts intended for tomatoes will suffice for now.
Standard HPS and fluorescents are cheap and reliable , don't spend a fortune on LED,s right now.
Expect to get .5 gramme per watt at first , consider any more a bonus.
Its easier at first to discard males from normal seed than to deal with hermies from femmed later on , start twice as many seed as you need for flower.
You will spend a lot of time around them till the novelty wears off , don't fuss them to death.
Read up on mites and have a solution ready before it happens.
If you can wait a couple of months I would suggest running a crop of tomatoes first to iron out all the bugs , especially if you have never grown anything before.
If you know someone local who is a hobby grower , their advice and clones would be a great way to start.
Best of luck however you do it.
My advice would be a bubble bucket ' you wont have any issues with bugs and stuff and you can learn the basics of Hydro regarding PH and EC , Start small ' learn the basics ' then move onwards and upwards , oh and keep this website on hand for any advice you WILL need , happy growing .
Hempy buckets passive hydroponics with coconut husks, using one of the granulated hydroponic fertilizers, and you're set for that part.
Search Hempy Bucket.
The reason I say that is because of a lot of reasons. The Hempy Bucket is the most foolproof piece of equipment on earth for growing, and you literally go find a five or three or two gallon bucket and poke a hole in it two inches from the bottom so when you water it establishes a level for the solution.
See, in dirt, if you mess it up and you very well could, you don't just ''wait till tomorrow and mix a new batch of nutes." You watch and wait and hope and hand wring. With hydro there's no such thing as a crop that limps along because you can't figure what's wrong.
Also in dirt that stuff's heavy. It's cheaper; but it's a doggone mess. And the growth is a dash slower than a Hempy bucket. $25 worth of coco husks on Amazon, $30 dollars or so for some dry Maxibloom, and you're on, without a single other item. Like that, you can save the money you would spend on pumps, and on plug in strips, and on various hoses, and reservoirs, and just have yourself some fine weed, you literally, almost can't mess up.
Once you see that kind of rig in action and have time to read, you will catch on to some things you could be learning through starting in soil, but is physically hard to fix, or - harder to fix - than just mixing up a new batch of nutes.
Just sayin. For what you might spend just on hoses, pumps, aeration consideration, yada, yada - you can be in the finest of hydro substrates, and using really, good-quality nutes, and you're gonna have good swift growth, ultra lightweight pots, and you won't break your back hauling soil all your life.
If you ruin your soil batch, ya know - you're not likely to I'm just saying people can, and they do - you don't just "mix a new batch of nutes tomorrow" that weighs what the watering schedule weighs. You can kinda put yourself in a bind in that way, and having done a little dirt pot farming for friends, I went with DWC when I started but it was very cumbersome so I built an aeroponic unit which flew very well, Oh, Yeah, but it kinda needs space inside my house or my neighbors will steal it you know, or snitch me - so I do Hempy buckets, because they're just so much the bomb. They just rock. No power. No noise. No parts to break. No wildly fluctuating pHs, Hempys are known for not needing nearly so much pH control, and the pots themselves are quite lightweight.
Your mileage may vary but probably not much. Those Hempy buckets are outright, more new guy friendly than soil or dwc, or whatever. You literally don't really have to have even a ppm meter if you'll mix from the package into filtered water.
Starting out with free buckets, and Hempies, is pretty doggone cheap and bulletproof new guyin.
Search Hempy Bucket.
The reason I say that is because of a lot of reasons. The Hempy Bucket is the most foolproof piece of equipment on earth for growing, and you literally go find a five or three or two gallon bucket and poke a hole in it two inches from the bottom so when you water it establishes a level for the solution.
See, in dirt, if you mess it up and you very well could, you don't just ''wait till tomorrow and mix a new batch of nutes." You watch and wait and hope and hand wring. With hydro there's no such thing as a crop that limps along because you can't figure what's wrong.
Also in dirt that stuff's heavy. It's cheaper; but it's a doggone mess. And the growth is a dash slower than a Hempy bucket. $25 worth of coco husks on Amazon, $30 dollars or so for some dry Maxibloom, and you're on, without a single other item. Like that, you can save the money you would spend on pumps, and on plug in strips, and on various hoses, and reservoirs, and just have yourself some fine weed, you literally, almost can't mess up.
Once you see that kind of rig in action and have time to read, you will catch on to some things you could be learning through starting in soil, but is physically hard to fix, or - harder to fix - than just mixing up a new batch of nutes.
Just sayin. For what you might spend just on hoses, pumps, aeration consideration, yada, yada - you can be in the finest of hydro substrates, and using really, good-quality nutes, and you're gonna have good swift growth, ultra lightweight pots, and you won't break your back hauling soil all your life.
If you ruin your soil batch, ya know - you're not likely to I'm just saying people can, and they do - you don't just "mix a new batch of nutes tomorrow" that weighs what the watering schedule weighs. You can kinda put yourself in a bind in that way, and having done a little dirt pot farming for friends, I went with DWC when I started but it was very cumbersome so I built an aeroponic unit which flew very well, Oh, Yeah, but it kinda needs space inside my house or my neighbors will steal it you know, or snitch me - so I do Hempy buckets, because they're just so much the bomb. They just rock. No power. No noise. No parts to break. No wildly fluctuating pHs, Hempys are known for not needing nearly so much pH control, and the pots themselves are quite lightweight.
Your mileage may vary but probably not much. Those Hempy buckets are outright, more new guy friendly than soil or dwc, or whatever. You literally don't really have to have even a ppm meter if you'll mix from the package into filtered water.
Starting out with free buckets, and Hempies, is pretty doggone cheap and bulletproof new guyin.
Mac, Pot roots, like a lot of oxygen when they grow, or else they get what's called pythium colonies growing on and killing the roots. Pythia are a whole bunch of water fungus, water molds, and they don't do well if there's more than a few percent oxygen dissolved into the water they inhabit.
Over watering is a major new guy fail. Hydroponics can't be over watered in a limited, you know, conditional sense.
There's also the fact that everything that happens with the plant is in kinda, slow motion about nutrition. Soil releases food slower because the food is first, bound up as solids in the soil, then when there's enough water to wash the nutrition to the roots, there's growth. If the water's drained, evaporated, been drunk up from right around the roots, they have to wait for capillary action to let water flow to where they are again.
This capillary action is a direct result of there being paths, little micro cracks and pores, for the water to kinda crawl out over, spreading out. In the soil, there are a lot of times Mac when the roots have too much water so not real good oxygen usage so slowed growth, then there's a short optimum growth period but then, the plant drinks the water from right around the roots so growth slows again. You get that kind of slowly rising and falling graph of the amount of nutrition being taken in being lower, then higher, then as it dries, lower again.
In a hydro system see, you don't vary that very cycle I just decribed, by nearly as much. It is the nature of the stuff people select as root holder material: coconut coir husks and perlite/perlite-vermiculite mixes - that water flows and creeps, wicks through them, much, much better than it can through closely grained soil. And that air getting in there enhances metabolism as well as suppressing the pythium root rot water molds.
So that's a few more reasons that come to mind explaining the whys for, for starting out in Hempy Buckets. Just saying, and I figure if you're new guying it, others who are coming along will be wanting similar info so I just kept typing. It'll prolly come in handy to have it to read for somebody or other.
Over watering is a major new guy fail. Hydroponics can't be over watered in a limited, you know, conditional sense.
There's also the fact that everything that happens with the plant is in kinda, slow motion about nutrition. Soil releases food slower because the food is first, bound up as solids in the soil, then when there's enough water to wash the nutrition to the roots, there's growth. If the water's drained, evaporated, been drunk up from right around the roots, they have to wait for capillary action to let water flow to where they are again.
This capillary action is a direct result of there being paths, little micro cracks and pores, for the water to kinda crawl out over, spreading out. In the soil, there are a lot of times Mac when the roots have too much water so not real good oxygen usage so slowed growth, then there's a short optimum growth period but then, the plant drinks the water from right around the roots so growth slows again. You get that kind of slowly rising and falling graph of the amount of nutrition being taken in being lower, then higher, then as it dries, lower again.
In a hydro system see, you don't vary that very cycle I just decribed, by nearly as much. It is the nature of the stuff people select as root holder material: coconut coir husks and perlite/perlite-vermiculite mixes - that water flows and creeps, wicks through them, much, much better than it can through closely grained soil. And that air getting in there enhances metabolism as well as suppressing the pythium root rot water molds.
So that's a few more reasons that come to mind explaining the whys for, for starting out in Hempy Buckets. Just saying, and I figure if you're new guying it, others who are coming along will be wanting similar info so I just kept typing. It'll prolly come in handy to have it to read for somebody or other.
