I thought I was going to be an expert grower my first time. I started out trying to grow in soil and DWC at the same time. I had something like 10 plants in a 10 gallon reservoir (fail) and 10 plants in 1 gallon fabric grow bags (overkill). I imagine all the experienced growers are currently laughing hysterically at this and can already pick out at least 10 issues with this overly enthusiastic first attempt. Between setting myself up for failure and then an unexpected attack of spider mites I didn't even manage to harvest anything untill my 3rd or 4th round of plants.
But from doing this I pretty much made every common mistake possible early on and learned very very quickly alot of very important things about growing. I'm still new to this and learning every single day but I have a lot of people that now come to me for advice on their own grows. Weather thats a smart move on their part or not is yet to be seen lol
The advice I give to everyone who is just starting is this... start with just 1 or 2 plants.
Don't spend a fortune on seeds online for your first grow. Start with seeds you find in a bag of bud if you can or ask some friends to save any seeds they find for you. If you have to buy them buy the cheapest ones you can find. I do recommend starting with seed over clones for your first time but if you know someone that grows that is willing to give you a clone or 2 that works too.
But start in soil. my recommendation is
Fox Farm Ocean Forest potting mix. This should feed your plants seed to harvest assuming you have a strain that doesn't take more then 8 weeks to flower. This also makes an excellent base for a living super soil which can easily be achieved by adding a premade concentrated mix such as
this. Or there are several recipes online. You can also find recipes for great soilless mixes using coco coir as a base if you are and really into DIY and are ambitious.
I say soil because a good soil medium with all the required nutrients is almost fool proof and requires the least amount of labor. Water every couple of days (when the top inch of soil is dry) and probably daily in flowering phase. Frequency depends on alot of things so I won't get into that.
I inevitably decided to scratch my whole original plan and decided to go for coco as well after a lot of research I decided it to be the best of both world IMO.
My advice for Coco is set up an automatic watering system unless you have a daily schedule that doesn't fluctuate where you know you will be home multiple times a day every day to water your plants. Coco needs to remain 80%-100% moist so your gonna be watering multiple times a day. Maybe once a day if you use very large pots. Again there are many factors at play so just how frequently is something you will need to determine. I can't recommend the absolute best nutrient for Coco but I myself use General Hydroponics Flora series 3-part because I have found it to be the most budget friendly and because I have found a lot of references and resources using this. A lot of people recommend buying your coco from the same manufacturer as whatever nutrient you choose to use as they're formulated to complement each other. Beyond that I recommend
https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/ for the what how when and why of the whole growing process.
The reason I threw in my go to advice about soil is because based on the products you listed I got the idea you wanted to go with an amended medium that will feed your plants for you and the liquid nutrients as kinda a supplement. The reason I think this is important is...Traditional Coco coir and soil are considered drain-to-waste feeding (vs recirculating). I look at it like there are 2 types of drain to waste, (1)all your nutrients are already in your medium and you only provided water for the entire grow. Best example being soil. (2) the medium is inert meaning there are no nutrients in the medium so you have to provide them at every watering. Coco being the most common. It could be said there is a 3rd which would be the combination of the 2. Which is what I think you would be going for. My concern with this would be not knowing exactly how much of each element (NPK and micro nutrients) are in your medium already and then adding in more with your liquid feed you risk adding to much of something which would result in nutrient burn. I would stay away from amending the coco coir unless you can be sure your not doubling up certain things.
A couple other important things... Your water maters. Most people recommend RO water which is basically water at its purest. This equipment can be pricey so I opted for a
Filter made for watering plants that attaches to a garden hose.
Always adjust the pH after you add nutrients to your water. Aim for 5.8 (5.5-6.5 is the safe range).
It's recommend to allow 10%-20% run off each time you water (allow water to come out the bottom) this helps remove excess salt. To much salt can cause nutrient lock out. This run off needs to go somewhere. You don't want your plants sitting in it. I don't like to waste nutrients so I use it to water my flowers and stuff outside.
You want to measure the EC/PPM of this run off as well as the nutrient solution you are giving the plant each time you water. It will tell you alot of things when you compare the two. If I try to explain that I'll mess it up LOL so check it out
Here.
The pH of the run off can be useful information as well. If it's drastically different then what is going in then something's not right.
If you don't have a good quality light all the nutrients and additives in the world won't do a thing.
Last but most importantly stick within your comfort level. Reading things online you will find all kinds of technical terms and numbers and people saying you need this and this and this. I got so overwhelmed by all the advanced technical stuff that it wasn't fun anymore. It felt like so much work I didn't want to do it. So I started over with one plant in Coco using base nutrients. From there I added on one additive or technique at a time and continue to do so as I learn. Now I have 2 or 3 plants in flower in a tent at a time and 2 or 3 in veg at a time. This way when I harvest I have plants ready to move into the tent right away to replace them and by that time I have clones rooted or seeds germinated to take their place in my veg set up. And I repeat this rotation every 8-10 weeks.
Moral of the story- start small and keep learning but don't overwhelm yourself. Keep it fun and enjoyable!
Hopefully this rambling made sense haha
Good luck!
