My First Closet Grow - Suggestions and Criticism Appreciated

I decided to grow in my closet. I have no experience and I hope I am doing it right. Sadly, I dont remember how long ago I planted these. It started as nothing serious in my moms garden. lol. But I guesstimate they are about 4 weeks old? idk.

For lights, I am using a 15W white cfl that goes under a cabinet or something. I am also using another 15W pinkish "Plant and Aquarium" light. It seems pretty bright under the light so I think its doing okay. The plants have grown too.

I have the fan going 24/7 and the plants are constantly moving.

I dont have any sort of fertilizers or chems.

How do you think im doing? I would greatly appreciate some suggestions.

your plants look good.

suggestion #1. go order Marijuana Horticulture the indoor/outdoor medical bible by Jorge Certvantes.

what ever works! You might need to up date soon.

what kind of lights do you have?

rootbeer608 said:

what kind of lights do you have?

Click to expand...

It says in my original post.

oh. so just basically really cheap lights?

Yeah... those kind.

Have a good look around the forums and you will quickly find some inspiration. You're going to want to have a sealed environment with reflective material (white or Mylar), and smell will almost certainly be an issue in the future. If you're set on sticking with the cheapest option and want to use CFLs, you will want at least 3 ~25w globes per sq ft, I would advise up to double that. I you can go HPS then do so, and if you own an iPhone 4 then you might want to use LEDs. You will need ventilation and air movement, you may want to scrog or sog and will almost certainly need to LST or supercrop if you're growing anything but 12/12 from seed. Use a good soil and don't over water, feel the weight of your pots when they're dry and when they're wet to run off then water when you feel they're dry. Don't over feed them, more is less, and you will need to invest time in learning to read your plants and adjust them accordingly.

Etc.

Anyone else?

I'm doing a closet grow, It's pretty low budget. I built a box out of particle board that fits in my closet. For small grows, I would say it's best to use CFL bulbs, 6500k are the best for veg growth, 2400k for flowering. A good rule is 100w for the first plant 50w for any additional. Also with the pots, 1 gallon per foot is a good measurement. As far as soil goes, I have no experience with anything other than Fox Farms Ocean Forest. I'm not using any nutes for my veg stage because the FFOF has plenty of nutes to last until flowering, for then I'm going to use Their Tiger Bloom and molasses. Some people would say to use the FF trio of nutes, Big Bloom, Grow Big, and Tiger Bloom... I can't afford all of them so that's why I'm only using TigerB and molasses.

Reason you want a sealed environment is because of the smell(obviously) after you start the flower stage. It can get expensive. I've spent a couple hundred on my setup that is growing only 2 plants. A lot of the money went to waste because I didn't plan as well as I would have liked and rushing.

CFL's are the cheapest route IMO and are great for small grows, no need for ways to cool the bulb, none of that extensive piping. If you want to use CFL bulbs, I would say ditch those 15w and get all 26w+ bulbs Check out my grow.

If you're wanting to grow those all the way, you're going to def need something to contain and eliminate the smell.