High True Stoners, I just want to teach you the basics. ( 1 ) SETTING UP: Just like finding a home the important thing is Location, Location, and Location. You only need a small 6 by 6-ft area but the temp needs to be consistent. An area that stays warm in the winter and won't FRY your plants in the summer is a must. A small room off to the side somewhere or a small section of your basement will work fine (2) LIGHTING: Let's talk about lighting now. Any plant can be grown under a cheap florescent light but this will leave you wanting more, trust me on this one. Go with a (HID) High Intensity Discharge light instead. There are 2 types of these. The (MH) Metal Halide that covers the white/blue light spectrum, which is good for vegging, plants. Or the (HPS) High Pressure Sodium that covers the orange/amber light spectrum, which is good for flowering or budding. You can purchase lights that can be switched from (MH) to (HPS) or even use a conversion bulb. But lets keep our cost down and keep things simple. I suggest using a (HPS) light with what's called a Son Agro bulb that covers all light spectrums well enough to be used through the plants entire life span. I would NOT recommend using less then a 400-watt light. The more wattage the light the more space covered and hence a larger yield. Here is a light I recommend. It's from the Sunlight Supply Co. Phone# 1-888-478-6544 HPS 430 Horizontal MAXIMIZER SunGro Reflector with: #7475 Philips Son Agro Lamp for $354.95 American dollars Like I said this is only a suggestion and you can search the web for cheaper or better lights, it's up to you. Here are some other supply places you can shop around for lights and other supplies: ~~~~~~GOODS LINKS~~~~~~~ (3) GETTING STARTED: Now to a plant light is food and energy so lets surround our plants with a reflective material. I suggest a material called Mylar. A 25 ft roll can be purchased for about $20 American dollars. Here's a link to a site for that and other supplies http://www.discountgarden.com/reflectants.html Since we are keeping the cost down go out and get about eight 2-gallon pots. Depending on where you get these it should range around $50 dollars. Potting soil is cheap so get the best you can. Fill the pots with soil leaving and inch or two at top. You can either germinate (start the seeds in a moist paper towel until they open and you see the little white root coming out) or sow the seeds directly into the soil and keep soil moist. In a short period of time you should have a seedling! LIFE! (4) GROWING PLANT: Now that you have a seedling that's popped up you need to start the light cycles and fan. A fan is a MUST for indoor growing. It shakes the plants gently so they grow strong stalks. Without a fan the plants will simply get top heavy, topple over, and die. A small osolating fan is ideal. The fan will help to keep small spiders from taking over your garden also. The fan is to be used 24/7 from the time your plant first pops up until harvest. Set fan on low as to not wind burn or knock yours plant down. The light cycle I recommend for vegging the plant is a 22 hours ON 2 hours OFF light cycle or what I will refer to as 22/2. Some use 20/4 and some use 24/0 for vegging but I think that stresses plants. 22/2 is working fine for me. Keep soil moist but do NOT over water and make sure you have proper drainage in your pots of soil. It will vary from different soils and temps but 1 cup a day for 2 gallon pots and 2 cups a day for 4-5 gallon ones seems to work ok. If you wish to use any fertilizers I recommend all organic ones for indoor growing. Others may give ya a sore throat. Use Earthjuice an all organic fert. Here's a link to them http://www.greenfire.net/hot/ALLJ.html Its a concentrate so you only add a teaspoon or 2 to every gallon of water. (5) SEXING PLANTS: Marijuana has male and female sexed plants. And just to mess with your head you may even get a hermy (plant with both sexes) The ratio of male to female plants is 50/50 unless you purchase feminized seeds off the Internet. So if you want 4 females grow 8 seedlings and hope the odds are with you. Female plants are the ones that give us the floral clusters we want. The males only grow cornlike tassels with small flowers that drop all the pollen. If you want sinsemilla (seedless) plants the males MUST be removed as soon as they are determined to be male. KILL the roosters before they screw up your whole hen house! hehehe Look where the leaf stems and branches connect to the main stalks (the primordia). It will show sex here 1st. A female will have 2 little white tongues (pistils) sticking out to collect pollen. A male will have, well, what looks like little balls(staminate) hehehe these are the small male flowers that will drop pollen. Once you learn the difference its easy to determine. (6) TRIGGERING SEX: Once your plants have grown to 1/3 the total size you want the full-grown plants to be, its time to sex them. If you want them to top out at 45 inches trigger sex when the plants are 15 inches. HOW YOU ASK? The same way nature does it outdoors Simply cut the light cycle hours to 12/12, that's 12 hours ON and 12 hours OFF. Within a week or so you'll see your plants starting to show sex. The light cycle will stay this way until harvest time. KILL the males and you'll have no seeds to deal with. The big fan leaves from them have very little THC. Smoke them if you want but all you'll get is a headache and sore throat. (7) GROWING THE FEMALES: Place your female plants now into a 4 to 5 gallon pots as to give roots room to grow and spread. A plant has a life span like you and I. Usually depending on the strain its 3-5 months. Then it will go into what's called "Senescence" or decline towards death. It will stop getting taller or fatter. Leaves will change colors and start falling off. The white female tongues (pistils) will start turning an amber color. Its time to reap the rewards of your efforts. Harvest Time! (8) CURING OUT: After you have cut your plants the MOST important part begins, the curing process. Alot of good weed can be ruined by poor curing and mold damage. Think of your colas of budz like an apple. Even after picked it can still be damaged and BAD. Each grower has their own method of curing out their weed. Here is a simple method. Hang the branches upside down to a lenght of string using bread or trashbag ties. Just like a stringer of fish really. Depending on the temp and humidity in the air will determine how long a good cure will take. This is a good rule to go by: A branch or stem should SNAP. If it doesn't give ya a good clean SNAP it probably isn't done yet. If you seal undercured weed up it will mold. The 1st thing mold attacks is THC, not a good thing eh? Take your time and you will have a wealth of a very smooth burning smoke. (9) THE BOTTOM LINE: For all you capitalist out there lets look at our investment. $354.95 Light $20.00 Mylar $50.00Pottery$15.00Soil for a total of $439.95 add tax $26.40 Grand total $466.35 Now you need to still add shipping and the small fan. And you'll need a small wall outlet timer for lights available at any K-Mart or Wal-Mart. But this project will still come in around $500.00 This system will pay for itself in savings from the 1st batch ALONE. Does this sound good to you? Try this system. USE COMMON SENSE. Keep this little garden of yours a secret from friends. The less people that know the better. Becareful moving supplies from the eyes of nosey neighbors. Try to do this at night if possible. Becareful the way you dispose of waste. If an odor problem arises you may need to vent or mask with a timed mister. If you have kids or family members that have 24/7/365 access to your grow area THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. (10) FUTURE GROWING: After you have tried this simple inexpensive system and have gotten the hang of it, try new things. It can really become an interesting hobby, but also an expensive one. You can get into things like cross breeding, cloning, hydroponics, adding CO2, moving light systems, trellising, and things I have yet to learn. You may wish to try a high strain type weed. Look in Seed Banks for links to banks. "Make the most of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere." George Washington |
High True Stoners, I just want to teach you the basics. ( 1 ) SETTING UP: Just like finding a home the important thing is Location, Location, and Location. You only need a small 6 by 6-ft area but the temp needs to be consistent. An area that stays warm in the winter and won't FRY your plants in the summer is a must. A small room off to the side somewhere or a small section of your basement will work fine (2) LIGHTING: Let's talk about lighting now. Any plant can be grown under a cheap florescent light but this will leave you wanting more, trust me on this one. Go with a (HID) High Intensity Discharge light instead. There are 2 types of these. The (MH) Metal Halide that covers the white/blue light spectrum, which is good for vegging, plants. Or the (HPS) High Pressure Sodium that covers the orange/amber light spectrum, which is good for flowering or budding. You can purchase lights that can be switched from (MH) to (HPS) or even use a conversion bulb. But lets keep our cost down and keep things simple. I suggest using a (HPS) light with what's called a Son Agro bulb that covers all light spectrums well enough to be used through the plants entire life span. I would NOT recommend using less then a 400-watt light. The more wattage the light the more space covered and hence a larger yield. Here is a light I recommend. It's from the Sunlight Supply Co. Phone# 1-888-478-6544 HPS 430 Horizontal MAXIMIZER SunGro Reflector with: #7475 Philips Son Agro Lamp for $354.95 American dollars Like I said this is only a suggestion and you can search the web for cheaper or better lights, it's up to you. Here are some other supply places you can shop around for lights and other supplies: ~~~~~~GOODS LINKS~~~~~~~ (3) GETTING STARTED: Now to a plant light is food and energy so lets surround our plants with a reflective material. I suggest a material called Mylar. A 25 ft roll can be purchased for about $20 American dollars. Here's a link to a site for that and other supplies http://www.discountgarden.com/reflectants.html Since we are keeping the cost down go out and get about eight 2-gallon pots. Depending on where you get these it should range around $50 dollars. Potting soil is cheap so get the best you can. Fill the pots with soil leaving and inch or two at top. You can either germinate (start the seeds in a moist paper towel until they open and you see the little white root coming out) or sow the seeds directly into the soil and keep soil moist. In a short period of time you should have a seedling! LIFE! (4) GROWING PLANT: Now that you have a seedling that's popped up you need to start the light cycles and fan. A fan is a MUST for indoor growing. It shakes the plants gently so they grow strong stalks. Without a fan the plants will simply get top heavy, topple over, and die. A small osolating fan is ideal. The fan will help to keep small spiders from taking over your garden also. The fan is to be used 24/7 from the time your plant first pops up until harvest. Set fan on low as to not wind burn or knock yours plant down. The light cycle I recommend for vegging the plant is a 22 hours ON 2 hours OFF light cycle or what I will refer to as 22/2. Some use 20/4 and some use 24/0 for vegging but I think that stresses plants. 22/2 is working fine for me. Keep soil moist but do NOT over water and make sure you have proper drainage in your pots of soil. It will vary from different soils and temps but 1 cup a day for 2 gallon pots and 2 cups a day for 4-5 gallon ones seems to work ok. If you wish to use any fertilizers I recommend all organic ones for indoor growing. Others may give ya a sore throat. Use Earthjuice an all organic fert. Here's a link to them http://www.greenfire.net/hot/ALLJ.html Its a concentrate so you only add a teaspoon or 2 to every gallon of water. (5) SEXING PLANTS: Marijuana has male and female sexed plants. And just to mess with your head you may even get a hermy (plant with both sexes) The ratio of male to female plants is 50/50 unless you purchase feminized seeds off the Internet. So if you want 4 females grow 8 seedlings and hope the odds are with you. Female plants are the ones that give us the floral clusters we want. The males only grow cornlike tassels with small flowers that drop all the pollen. If you want sinsemilla (seedless) plants the males MUST be removed as soon as they are determined to be male. KILL the roosters before they screw up your whole hen house! hehehe Look where the leaf stems and branches connect to the main stalks (the primordia). It will show sex here 1st. A female will have 2 little white tongues (pistils) sticking out to collect pollen. A male will have, well, what looks like little balls(staminate) hehehe these are the small male flowers that will drop pollen. Once you learn the difference its easy to determine. (6) TRIGGERING SEX: Once your plants have grown to 1/3 the total size you want the full-grown plants to be, its time to sex them. If you want them to top out at 45 inches trigger sex when the plants are 15 inches. HOW YOU ASK? The same way nature does it outdoors Simply cut the light cycle hours to 12/12, that's 12 hours ON and 12 hours OFF. Within a week or so you'll see your plants starting to show sex. The light cycle will stay this way until harvest time. KILL the males and you'll have no seeds to deal with. The big fan leaves from them have very little THC. Smoke them if you want but all you'll get is a headache and sore throat. (7) GROWING THE FEMALES: Place your female plants now into a 4 to 5 gallon pots as to give roots room to grow and spread. A plant has a life span like you and I. Usually depending on the strain its 3-5 months. Then it will go into what's called "Senescence" or decline towards death. It will stop getting taller or fatter. Leaves will change colors and start falling off. The white female tongues (pistils) will start turning an amber color. Its time to reap the rewards of your efforts. Harvest Time! (8) CURING OUT: After you have cut your plants the MOST important part begins, the curing process. Alot of good weed can be ruined by poor curing and mold damage. Think of your colas of budz like an apple. Even after picked it can still be damaged and BAD. Each grower has their own method of curing out their weed. Here is a simple method. Hang the branches upside down to a lenght of string using bread or trashbag ties. Just like a stringer of fish really. Depending on the temp and humidity in the air will determine how long a good cure will take. This is a good rule to go by: A branch or stem should SNAP. If it doesn't give ya a good clean SNAP it probably isn't done yet. If you seal undercured weed up it will mold. The 1st thing mold attacks is THC, not a good thing eh? Take your time and you will have a wealth of a very smooth burning smoke. (9) THE BOTTOM LINE: For all you capitalist out there lets look at our investment. $354.95 Light $20.00 Mylar $50.00Pottery$15.00Soil for a total of $439.95 add tax $26.40 Grand total $466.35 Now you need to still add shipping and the small fan. And you'll need a small wall outlet timer for lights available at any K-Mart or Wal-Mart. But this project will still come in around $500.00 This system will pay for itself in savings from the 1st batch ALONE. Does this sound good to you? Try this system. USE COMMON SENSE. Keep this little garden of yours a secret from friends. The less people that know the better. Becareful moving supplies from the eyes of nosey neighbors. Try to do this at night if possible. Becareful the way you dispose of waste. If an odor problem arises you may need to vent or mask with a timed mister. If you have kids or family members that have 24/7/365 access to your grow area THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. (10) FUTURE GROWING: After you have tried this simple inexpensive system and have gotten the hang of it, try new things. It can really become an interesting hobby, but also an expensive one. You can get into things like cross breeding, cloning, hydroponics, adding CO2, moving light systems, trellising, and things I have yet to learn. You may wish to try a high strain type weed. Look in Seed Banks for links to banks. "Make the most of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere." George Washington |
