Well, I used to consider the golden triangle of dependable variables to be Lights, Nutrients, and Carbon Dioxide. But, now I don't give a shit about C02 and doing the diy "sugar+yeast" bit attracts ants and bugs.
If you just want to do pots and soil. I suggest fabric pots, they are so good I don't know why they keep making pots out of plastic.
Also if you were going to use soil, don't and use soiless. That could mean many things. I've seen Hempy buckets getting extra popular, but its nothing but perlite and vermiculite.... That is not something I'm interested in growing with.
I recommend getting some dank ass organic coco. It's just like using soil, but there aren't any other nutrients in it to worry about. So the only nutrients your plant will be receiving, come from you and not randomly time released from the soil. You have to get some of the good stuff, although I have personally grown some monster sunflowers in lizard grade coco, but I don't recommend using it because I think it contains too many salts. It doesn't matter, because cocotek bricks(not blocks) are only 2.50, less than half of the price of lizard coco at the petstore.
Also since you are starting out. I have to suggest this. It's the simplest nutrient line I can find. It's a one part line. Which means there is only one thing to add to your water jug to make a nutrient solution. It's pretty damn simple. Although its new, so marketing is really weird about it. How i see it, is that its sorta of more like a two part. Only use ONENESS during vegging, then drop it halfway through flowering and use only GINORMOUS. It's like its only one part of veg and only one part for flowering. Anyways, I really like GINORMOUS. It's a bloom fert that doesn't have any nitrogen in it. So when you go into hard flowering you can use only GINORMOUS and have all nitrogen cut out without having to try some sort of ph lockout trick.
http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/cocotek.html
http://www.aurorainnovations.org/rootpots-pricing.html
http://www.humboldtnutrients.com/base-nutrients/one-part/
http://www.humboldtnutrients.com/bloom-boosters/ginormous/
http://www.humboldtnutrients.com/feeding-charts/#Oneness
1. Cocotek Coco (5kg=$11.00)
2. Roots Organic Fabric Pots (5gal=$4.00)
3. Oneness (16oz.=$40.00)
4. Ginormous (16oz.=$16.00)
Ok, and here is some math. Assuming you would make a gallon of nutrient solution a week to feed one plant. Likely you would be using a gallon of feed per like four plants for the first month. Likely you would cut the nutrient strength in half. Likely you would want to drop ONENESS during hard flowering and just stick to the GINORMOUS. But aside from that. Suppose you did make one gallon of solution per plant per week and followed the directions of "Feed, Rest, Water, Rest, Repeat". A 16oz or 473 ml bottle of Oneness could get you through 9 plants(50ml per plant according to the chart). While 37ml per plant of Ginormous is required, making a 473ml bottle last for upwards of 12plants.
Now all you need is a light. I'm trying to get some input on these UFO's, but nobody is biting.
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/375131-growufo-vs-ecogroled-ufo.html
I've of course done searches and there are a lot of threads with good examples of the quality these can produce. I just want some feedback on brand quality. See what those who are loyal to the brand say so that I can be persuaded.