1st grow for personal use - suggestions please

[Dynamix]

Hi there folks!

 

 

Getting some seeds for my Dad to grow who is in chronic pain. Even if he does go to a Dr to get the meds I believe its very pricey if he were to be prescribed with it so we have taken the route of seeds.

 

I therefore wondered if anyone can help advise me as to:

What soil

What food

Amount of water per day

Temperatures

Indoors or outdoors

Fans needed?

How much darkness / light etc

 

Very new to this and need some guidance if possible folks

 

Thanks!!

[Bazza]

If you spend some time reading past grow diary's you will learn all you need to know. Pretty much every situation you can think of has been covered.

[Anoma]

Bazza knows what's up. Read from the known growers and always be cautious when taking advice from people with no proof.

[merl1n]

I do agree with Bazza, if ya read thru the pages here, somewhere all of those question are covered. But I'll try to answer some of them anyway. Some are a personal choice thing, depending on circumstances, but here goes.

I'm a medi smoker myself due to a brain tumour and presently I am getting mine by script and YES, by script, it is VERY expensive. $135 for 5gms. But the approval process to obtain medical access is also costly.

 

Now as for growing:-

The first question you need to ask is: Indoor or outdoor? Indoor, you control the environment, you have to supply everything ie light (and dark), water, nutrient, airflow etc. And this can cost a bit to setup and run. Outdoor, these are all controlled by nature, which (Obviously) costs less. Outdoor, due to the amount of sunlight, you can get one (possibly 2) crop/yr, where indoor you can get 3-4 crops/yr depending on how you grow.

 

The 2nd question is: space. Do you have the space to grow indoors? There's a few things that need to be taken into consideration here, remembering you need light, water, nutrient, airflow etc. So you need access to electricity, water and fresh air wherever you place your setup. If you do not have access to ALL of these, then you'll need to grow outdoors.

 

So let's say the answer is 'Yes' to those questions and you've decided to grow indoors.

There is 3 primary things plants need: Light, air and nutrient rich water and you have to provide ALL 3.

The easiest route would be to buy a grow tent, but if you can and have the skills you could build your own grow space or use something like a wardrobe. I built my own using a small garden shed inside of a 3 car garage. You need to be able to control the amount of light, during the plants darkness times you need TOTAL darkness. A small light leak can screw with the plants flowering cycle. There are primarily two light cycles, 'grow' cycle and 'flower' cycle. In grow your easiest light cycle is 18hrs on, 6hrs off. In flower it's an even 12/12, that's 12hrs on/12hrs off. There are some people who use a different cycle but for a newbie 18/6 and 12/12 is easiest. Depending on the size of your growspace will depend on the amount of light and airflow you will need. Here's a link to a 'Lighting Calculator' that will help you establish the balance between light/space/airflow Cannavertisy Grow Room Calculators - Lighting and Ventilation (cannaversity.com) It will ask you for a username/password, just hit cancel and it will let you in.

 

The next question is grow style ie Soil, hydroponics or aquaponics. In my humble opinion the most difficult here is aquaponics, then hydro, then soil. Soil (Dirt) can be the easiest but this can depend on how complete or what type of soil is used. Too much clay in your soil and the pots won't drain properly and you can end up having floods (Not what you want indoors), too much sand and the fluid will drain way really quickly before the plant can grab the nutrients it needs. Also soil naturally has it's own nutrients, but you are never sure which nutrients are in plentiful supply and which nutrients are not, trying to find a balance can be a real issue for some. Personally, I grow hydro in a substrate (Soil substitute) called Perlite. It holds no nutrient value at all, so I know I have to supply everything for the plant to grow. To do this I use a premixed bottle of nutrient solution purchased from my local hydro store. I use a 1 part solution, it's simple, no mixing of 'Part A' with 'Part B' (or a 2 part solution). For my setup the Manufacturers Recommend Feed Rates are too strong, my optimum is more like 1/2 to 3/4 strength of recommended.

 

The amount of water varies depending on the natural cycles of the plant, during grow the growth rate is less and therefore uses less, during flower the growth rate is greater and therefore uses more fluid. As mentioned before fluid retention varies depending on yr substrate, this can also alter the amount of fluid needed to maintain a healthy plant. Airflow can also play a huge role in regard to the amount of fluid too. Your plant needs to breathe, it needs fresh air so you need at a minimum an intake fan and I'd strongly suggest a circulation fan for inside the grow space/tent to move all of that air around. If you don't move that air stale around the humidity can build and mould just loves humid environments.

 

So I think somewhere in amongst all of that I've answered most of your questions

 

Hope it helps

Merl1n

Edited January 16, 2021 by merl1n

[Dynamix]

Sorry everyone I've only just seen all these replies. Thanks so much for such a good lengthy reply there. I've got a few seeds failing to crack open. They went through the same procedure as 2 other seeds which have split open but there's about 8 that won't. Any ideas? Thanks so much again

[stonher]

if they wont open just buy some more, from reputable breeders id say thats not overly common to get that bad a strike rate, whod you go through and what method you been usn