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I Will Take Any And All Advice

Nay

By Nay
in The Grow Room

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Nay Newbie

Nay

Posted
Posted

Hey everyone, my name is Renee and I am trying to get my grow room started. I am a patient with no assigned caregiver and want to grow my own plants. The problem with that is I have been doing a lot of reading up but am overwhelmed by the the different types of lights I need for the different stages, if I need the shiny tinfoil looking stuff, etc. I want to do this right and am sick of paying a $30 a gram and so on, so I mostly stick to the edibles which are cheaper from my pharmacy. Anyone know of any good sites I should be checking out. Or should I just give in and go through the courses to learn about it all? Again this is for me just a patient. Thanks in advance for any help.

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Kingdiamond Advanced Member

Kingdiamond

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Welcome to the forums Renee

 

Everything you need to know about growing medical quality marijuana can be found with a simple google search for early growth i use cheap home depot fluorescents to prepare them to go into the flower room where i use a 1000 watt high pressure sodium lamp in a air cooled hood.

 

To grow you will need to prepare an area of your home that is out of sight from daily traffic keeping your room a secret keeps you from getting robbed and keeps the police from being nosey as well .

 

I grow in dirt i think its the easiest to master for newbies others think different but you will need some

 

grow pots

 

soil

 

nutrients

 

timers

 

digital temperature guage

 

400-600 watt hps lamp and hood you can always go bigger later

 

t-5 fluorescent fixtures or the cheap $9.99 home depot specials for early growth / veg

 

 

Visit your local compassion club for clones or order seeds online

 

 

And the walls of your two separate grow areas should be covered in either white poly panda film or mylar found at your local hydro store .

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Nay Newbie

Nay

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Thank you very much! I will be spending my day off tomorrow at the home depot and Hydroponics store that just opened up up the street from me! I do have a friend who said he'd be able to help me get things together but unfortunately we have very conflicting schedules and I would like to get started on this immediately as I have been waiting for us to actually be able to get together but I can handle getting a few things on my own. Thanks again!

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mibrains Advanced Member

mibrains

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Welcome to our little corner of the world nay-

 

a few things i found out.

 

temperature in the grow areas is Very important.

block out all unwanted light-even the led light from a power strip can cause a hermi-

i don't adjust for ph

i grow in soil just switching because of Tarzan to 7 gallon smart pots with a tray-

if your anywhere near dr Tarzan (Atlanta) stop and see him he will show you step by step every thing you need, and need to do.

foil for the walls absolutely helps but isn't necessary immediately.

buy the biggest HPS light you can fit / keep cool for your area- plants love light.

DON"T OVER FEED / WATER

the plants will tell you what they want, and it only takes a year or so to understand their language

 

i consumed my first home grown meds on 6-3-10 and i can tell you i have never looked back-

 

peace and

 

WELCOME TO MMMA.ORG

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Nay Newbie

Nay

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Hydro store owners do their best to oversell please make a list of your must haves new growers are notorious for buying a ton of things they dont need keep it simple at first then upgrade as you learn.

 

That's what I was afraid of, being mistaken for a naive chick going into a store and having a sales person trying to get me to buy everything in there.

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Nay Newbie

Nay

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Welcome to our little corner of the world nay-

 

a few things i found out.

 

temperature in the grow areas is Very important.

block out all unwanted light-even the led light from a power strip can cause a hermi-

i don't adjust for ph

i grow in soil just switching because of Tarzan to 7 gallon smart pots with a tray-

if your anywhere near dr Tarzan (Atlanta) stop and see him he will show you step by step every thing you need, and need to do.

foil for the walls absolutely helps but isn't necessary immediately.

buy the biggest HPS light you can fit / keep cool for your area- plants love light.

DON"T OVER FEED / WATER

the plants will tell you what they want, and it only takes a year or so to understand their language

 

i consumed my first home grown meds on 6-3-10 and i can tell you i have never looked back-

 

peace and

 

WELCOME TO MMMA.ORG

 

Thank you for the welcome and the advice :) I can't wait for my year to pass and have my own supply.

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CedarSpringsCG Advanced Member

CedarSpringsCG

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What others have said. Temp is IMPORTANT. Light sealing a room, is a MUST. I use electrical tape over any LED's on power strips and fans. Green light is OK, as the plants can't see it, but any yellow, blue or red can and will mess things up.

 

Never ever use tap or well water. You have to use distilled/purified or RO water. Get a good PH meter, or test kit and learn to use it. If your PH is off, your plants will suffer.

 

Good strains are important. If you take something with no genetic potential, no matter what you do you will never get good results. Inversely, if you take something with great genetic potential, and abuse it, you will fail too. But starting with good genetics will encourage you to do more.

 

Try to find a mentor. If you have someone who can give you advice, it is awesome. Try a local compassion club, normally someone there will agree to at least answer questions.

 

Try to stick with one nutrient line until you get used to it. If you start mixing and matching, the additives will overlap and you waste money.

 

Instead of the shiny mylar, I use Poly. It is black on one side, and white on the other. Great for sealing light out. The Shiny stuff doesn't stop light from coming in.

 

When your plants are sleeping, let them sleep.

 

Good luck, and get a digital camera. There are tons of people here that can help you out if they can see what the plant is doing. So being able to take a picture of a plant is important.

 

Cedar

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Guest thequietone

Guest thequietone

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For your first few grows I suggest keeping it simple. Grow in dirt it is the most forgiving and the easiest to learn. Don't waste your money right now on expensive nutrients and soils you can learn using less expensive products and still get good results. You can get good organic fertilizers at Meijers or Walmart that will do just fine it is the same stuff you can use on your veggie garden. FL's are fine for vegging, but you will want a HPS to flower under and the bigger the light you can use the better. Once you learn how to grow medical marijuana you can then start to experiment with the various ways of growing and different products.

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Eggybuddy Advanced Member

Eggybuddy

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I agree with previous posters in regard to an organic grow starting out. Its easy and effective. Just read up on providing the right conditions i.e. light, ventalation ect.. It's not that hard to get started. Fox farms has a nice soil called Happy Frog. I like to add lots of airating soil ammendment like perlite, sand and styrofoam to an organic grow because it prevents overwatering.

Air pots or grow bags help roots breath and prevent dampening off of roots.

 

Good luck and good growing and please utilize this MMMA site for grow tips and advice!

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JuztBudz Advanced Member

+JuztBudz

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If I could, I'd suggest a couple of things...find yourself a local, successful grower who is willing to mentor you. Working thru this site is fine, but occasionally you're going to need advice immediately and sometimes no one is watching the site, willing to help, so a mentor is a safety line for you. I also suggest starting in soil, much more forgiving of NEWBIE mistakes, allowing you some time to correct problems where hydro doesn't. You would be wise to get Jorge Cervante's book "The Grower's Bible", I read this one a couple of times before putting dirt in a pot and still managed to kill several plants before I was successful. You will make mistakes, this is inevitable, but don't beat yourself up over it, they are only weeds (in reality). Most of all enjoy the fruits of your labors...have some fun with it... Peace ... j.b.

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BubbleBerryKush Advanced Member

BubbleBerryKush

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well first off, welcome to the board and I hope this ends up being a great learning experience for you.

 

since you are just starting out you first have to figure out where you want to grow, most people use their basement, but any room will do, you will just have to work around the space you are going to use. you are going to have to either use existing rooms or construct your own. Now dont be discouraged, a staple gun and some thick plastic sheeting can do the job (but it might not be legal, ie. locked enclosure). once you have an idea of the space you can start thinking about equipment, and now things get interesting.

 

First question you have to ask your self is how much medicine do you use for your aliment ? I know you are going to hear about, "go get a 1000 watt HPS" but you might not need that, hell you might not be able to use 1000watt bulbs depending on where your room is and if you have available electrical outlets, you might have to run a new electrical line just for your equipment.

 

YOU DIDNT THINK THIS WAS EASY DID YOU....LOL J/K

 

I would suggest the following for a beginner cheapo system

some cheap lighting (four 2 bulb fixtures) from home depot or lowes for cuttings and veg (bulb color temp 5500k - 6500k)

either one 600 watt or two 400 watt bulbs (this way you wont run into heat issues that could trip up new growers)

two closed fixtures

A small carbon can filter, a fan to push or pull air

3 or 4 fans to move air around

a bag of pro-mix (with fungicide)

some super basic nutes (or you could take the time to learn a simple soil recipe, so you dont have to do anything but water)

a tub of some sort (to bubble your water before you use it)

a few 5 gallon buckets to mix nutrient solution (or adjust ph)

 

and last but certainly not least

READING READING READING READING READING....!!!!!!! you will learn a lot as you go, but thats what places like this are for, we dont judge, and most of us try to help because we all know we started out somewhere and had to learn everything the same way you eventually will. Also do some research about CC meetings and Farmers markets in your area, so you can possibly purchase some genetics (which is the most fun part for me, its like collecting baseball cards all over again). But there are many people on this forum that are more than willing to give you genetics and help so dont be afraid to ask questions, someone will answer them....

 

good luck,

BBK

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