Growing in the Aerogarden

[lunarose]

You're fine don't worry about it. They don't allow PMs here they don't want anyone selling and buying off this site.

[meandmine]

This is probably a stupid question and I'm almost positive someone will tell me so... but I've read a lot about feminized v/s non feminized plants. I was wondering what the downside is to letting plants get pollinated? Are polinated plants not good for smoking or is it just the pain of taking the seeds out of the final product? Are male plants not good for smoking? Why kill them? I don't understand the posts I've read so if someone could dumb it down for me

[LOC NAR on probation]

males don't live long enough to produce trichomes. The crystals on buds, so not much good for smoking. Polinating a plant tells it to stop growing buds it's mabe babies, that's seeds. so you get way less bud. It can be very good bud just full of seeds. If you grow inside and you don't kill the males soon enough pollen can hang aroud for many grows. A very good cleaning is in order.

What I do if I want seeds to keep for a long time is wait for the male to just barely start to open the nuts or pods. I usually have them separated at this point. Find a few busted nuts and cut them off and use tweezers to carefully polinate the lower branch buds so they are the only ones that have seeds to save the strain. The big cola and top buds are seed free.

Be careful a fan blowing can polinate the whole room.

[meandmine]

So my choice is to either get a lot of seeds and not a lot of pot or get a lot of pot and have to continue buying seeds? Did I get it? Plus I guess you can't know how many female plants you'll get out of a batch of ten seeds unless you get feminized ones. I think I'm starting to catch on. Maybe I should get another aerogarden and keep the ones I want to seed in there and put it in a different space? Or maybe look at another setup. It would be nice to only have to buy seeds one time. I'm uncomfortable with ordering online. Just in case. Things going through customs seems like it could be possibly risky.

[lunarose]

There are no dumb questions so ask away. You only need to pollinate a single plant to get enough seeds for several grows. I don't like ordering seeds either so I like to pollinate one female per grow per strain. They usually average a 50/50 ratio of male/female. Depending on your situation you can take a couple of the males (You only need one but a back up just in case won't hurt) transplant them in a small 1 g pot and either put it outside or set something up inside and collect the pollen and pollinate manually. It takes about 4 weeks for the seeds to develop and mature. Have you ever grown anything? A house plant? veggies?

[meandmine]

I grew the herbs that came with my aerogarden. Other than that I've killed every plant I've tried to grow, cared for or tried to keep alive. Maybe that's why everything seems so complicated on the other posts. I really am a complete newbie except for one aerogarden grow.

[meandmine]

If the light comes off the top of the areo I would flower that first under a 250 HPS and see how it goes. Ventilation is a must to keep the temps down. Cool air in hot air out. a small fan blowing across the tops of the plants.

In that room I would have a 1000 watt light and about 18 plants hydro system of your choice. end results would be about 3 foot plants, start flowering about 18 inches and they double size in flower. A good harvest of well over a pound maybe 2. enough for a year in one grow.

How would I set up an 18 plant hydro system? Is it something I would have to buy or make? What do you think the approximate cost of the setup would be?

[lunarose]

Hi, You can get a rubbermaid hydro set up around $50 on ebay or if you and your DH are handy then you can make your own for next to nothing (check the cannabis FAQs I believe there are instructions on how to build one). Personally I don't think anyone just starting out with growing should go out and spend a lot of money its kind of like buying high end exercise equipment and nothing is more discouraging then spending a lot and have one mistake ruin a whole grow.

[meandmine]

Has anyone ever bought anything from sensible seeds? They have the strain I want and I was wondering about quality, shipping, problems, all that stuff. Anyone with experience?

[lunarose]

Hi, I have never ordered from them personally so I can't say. You might try doing a search for "sensible seeds" and see if they are mentioned on any of the forums.