Basic plans are easy. However, it greatly depends on your situation.
If you are not concerned with light leakage and smells then your situation is simple.
Get a 5 gallon bucket, cut a whole in the lid to fit a hydroponic type basket. Fill the basket with some growth medium, some like ceramic pellets.
Get clean water. put it in the bucket.
Get good seeds - from wherever.
a big new movement in seeds are the autoflower seeds. For a nub, these are probably best. They have decent quality and feminized seeds are unlikely to be hermaphrodites so you should be able to have one plant and get a female. (males are actually the not the worst thing in the world... you can separate them and save the pollen from mature male flowers if you ever want to make a batch of seeds for yourself)
Get good nutes (nutrients). Some of the best are specific for seedling, vegetative growth, and flowering stages.
Decide on lighting. There are many many options. Today it appears that a quality UFO or other photosynthesis specific LED array system is best for energy and heat concerns. However, these units are expensive.
Additional info on lighting:
many people use Metal Halide bulbs for flowering due to their excellent color, penetrance, and high wattages available.
many people use CFL due to their low energy consumption and good heat control. Also they are cheap. The problem is that you'll need either very powerful CFL (250watt) or you will need many of them. It might be better to use CFLs due to the benefits of heat control. Commonly CFLs are good because if you build an array of them you can place different wattage bulbs and use different colors of light (like 2500K for flowering and 6500K for vegetative growth)

Ultimately the setup can be as complicated as you can imagine or it can be as simple as planting a seedling in a 'big gulp' cup and placing the plant in the window sill... (although you probably won't like the result)

If you want a turn-key with as little cash as possible think about buying a small Aerogarden and then get extra light sources... to control light and smells you can put a large garbage can upside-down on top of the whole thing. If you cut a whole in the, now top, of the garbage can you can hook up a basic inline duct fan and a 50$ active carbon filter like the Elf, or Goblin (more pricey). The whole thing shouldn't set you back more than 250$.
Also, to maximize light performance you can line the inside of the garbage can with reflective mylar.

:rasta: this is the best, simplest system i've ever found. And yes it was my idea to simply place a large plastic garbage can over the grow system. if you use a small growing plant like a dwarf lowryder then you'll have plenty of room.

RCpilot - i'd say you best bet in the beginning is to start small and work your way up to more sophisticated systems that will eventually support more plants and require a larger investment, after you have several successful grows and no problems...
roddrumon Reviewed by roddrumon on . Need Help Please! Alright...finally, my state, Maine...is finally getting their collective heads out of the collective asses...and I'm slowly making my way towards being a patient, and finally kicking this Vicodin habit I've been on for almost 5 years now for chronic pain...so here's my question. I'm just starting out, and have no idea what I'm doing..I've done all the reading with all the lights and everything like that...but I'm just starting out, and I don't want to make such an investment until I know what Rating: 5