Alyxaria
10-23-2009, 09:15 PM
I try not to post newbie questions in forums because I know everyone is busy with their own stuff and from what I saw here already, a lot of you are pretty advanced in your growing. But I basically have a dead line with this as my lease may be up within weeks of what I hoped to be the end of my grow cycle. I had planned on using an average sized closet to grow 2 plants. It was going to be a simple set up; flat white paint, adjustable grow light and 2 plants in soil. I did look into different strains to get a better idea on flowering times, how long to veg for, yield, basic things like that. Unfortunately, the closet I had planned to use is now home to my girlfriend's things so I'm left with the room next to my office and very little time to look into how to use the space. AND, I've been afflicted with a desire to use as much space as possible in the room because I see no reason to devote the whole thing to just 2 plants. I'd rather rent the room out and use the money to buy what I want to smoke and the snacks that I end up needing afterwards.
The room is probably 12x16 feet if not bigger with an angled ceiling. So I do realize I'm not going to be able to fill it with 500 plants but I'm also pretty sure it's big enough to hold more than 10. I'm hoping someone can tell me if starting with 20 - 30 with a loss expectancy of no more than 5 is a realistic if somewhat high for a beginning grower.
I haven't decided on lighting yet but I was thinking of using an extension cord with an adapter to put a light bulb in like I saw in another thread here. I can't do much as far as remodeling the room goes but I'm sure I could put a few hooks in the ceiling to run the cords over to adjust the height of the lights according to growth.
I'm still going to use soil. A decent hydro system will be too much of an investment for a single use before being torn down and moved. I saw something, probably in the same thread as the light idea but I could be wrong, about a mix from stores with a small amount of fertilizer already in it and I've pretty much decided on using something similar and adding more later when the plants need it.
As far as ventilation goes I know a small fan isn't going to cut it but with so much space in the room I don't know how big of an issue it's going to be. I assumed that opening the door when no one other than me would be here for a while and using a large fan to push air out of the room would allow air to flow in above the fan keeping the plants from being damaged (the fan is pretty strong) would get enough air flow to work moderately well. I'm not expecting heat to be an issue as the room is large enough that the lights shouldn't have a huge effect on temperature and the heat in the rest of the house is seperate from that room. Currently if we have the heat in the house set to 70, with the door closed it stays just above whatever it is outside. Likewise, if we have a huge snow storm and we turn the heat off when we go to work I can still have the heater in that room on so the plants don't get too cold.
And, since this strikes me as being a massive undertaking for someone with little experience, I feel I should let everyone know I'm not an aspiring commercial grower and I'm not trying to pay off any credit cards. It really does just seem like a waste to have all that space and use it for very low numbers. Especially since I'm sure I'm going to end up killing a few. Any ideas of how to go about doing this would be greatly appreciated. I'm still looking around for info so I'm definately not taking the easy way out of learning. lol Just thought you guys might have a few ideas I won't get from people around here since all they do is secret one-plant-shows in mommy's basement. Oh, and strain suggestions are welcome too. I've been waiting to order seeds until I knew exactly what I was going to do. During my online wanderings I've seen a few comments on the safest place to get seeds from, if you have good experience with a certain place please let me know about that too. If not I do have an idea of where to go. Sorry for the novel but thank you in advance for any help.
The room is probably 12x16 feet if not bigger with an angled ceiling. So I do realize I'm not going to be able to fill it with 500 plants but I'm also pretty sure it's big enough to hold more than 10. I'm hoping someone can tell me if starting with 20 - 30 with a loss expectancy of no more than 5 is a realistic if somewhat high for a beginning grower.
I haven't decided on lighting yet but I was thinking of using an extension cord with an adapter to put a light bulb in like I saw in another thread here. I can't do much as far as remodeling the room goes but I'm sure I could put a few hooks in the ceiling to run the cords over to adjust the height of the lights according to growth.
I'm still going to use soil. A decent hydro system will be too much of an investment for a single use before being torn down and moved. I saw something, probably in the same thread as the light idea but I could be wrong, about a mix from stores with a small amount of fertilizer already in it and I've pretty much decided on using something similar and adding more later when the plants need it.
As far as ventilation goes I know a small fan isn't going to cut it but with so much space in the room I don't know how big of an issue it's going to be. I assumed that opening the door when no one other than me would be here for a while and using a large fan to push air out of the room would allow air to flow in above the fan keeping the plants from being damaged (the fan is pretty strong) would get enough air flow to work moderately well. I'm not expecting heat to be an issue as the room is large enough that the lights shouldn't have a huge effect on temperature and the heat in the rest of the house is seperate from that room. Currently if we have the heat in the house set to 70, with the door closed it stays just above whatever it is outside. Likewise, if we have a huge snow storm and we turn the heat off when we go to work I can still have the heater in that room on so the plants don't get too cold.
And, since this strikes me as being a massive undertaking for someone with little experience, I feel I should let everyone know I'm not an aspiring commercial grower and I'm not trying to pay off any credit cards. It really does just seem like a waste to have all that space and use it for very low numbers. Especially since I'm sure I'm going to end up killing a few. Any ideas of how to go about doing this would be greatly appreciated. I'm still looking around for info so I'm definately not taking the easy way out of learning. lol Just thought you guys might have a few ideas I won't get from people around here since all they do is secret one-plant-shows in mommy's basement. Oh, and strain suggestions are welcome too. I've been waiting to order seeds until I knew exactly what I was going to do. During my online wanderings I've seen a few comments on the safest place to get seeds from, if you have good experience with a certain place please let me know about that too. If not I do have an idea of where to go. Sorry for the novel but thank you in advance for any help.