Howdy y'all,
Just wanted to make intros and give you a bit of history of my growing exploits.
Around this time last year, a friend put the idea of growing my own into my head, most of the local stuff is pure rubbish and any resin is one step up from Soap bar. It seemed like a challenge so I thought I'd give it a shot. I hope my experiences might help other noobs.
Like a lot of people who visit this site I was doing a lot of research into how best to grow the magic weed and I must admit I was a little discouraged by some of the posts I read here; seeing massive growing set ups, huge light setups, carbon filters, bubbleponics, and large amounts of plants not to mention electricity. However, the lure of a crop anything like what some of you are harvesting was too much.
I bought some feminised white widow seeds and decided to just grow in a soil type medium with a pretty minimal amount of light. I'd never had any experience growing anything that needed so much dedication. Long story short I didn't know what I was doing with PH, watering, feeding etc. 3 of the 5 plants died from over watering I think, 1 never really grew that much and the last one, although it grew big (4ft) it was just too spindley, not enough leaves and too much stalk. Very little harvest either.
I almost thought that this was beyond me. I went back to the drawing board, back to the online boards, books and research. This time I was determined to get it right. I came by what I would now refer to as the Noobs Bible - See More Buds' guide to growing. This lays it all down striaght for you, almost day by day. Me being me though, I decided to adopt his philosophies and mix it with some of the other guides and threads I'd been reading. There are a lot of people on this forum that really know what they're talking about. Everyone's got their own method though and will vigarously defend it if questioned. It's up to you to decide what parts suit your requirements, goals and budgets. From what I read I concluded that the fundamentals are; the PH of the water you use, use as much light as you can afford (bear the leccy bill in mind) and don't let the room get too cold or the plant will never grow. Another couple of things I've learned from experience are; follow fertiliser and nutrient instructions to the letter otherwise your crop is compost and no matter how organic an insecticide says it is do not spray it on the plant when it's anywhere near lights. If you have bugs on the plants, clean em off by hand.
I liked the concept of hydroponics, so I invested a little cash in a small (8 plant max) hydro system, 2x 250W CFL bulbs, a bag of clay pellets, some feed and a PH meter. I really think that if you just want to grow a couple of plants this is the max you will need. Basing my growing on SMB's guide things are going way better this time. I'm working on short, stout plants with lots of folieage. 7 weeks later, 4 feeds a day growing a Northern lights strain and this is one of my plants a couple of weeks into flower. I'm really pleased with how this is going and it's proof that this is not as difficult as you think if you follow the guides and take your time
Just wanted to make intros and give you a bit of history of my growing exploits.
Around this time last year, a friend put the idea of growing my own into my head, most of the local stuff is pure rubbish and any resin is one step up from Soap bar. It seemed like a challenge so I thought I'd give it a shot. I hope my experiences might help other noobs.
Like a lot of people who visit this site I was doing a lot of research into how best to grow the magic weed and I must admit I was a little discouraged by some of the posts I read here; seeing massive growing set ups, huge light setups, carbon filters, bubbleponics, and large amounts of plants not to mention electricity. However, the lure of a crop anything like what some of you are harvesting was too much.
I bought some feminised white widow seeds and decided to just grow in a soil type medium with a pretty minimal amount of light. I'd never had any experience growing anything that needed so much dedication. Long story short I didn't know what I was doing with PH, watering, feeding etc. 3 of the 5 plants died from over watering I think, 1 never really grew that much and the last one, although it grew big (4ft) it was just too spindley, not enough leaves and too much stalk. Very little harvest either.
I almost thought that this was beyond me. I went back to the drawing board, back to the online boards, books and research. This time I was determined to get it right. I came by what I would now refer to as the Noobs Bible - See More Buds' guide to growing. This lays it all down striaght for you, almost day by day. Me being me though, I decided to adopt his philosophies and mix it with some of the other guides and threads I'd been reading. There are a lot of people on this forum that really know what they're talking about. Everyone's got their own method though and will vigarously defend it if questioned. It's up to you to decide what parts suit your requirements, goals and budgets. From what I read I concluded that the fundamentals are; the PH of the water you use, use as much light as you can afford (bear the leccy bill in mind) and don't let the room get too cold or the plant will never grow. Another couple of things I've learned from experience are; follow fertiliser and nutrient instructions to the letter otherwise your crop is compost and no matter how organic an insecticide says it is do not spray it on the plant when it's anywhere near lights. If you have bugs on the plants, clean em off by hand.
I liked the concept of hydroponics, so I invested a little cash in a small (8 plant max) hydro system, 2x 250W CFL bulbs, a bag of clay pellets, some feed and a PH meter. I really think that if you just want to grow a couple of plants this is the max you will need. Basing my growing on SMB's guide things are going way better this time. I'm working on short, stout plants with lots of folieage. 7 weeks later, 4 feeds a day growing a Northern lights strain and this is one of my plants a couple of weeks into flower. I'm really pleased with how this is going and it's proof that this is not as difficult as you think if you follow the guides and take your time