First post, First Grow, and Looking for advice.

Hi everyone! I've been creepin on these forums long enough and decided to go ahead and a) take my grow from the planning stages to the next step, and b) enlist a little bit of help and advice from the best.

Ok, so for some background info: My grow area is actually a covered fire escape window in my bedroom in the basement. It already has a T12 fixture in there (used to be for decorative pants), and I have some 4' cool white florescent lying around. I haven't measured the temp in there over a whole day, but I don't see it getting too cold this summer. One issue about the actual grow area is that the footprint is quite large I think for the 2 40 watt cool whites I'll be using, so I have an idea of using a white blanket to surround the plants and light and reflect as much light back and as close as possible. What do you guys think about that? If it shines through, maybe a dark blanket over that. I don't think heat, or fire would be an issue, since the light and blanket wont touch, and the florescent doesn't get that hot. Maybe white printer paper instead? Painting isn't an option unfortunately. The second problem I foresee is that there is a small bit of mildew on some of the boards that are already in the escape.. I'm not an expert on this, in fact I don't know anything about how mold spreads except that it likes wet environments, but the plants wont be physically touching that stuff, and Im going to scrape that out, I just don't want to end up with some nasty plants, and any input on that might be helpful. Other than that I feel like this is a pretty sweet area to start my first grow.

As far as everything else, Im thinking about 4 feminized autoflowering northern light plants from nirvana seeds, planted in 2 gallon buckets. Soil mixup of 5 parts perlite, 5 parts regular potting soil, and 2 parts 20-20-20 fertilizer. I'll put a small fan in there to circulate the air a bit, and plan on buying a ph meter. To keep the air fresh I'll open up the window at night before they go into dark, and just let it circulate with my room. I'm planning on 20/4 light schedule for the whole 9ish weeks. One question I have is, I see alot of grow guides that start out it small containers and transplant to larger containers after the seedling stage. Im just wondering what is the problem with planting straight into my 2 gallon buckets after I germinate them? As far as smell, I picked northern lights because I read it was a less "odery" strain than most, and I'm going to buy 2 cheap oder eater things at the store, after all its only 4 small plants. I normally wouldnt really think about this but, two of my next door neighbors are cops. They are friends, but nonetheless it has made a couple of late outdoor joint sessions a little more paranoid lol.

Thats really all I can think of right now. Hopefully this all looks good to you guys, but any criticism is welcome. And any help with my questions will be greatly appreciated. I'm looking to do a grow journal on these guys so I'm looking forward to that. Thank you! :leaf:
 

Smartt

Member
I have grown some of the autoflowers they make great window plants >< except in your situation. To avoid transplant stress I grow in peat pots when roots start to pop I toss them in the 2gals. I use 18/6 for the entire cycle. Blankets not the best idea can create heat issues if you dont have any ventillation. Keep us posted. Good luck and happy growing
 
Thanks Smartt, and yeah I'm leaning more towards the printer paper route now that I've put alitte more thought into the air circulation. I'm still not quite sure why people don't sow them in the 2 gals just to begin with, but I'm not too worried about that. Now I'm just working on cleaning out the area a bit and tidying it up. I may use 18/6 also, although I'm not sure what would be better between that and 20/4 since they are autos.
 
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