My first real grow and journal .

Whats up ? This is my first real attempt at growing and this will be my journal of the whole process.

Memorial day weekend i decided to build a grow box . I purchased 2 sheets of 7/16 plywood and built a box that is 4'h x 4'w x 2'd . I installed two 24" flourecent lights and a 48" dual light fixture with two plant bulbs . I lined the inside with tin foil to reflect light better.
Then installed a 8 inch fan to keep air moving . I also got a temp and humidity digital meter to keep an eye on the climate.

I started 20 seeds in a bowl with a wet paper towel to germinate them on the 30th of may. On the 2nd i had 8 seeds that sprouted out of the 20 . I planted the 8 seeds monday nite and had three sprouts coming out by tuesday nite .

Today is the fourth and i now have all eight threw the soil and on there way. I will keep posting as the progress continues , and please feel free to leave any feedback im always open to suggestions.

Off to a good start. Are you planning the entire grow in that box?? VV

yeah the entire grow will be in this box and so will my others. i want to grow indicas because of there short nature. I figure with this setup i will veg for three or four weeks then flower hopeing to harvest at 3 1\2 feet tall . What does everybody think?

I think your forgetting you will have the plants in some kind of container and you will have some kind of light above them and you will need some space between your lights and your plants. Keep taking away space like that, pretty soon your in the hole, see what I mean, no offense intended to you, Hole. it was just the right word. VV

lol hole... what a great guy with a synonymous name lol...

But yeah- it looks like a great VEG box- minus the tin foil- you will get ragged on for it a bit here at the site with ppl proclaiming its for "baking not budding"- and its true... you would be better of with a white gloss paint... tinfoil leaves burn marks- those are bad...

As far as flowering in it- your plants are gonna get too tall unless you do some work to em... There are a few things you should consider when i say work... LST- low stress training, SOG- sea of green, SCOG- Screen of Green, and Topping...

This is your first grow? You could put a lot of plants in pretty small pots- like 2 liters cut down with holes in the bottom and darkened so light cant hit the roots- and grow a lot of little plants like a SOG set up- almost your best bet- but at 4ft height your too tall for SOG or SCOG unless you make it double layered.

Definitly better than my first- I put it on a window sill thinking I was golden lol... but your a ways to go before the dankness overcomes you...

hhhhmmmm well im going to remove the tin foil this weekend ans paint the inside white like everybody says, sound like a good idea . As for the box it would only take me a hour or two two modify it and make it taller .

Heres a couple questions , how tall should i make the box ? Iwant to flower and veg in the same box so i dont take up alot of space but i also thought about building a seperate flower box to. What size should the flower box be to be able to hold 6 to 10 plants while flowering?

I would like to keep 6 to 10 in veg and 6 to 10 in flower at all times that would be great .

I've heard that u should keep the temp between 20-25 C and the humidity between 40-60% while u veg, and 25-30 C with the humidity between 50-70% for flowering. That is what im going by for now but if u know something different please let me know.

The question of height is a good one. I just want to aquinte you with all of the things you would have to consider. Do the math, add the height of your system or your pots to the height whatever light you chose take up. A t-5 or led takes about 5". a hid will need a foot. the 'cool lights' can be right on top of your plants. If you want 3' tall plants, a reasonable height for an indoor grow, then you will probably wnat to allow around 6' imo. VV

6 feet is the tallest i can fit in my house ,low ceilings 6'10. I was thinking a seperate flower box that would measure 4w x 6h x 3d giving me a floor space of 12 sq feet . One plant per sq foot with a 400w hps is this a good rule of thumb. I think i will use 8inch pots to tranplant into unless yall think i should use the 10 . Thats about a foot for the pot, a foot for the hps ballast, 3 feet for the plants and a foot between the hps and the tallest plant [ hopefully ] . What do ya think?

I think you need two boxes, unless i could see your conception of how your going to fit it all in there- and make it lightproof and vented. Remember that flowering plants when they are in their darkness cannot, cannot! get any light- it is strictly 12/12... It would also have to be vented in each section, which means no matter how you look at it your going to have to build two boxes- both need to be vented and lighted- one for less time than the other... Your choice is either to stack them or put them side by side or apart. Why limit your height ability? Remember your using seeds... your gonna have less going in the flowering room than you think because you will be pulling the males out... making two rooms able to hold 6-10 plants is ridic. You'd be better making one room that can hold 6 (your veg room), one room that can hold 4+(clones being the plus, and 2-4 motherplants to provide you with constant clones) and then another room that can hold 4-6, to be your flowering room.

Then you can have the constant harvest i think you have in mind- but its difficult to do with just 2 rooms from seed- specially if your gonna stack them by height.

If you can do a microsoft paint blueprint of your original conception... it might make it easier to give you advice

I tried to put a blueprint up but couldnt figure out to get the file size down to 19kb right now its at 520,xxx . Please help a newbie .

Alright , I just got done changing my veg box and it looks and works much better now I'm able to use all of my light and every thing fits perfect.

I took the tin foil out and painted yh e inside white and then took the end off and cut 2 inch peaces to extend the inside diameter to 50" so i could hang my dual flourecent right in the center instead of having it in there at a angle.

I have decided on a flower box that will stand 6'5 and be 4 feet long and two feet wide . That will give me a floor space of eight square feet allowing me to fit at least a plant per square foot. If the plants dont bush out that much i can fit a coulple more .

Today the plants are doing good the tallest one is 4 1/2 inches and it is only day 6 so not bad. I numbered my plants to keep track of them and number six is growing kinda wierd . Instead of the first leaves gowing across from each other they are both growing on the same side .

Which week do u guys and gals usally start training your plants ?

i just let em go naturally, why are u training u have 6.5 ft?

and try making it a jpeg file...?

For got the pics.

i heard if u train the will bush out more

probably true- but they will stay shorter- i guess depends on your setup- its not going to increase your yeild much and is stressful for the plant if you do to much...

Do those cups have drainage in them, holes at the bottom... and how long are you going to do em in there...

OB Cron Kenobi said:

probably true- but they will stay shorter- i guess depends on your setup- its not going to increase your yeild much and is stressful for the plant if you do to much...

Do those cups have drainage in them, holes at the bottom... and how long are you going to do em in there...

Click to expand...

Yeah they have drainage so the excess water can drain out . The cups that have the grass type potting cups in them i can just sit in bigger pots the pothers i will have to transplant .

I was planning on vegging for at least a month and then go by how tall they get . How tall does yours get in a month? How long do u veg for? I was thinking veg for a month then flower for two months or until the hairs turn brown.

yeah if you veg for a month they will range in height from 10-16 inches with most being around 12, which is fine...

I vegged for 6 weeks- but i also didnt have a HID light for 3.5 weeks, and it sat on a window sill for a week... etc...

Check out my journal- it should answer a lot of your questions.... i went from being a complete nube to a full time ganja researcher and posted a lot of what i learned, or asked a lot of quetions on my journal- should cover you really well.

Best way to learn on this site is find a journal about 2 weeks ahead of you or more and follow what happens to them and how they re-act... thats what i did with GRN man and the TLB crew- they helped me soo much!

Cool thanks for the advise ill keep posting as i progress.

It has been a week since i planted my 7 plants , We have 14 but 7 are my roommates so he takes care of them. After the first week my tallest plant is 3 1/2 inches tall and my shortest is 2 1/2 . I would imagine they would be taller if i had a 400w mh but for now the flourecents are doin the trick.

current temps: 75-80 without the a/c 70-73 with a/c
current humidity: 55-60% without a/c 40-45% with a/c


I always have the fan in the box on and there is two more fans in the room that turn to circulate the air better. The plants are between 2-4 inches from the lights and are growing nicely. I havent used any nutes yet and i dont think im going to until they get to the flowering stage . By the time they get to flowering i will have a 400w hps. Thats about it for now so please feel free to leave comments and suggestions.