first indoor grow

[samandwendy]

hey guys. I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of posts exactly like this, but we wanted to start new with our own adventure.
We are a couple wanting to try growing for the first time. We got tired of spending the money on it, so decided that we would try to grow a couple of plants purely for our pleasure. We want to keep it small and compact and we're looking for any advice or tips that can be useful.
To start, we have a space in the closet that we are using. We plan on making a grow box that is 4' high, 2' wide, and 16" deep using simple plywood and painting the walls of the box a flat white. Also plan on making a hinging door for easy access We want to keep it at this size and only plan on growing 1 or 2 plants, depending on the size the plants grow to. This is our first time, so bear with us.
We plan on going as simple as possible. Using a simple flourescent light, hooked up to small chains so that we can manipulate how far away the plants need to be. We aren't sure if any real ventilation will be needed as this is a very small operation. Although, the closet is upstairs, so we're not sure if rising heat will be an issue.
Using a simple compost and peet mixture, and a plant that a friend is giving us. We have yet to see the plant, but we are hoping that its good. As we said, and will say many times, this is our first time and do not have access to clones or decent seeds.
We've been reading a lot on the steps to growing and have found a lot of sites which tell you how much light to use at certain stages. As we said before, we're not sure of the size of the plant or the stage, but when we receive the plant, we will post pics and ask for more information.
We plan on getting this started this weekend and hopefully all will "grow" well
Any advice or questions on our situation are more than welcome.

 

[Amateur Grower]

Hey, I started out about 5 months ago just like you-tired of having to pay for who-knows-what and scared of the risk of carrying on the highways. Just finished my first grow-got a couple of bag seed Sativa's growing now.

Get a small oscillating fan, a digital pH tester (Hanna makes a good one-can be found on Ebay), and keep the flouro's as close to the plants as possible.

4 feet for height? You might want to read the stickey's on topping. If you pinch off some of the taller branches while vegging, you can make them spread out wider and not so tall-depending on what strain it is.

Welcome to MP.

AG

 

[samandwendy]

stickey's on topping? sorry noobs here. is that clipping the tops in order to promote wideness vs. tall?

 

[samandwendy]

one more thing, like we said, this plant will be given to us, is there anything we can do to make sure its a female? how can i tell upon inspection what the sex is? Also, what sites are best to buy seeds from? we've been weary of buying seed online, although from reading the posts on here, it seems to be done often. Which sites are good and reputable?

 

[UKgirl420]

one more thing, like we said, this plant will be given to us, is there anything we can do to make sure its a female? how can i tell upon inspection what the sex is? Also, what sites are best to buy seeds from? we've been weary of buying seed online, although from reading the posts on here, it seems to be done often. Which sites are good and reputable?

there is nothing you can do to make sure its a female ,,but you can do your best to prevent hermies ,,by keeping stress to a minimum ,,no light leaks during dark hrs


male and female

take a look in the seed section ,,i dont buy online i can buy from the headshops so i carnt help you there

 

[purplephazes]

i would recommend attitude seed bank for obtaining your seeds... but i would recommend planetskunk to Australians.. these seem to be pretty reliable banks to use and i have not heard of people having very many delivery problems ! Peace and good luck !

 

[pcduck]

We aren't sure if any real ventilation will be needed as this is a very small operation. Although, the closet is upstairs, so we're not sure if rising heat will be an issue.

Ventilation is real important. It keeps the heat down plus it brings in fresh co2 and gets rid of the spent air. Most growers try to exchange the grow area 4-5 times a minute.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

When getting a plant from someone else, keep it out of your grow space for several days and inspect it very, very well for pests, like spider mites (they are very small) and/or diseases .

Also, your yield is largely determined by the kind and size of light you are using. You need 5000 lumens per sq ft to flower. If you are only going to use fluoros, I would encourage you to look into T5s.

 

[samandwendy]

lets say, for instance that the plant i get turns out to be a male. what are the pros and cons of the buds as in potency or if they even flower?
i had an old friend that would snip the pollen sacks from his male plants and turn them into hermies. is this true or possible? if so, will the buds turn out ok or even smokeable?

 

[purplephazes]

Its recommended that you pull out any male plant IMO ! if you were to grow 3-4 plants after 8-10 weeks you will know wheather or not they are female you can tell this by the pics provided by uk girl . I am growing 4 plants from seed and i have had them in a fridge (average family size fridge) under 1 industrial flouro 4 ft length double bulb light mounted sideways ( if you get the drift ) Which are all female ! I also believe imo that if you offer perfect conditions and do NOT stress your plants you will have a higher possibilities of obtaining females and no hermies . I have heard of people cutting of the sacks to create hermies but.... if i wanted to create a hermie i would rather stuff up my light cycle and bash the plant around a bit to acheive the same result . We should also remember that a hermie will cause any other fems to produce seeds imho ! I believe that if you were to increase your grow box size and invest in a 600 hps this will serve you well to grow 3 nice fems and avoid the need to think about the (what ifs ) ! JMHO ! peace and take care ! oh and remember as THG has mentioned 5000 lumens not watts per sq ft !

 

[Amateur Grower]

stickey's on topping? sorry noobs here. is that clipping the tops in order to promote wideness vs. tall?

Exactly-look at the beginning of each forum for stickies on LST and/or Topping.

AG

 

[Locked]

lets say, for instance that the plant i get turns out to be a male. what are the pros and cons of the buds as in potency or if they even flower?
i had an old friend that would snip the pollen sacks from his male plants and turn them into hermies. is this true or possible? if so, will the buds turn out ok or even smokeable?

Male plants are good for nothing except breeding...if you hve a true male plant then snipping his maleness off will not turn him hermie...people do snip the sacks off of hermies though and flower them out...the bud will be smokeable but I wld not keep hermies around any female plants...

 

[pcduck]

lets say, for instance that the plant i get turns out to be a male. what are the pros and cons of the buds as in potency or if they even flower?
i had an old friend that would snip the pollen sacks from his male plants and turn them into hermies. is this true or possible? if so, will the buds turn out ok or even smokeable?

Males are good for their pollen and that is it.

When most growers talk about hermies, they are talking about females that start showing male nanners/flowers late into flowering. Most people remove the hermies from their grow room in order not to pollinate the rest of their grow.

 

[dubblehue]

Hey S&W
I was you guys not too long ago. Sounds like you're off to a great start. Vent that box like folks say, and if you can swing it, it's really worth buying a HID light. I've got about the same space as you, and i got amazing results from a 250 hps. was like 100 shipped from insidesun . com. Harvested back in mid may and I haven't paid for it since, plenty to last the rest of the summer. Just take care of your light schedule, and be patient, you'll reap bountiful rewards!

 

[smokybear]

Glad to see you starting a grow for yourself. It's much better than buying it. That's for sure! If you can, I would definitely get a HID light. HPS is best for flowering so that's what I would get. You will have a much better harvest with an hps. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck. I bought white widow seeds from Dr Chronic and got them in a week. Pretty good considering I live in the states. I would recommend them. Just my thoughts. Take care and be safe.

 

[samandwendy]

Update:

So, my friend never came through with the plants.. someone that saw it said that it looked nothing like the seedlings I currently have in place. It was a dud from a bigger rookie than me. I'm almost positive of that.
Anyway, so, we've started a seedling and it seems to be going ok. Currently I only have 1 1600 lumen CFL on it. I know that's not nearly enough. The slow growth rate is a sure sign of that. I plan on bumping it up tonight by another 1600 until I can afford some better lighting. I'm thinking of going with an HPS, but I'm also leaning toward a 200 watt CFL that puts out about 13000 lumens. This will be for the vegetative stage and maybe the flowering as well. I'm hoping this will suffice for my 2x4 grow space that I have. I have about 8 ft of height in my room. Am I wasting the light by not having a cover over it?
It's a really shoddy set up, but we're doing what we can with it until more funds kick in. Thoughts?

 

[samandwendy]

I figured I would update this journal and see if anyone has any advice.
The First pic was taken on 8/27 right after I transplanted to a 3 gallon pot and FF Ocean Forest soil. I have also built my own reflector and added 2 43w CFL's.
The 2nd and 3rd pic were taken 9/6. The growth has been pretty significant since I transplanted, although, the plant is really short and bushy. I wanted them to be that way, but I was also hoping to take clones off of this plant. It seems the shortness would be a problem with taking clones from it.
I believe this plant is about 1 month old. I had another which died after transplant. It wasn't doing so well to begin with, so I'm not too bummed out about it. Seeing as how well this one is doing.
I have also started 3 more seeds.
Hoping to start flowering the bigger one in about a month and moving it away from the seedlings and having 2 setups. One for veg, one for flowering.
Any tips or input would help.

 

[Locked]

Looking good...very short and bushy...

 

[samandwendy]

I was also thinking about trying out LST, but since this is my first grow and the plant seems so short and bushy anyway, I figured I would make this a trial run and see how it comes out before I tried to do anything too crazy.

 

[GeezerBudd]

I would'nt start any more if you still only have 16in x 4ft grow space.
And you will want some kind of ventilation going.
Even little computer fan would work.
I would'nt use any nutes yet-FFOF has plenty. I use it and I did'nt give any nutes till mine were in flower stage. Looks Indica Dominant to me-nice and green.

Gb