Any tips for low budget growing?

iGsus

Member
So a couple days ago I decided to germinate a seed I found in my weed (Purple kush). It started to grow so I planted it in a small pot I used to have a cactus in. It's about 3 inches tall now with 2 small sharp leaves and 2 round ones. I add a little bit of water every day to keep the soil moist and have it under a fluorescent lamp in my room.

Is there any way to increase the chances of it being a female? When I transplant it what are some inexpensive nutrients or soil I could use? I don't want to go buy a giant bag of potting soil for 1 plant. It's winter right now so it's not like I could raid my neighbors flower pots (I totally would). I DO have more seeds that I could plant, but I want to know what I'm doing before hand just in case i screw up somewhere along the line.

Not looking for super high quality. I just want the damn thing to grow buds that don't taste like dirt.
 

Hydrotech364

Well-Known Member
Why cant you raid there flower pot's in the winter?Anything worth doing is worth doing well.The Bigger the Roots, The Bigger the Fruits......
 

dadio161

Well-Known Member
hmmm , looking for tips.
My advice is to keep doing what you are doing and READ everything you can find. This site is loaded with info. All you need to do is load a bowl and READ.

So a couple days ago I decided to germinate a seed I found in my weed (Purple kush). It started to grow so I planted it in a small pot I used to have a cactus in. It's about 3 inches tall now with 2 small sharp leaves and 2 round ones. I add a little bit of water every day to keep the soil moist and have it under a fluorescent lamp in my room.

Is there any way to increase the chances of it being a female? When I transplant it what are some inexpensive nutrients or soil I could use? I don't want to go buy a giant bag of potting soil for 1 plant. It's winter right now so it's not like I could raid my neighbors flower pots (I totally would). I DO have more seeds that I could plant, but I want to know what I'm doing before hand just in case i screw up somewhere along the line.

Not looking for super high quality. I just want the damn thing to grow buds that don't taste like dirt.
 

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
raid the neighbors pots lol.

just buy a bag of good soil, youll be growing more plants soon enougg:D growing is more addicting than the product.

just look into some torrents, the elite marijuana growing guide is the best one to date.
 

infdjedi

Well-Known Member
The thing to remember my friend is growing is an incredibly difficult, time consuming, technical, and in some cases illegal. If you are going to start to grow, you might as well have read enough that your eyes are bleeding and have all the equipment, ferts, lights, etc ready to go before you even germ your first seed.

With that being said since you already germed, here is what I would do.

With 1 plant you are not going to get a lot of yield unless you throw a lot of light at it and give it plenty of space + time to grow. If you don't do this, you could sit there w/ 1 plant for lie 3-4 months and end up with 1/4 ounce of weed. It will have cost you way more than buying that on the street and if you are at risk, 90$ sure doesnt seem worth it.

If I were you and had a good, safe place to grow it I would get a 250W MH/HPS light. Heat generated is pretty low so you won't need air cooling if your spot is big enough. Then transplant into a mix of fox farm ocean forest, perlite, and dolomite lime. Feed w/ Fox Farm's Trio of ferts. Use MH at first then switch to HPS 2 weeks after flipping to 12/12. This will give you at least some beneficial risk vs reward.

The thing about growing is one plant is one plant regardless of how well its doing. If your taking this risk on you might as well be setup to gain something worthwhile, don't you think?

Oh, and I would not take soil from outdoors and bring it indoors. It's probably covered w/ dormant spider mite eggs which are just waiting for a warm climate to hatch. Keep it all fresh from indoor soil.
 

cues

Well-Known Member
Stage 1. Raid the flower pots! The compost in them will be great for starting as a lot of the nutes would have washed out in winter.
Stage 2 Either nick one of the pots or re-cycle a plastic bottle or something.
Stage 3 Keep watered, damp but not soaking. As each pot fills with roots pot up to something bigger. When you get to about 1.5 litres you will need a bag of compost or a grow-bag split open. These can be cheap £1. If using a cheap one, the soil is best sterilized in the oven or microwave to kill aphid/whitefly eggs etc.
By August you should be in a 5 or 10 litre bucket (with drainage holes drilled) if given enough sun.
Now is the problem. Flowering. It needs 12 hours of total dark every day at the same time for about 10 weeks. You can either put it somewhere dark daily or wait for 12/12 to occur naturally (september 21st uk) in which case it will be a race against the cold weather. Now, you should be watering with tomato food (also about £1)
I think the best is a mix. If you can bring it into a dark area daily mid august to induce flowering and then put it out late september.
Remember, the 12 hours dark is strict. Not one chink of light, 10 seconds of open door or a streetlamp.
Good luck.
 

clayman187

Active Member
you can go buy a few cfl's and get them as close as possible to the plant...they dont cost much but will get you atleast some of the light your plant needs.
IE: 6500k for veg and 2700k for flower aslo keep in mind that when you look at the cfl package it will say 23/100...the 23 is the actual wattage that you are using.
 

Indoor Sun King

Well-Known Member
Flowering. It needs 12 hours of total dark every day at the same time for about 10 weeks. You can either put it somewhere dark daily or wait for 12/12 to occur naturally (september 21st uk) in which case it will be a race against the cold weather. I think the best is a mix. If you can bring it into a dark area daily mid august to induce flowering and then put it out late september.
Remember, the 12 hours dark is strict. Not one chink of light, 10 seconds of open door or a streetlamp.
Good luck.
Outdoor will naturally start to flower in about 3 or 4 weeks after June 21, it does not wait for 12/12.....you can trigger it sooner by using the dark room but it's not that strict, I flowered with 10 dark 14 sun.

The hot July/Aug/Sept sun is required to grow nice big buds, so using a dark room to trigger flowering in late June or early July is a good idea....

if growing outdoors in the UK....by Sept 21 the trichromes on your buds should be starting to get milky white....because we know October weather can be cool with limited sunshine.
 

cannabiscultivation

Active Member
99 cent store has some nice focused 23 watt cfl's
3 or four of those will get one through veg.
stop watering everyday.
these plants hate "wet feet"

read read read...
 

Vindicated

Well-Known Member
A bag of Miracle Gro Seed Starting Mix will set you back around eight US dollars. However after about a month you'll want to switch to a potting mix for established plants. Your local garden and home improvement stores should carry adequate potting soils. I like using Kellogg Patio Plus and it goes for around four dollars a bag. What I like about the Kellogg brand is they use organic fertilizers like meals and manures so the chance of burning is a lot less than with something like Miracle Gro Continuous Feed with Moisture Control. You may not find Kellogg soils in your area area but you should still be able to find something comparable. Just read the ingredients and compare them.

The indoor threads might be a better place to learn about lighting. I use a 200w CFL bulb with a Hydrofarm hood just for starting seeds. After three weeks I transplant outside. Indoors I would want at least 400w to flower but you might be able to get away with less.
 

bseeds

Well-Known Member
get a good container holes in bottom for drainage and a tray under that to collect the runoff small bag of mirical grow potting mix or you can get small bag of soil and add old strofom in little pieces and little pebbles for airation in soil ,then get a sulable fertilzer but be care full and follow direction because plant start to use it instant then water therly and let dry out and repeat not fertlizeing every time
 

Bakatare666

Well-Known Member
As Vindicated said, MG isn't bad, as long as you don't try to feed too early.
My last 3 plants have been germed to finish in MG soil.
You should be able to get a bag of moisture control soil, and also a bag of perlite for under $15.
I mixed about 40% perlite with my soil, and sprouted and vegged under 98w of CFL's.
With that, you shouldn't have to worry about feeding or anything for at least 2 weeks.
Mine got first food at 25 days from sprout.
Here it is at 21 days when I transplanted.View attachment 2499954
Here it is 10 days later in more of the same soil.6dec10_zpsa6eea805.jpg
This was done under about $20 worth of CFL's.
 
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