Planning and Need Help. Very New

Jkoontz98

New Member
I decided i wanted to give growing a try and have pretty good plan so far but still need help with like what kind of soil to get.
I want something that i can just put a seed in and let it grow without having to worry about ph levels, is there anything out there or suggestions?
My plan is to get a old used refrigerator and completely gut it and cover the inside with reflective material, and 3 cfl lights. then make to holes one for exhaust and on for intake. are there any other steps or things i will need? if someone could give me a list of stuff i will need to grow like 3 plants on a pretty tight budget.
 

DankkAbuser

Member
First off in a fridge growing 3 planta ull need to keep them small maybe am auto strain will work for you
as for soil i use Fox Farms Ocean Forest u dont need to add any nutrients for about a month
as for ph ull need to chek your water regardless
ther are certain leves of ph where certain nutrients are more available to your plants
i do 6.5 for soul
 

JohnDoeOntario

Active Member
Research, make a plan covering everything, hatch that plan into action.

Youll want fan for air circulation, a temprature gauge prefer one with degrees and humidity (dont cheap out). Maybe some nutes? As for substrate I would recommend a soiless mix, there are countless threads on mixes. A lot of stickys on RIU cover the basics. Look at other members grows, you can learn a lot from journals.

I read earlier today in a diffrent thread that growing always costs more then you think. With that in mind make sure yoh have fun.
 

Cereal box

Active Member
I'd suggest starting seed/seedlings in Light Warrior by Fox Farms. It's a good starter soil, not too many nutes. I've heard refrigerators can hold heat a bit. Just something to watch out for. I'll give you a small list of thing I have and use.

Lighting, so, Cfl bulbs and bulb sockets/ballast. At least 75w per plant is the general rule I believe.
Soil, perlite, pots/bags, nutrients, thermometer and, good ventilation.

There's probably something I'm forgetting but, those are the basic things you'll need at first. If your looking for anything particular, search google for :site:rollitup. The search bar on here isn't the greatest. Good luck!
 

Mellodrama

Well-Known Member
I've read that you can ignore pH if in soil but I'm not buying it. Our well water is 8.2 pH. Our young plants looked like they were in trouble until we got some pHdown solution and started knocking the water back to between 6.0 and 6.5, which everyone sez is the proper range for soil. I've read that it's good to let the pH wander within that range because different minerals uptake more effectively at different pH.

If you're really hurtin' for money you could use test strips or a garden pond pH kit (these are the ones that use a reagent and a color chart). An electronic meter and some buffer solution for periodic calibration is much quicker. You can get a decent one for about $80.

If you have absolutely no cash get creative. Borrow someone's garden pond test kit and at least find out what pH you've got at the faucet. With any luck at all you'll be in range but I think it's important to find out.

Are you on a well or is water supplied by a utility? Some people don't worry about chlorine. Some do. If on utility water put some in an open bucket for a few days at a time to let the chlorine residual gas off.

If you want to know what your residual is, contact your utility. They should be willing to do a chlorine residual test for you if you bottle some tap water and take it straight to their lab. Chlorine residual isn't guaranteed to remain constant from day to day but that's what they shoot for.

Residual can have a lot to do with where you are. Chlorine gets eaten up as it interacts with things in the water. If all the chlorine is gone by the time the water reaches the customers furthest from the supply, those customers can get sick. So the utility has to inject enough chlorine to provide some chlorine residual at the farthest tap. That means the customers at the beginning of a water distribution system will have more chlorine in their water than customers at the far end of the pipes. If this is something that you decide you want to know about, ask them where you are on their system when you bring your sample in.

Although chlorine is still the most popular disinfectant, some utilities have gone to other methods. Chances are if you're on utility water they're using chlorine.
 
Top