My First Grow =)

[willyhog]

Hey guys! Everyone seems great! :thumbsup:

I need a pretty stealthy grow due to nosy people (not my parents, I would never keep it from them if I still lived at home!), so it needs to be really small and compact. Here's what I'm thinking about (sorry no pictures, my camera decided to get a screen error):

* Big plastic tub, I forgot the dimensions, but probably about knee depth, about 2 3/4 feet long and 1 3/4 feet wide, lined with mylar
* A 75-watt tube fluorescent attached to the bottom of the lid of the box, so when it's closed, it's suspended over the plants (From what I've read, this doesn't seem to be powerful enough, so I have 2 60-watt CFLs that I can poke in if need be, feedback plz!)
* A small fan/heater that I bought at Walmart, it keeps the interior at a steady 73 degrees, and provides some good ventilation

(When the box lid is closed, no light can go in or out, and it looks like any other box, just with cords coming out... I stick it in the attic against a wall near a socket, and it sits among the other boxes with no problem)

I know many of you experienced growers will cringe at this, but I'm scoring some bagseed from a friend this weekend, I'm gonna germinate about 8 of them in various places, then toss the males and keep the two best females in the box. For soil, I'm going to use about a quarter fine gravel, half potting soil, and a quarter worm castings/compost. Probably going to use Miracle-Gro as fertilizer this time around once the babies eat up all the worm crap. Also, I know that the forums have some good LST threads, but I'm wondering if that type of growing would be best for my kind of setup.

If this indoor experiment of mine works, I'm probably going to move my growing outside in late spring of next year.

Feedback please!! And thanks for the great resources! :jointsmile:

[uncleweed]

I got a similar set up, there is a post here, i ll post a link later from a guy who made a grow house out of two rubber maid boxes. It's kind of what I am thinking, he took two of them, put one on the ground, and the second one serves as some extra space for the plants.

It may be a good start, but you will need some extra high for your plants.

[willyhog]

Yeah, that's what I was wondering as well.

A few things came to mind when I thought of this system, one of which was the extra space for the plants, I was wondering if I would be forced to flower them at too small, and thereby get a small harvest: having two bins makes sense. Varying the height of the lights would be easy with that setup as well: I could just drill two holes through the bottom of the top bin, then hang the lights from that. It might be a little conspicuous, though, two boxes, one flipped over, with cords and chain coming out might be a little more visible than my one box with a discreet cord out the back... we'll see how tall the plants want to get after LST, and I'll just move them into the two-box rig if they feel like getting too big.

[Shovelhandle]

You will need to have fresh air flow through your box also. Plants need that.

G/L

Shovelhandle

[willyhog]

Thanks for the reply: the heating device that I bought also contains a fan, which circulates air around the box pretty well. I'll need to figure out some way of getting air into the case, however...

[mainegrown]

cut a hole in the back and put a fan from an old computer into it..

[willyhog]

I have a 120mm case fan lying around, however I don't know how to get it to run without having a motherboard handy... lol...

[mainegrown]

if you are any good with electronics find a charger for a cell phone ect and cut the cord and splice the ends to the fan.. make sure that it has the right voltage but prob 12v..
if not go to a local goodwill or salvage shop and buy a cheap fan there and scribe a hole to fit the fan.. and i would recoment it blowing out and cut a few holes to allow air in to replace the air you expell..