One Plant, One Dream..

I am currently embarking on a journey to begin growing a seedling of my own in a small closet. Though I have been doing my homework and learning the trade, I do know I can always learn more. I joined this website after finding it time and time again during my research. I've read a lot of the forums and many of your grow journals. I wanted to make this post to cater towards my one plant. I have a few questions that I wanted to throw out there.

Fluorescent Lighting - Is it okay to stick with these through flowering? I know they don't really have the lumen output you want for flowering, but my pockets don't run too deep. Please give me your opinion on HPS and MH bulbs. I want this to be a success, and I'll buy what is necessary. If HPS or MH is, then please let me know.

Soil - I am planning on using miracle grow soil, which says it can contain up to 9 months of nutrients. I don't want to overdue it by adding my own separate nutrients, but i'm unsure if it is necessary to add the extra.

Smell - I know that most people recommend carbon filters to help with the smell--however, I am only growing one plant. I have heard that a couple of air fresheners plugged in and a good supply of incense should do the trick, but I could be terribly wrong.


That's all I have for now, but hopefully in the next few weeks i'll be able to start my grow journal and real experience can begin! Thanks for all your help!

nice.. glad to see another grow beginning. welcome by the way. its always fun with the first grow

ok to begin with, the soil. I used miracle grow the first time and despite what other people might say, it actually does work really well if you know how to work with it. You're gonna have to be careful especially in the seedling stage because its gonna be really sensitive to any nutrients, and any time you water the soil will release nutes. So youll have to watch how much you water at first

Lights, try and get the compact floros with higher watts cause of more lumen output and all.. but if not your floro should be good depending on how many you have and their outputs. but you you can use it for veg and flower.

lastly smell.... dont worry about it.. air fresheners as you said are good. if you start poking your plant and bending it and cutting into it and all itll smell bad. but if you dont touch it much at all it shouldn't be releasing a lot of smell at all

hope this help some.. gonna watch this.. btw try and get some pics up

If youre on a budget get cfl lights (Compact Fluorescent lights) use a 2700k to 2000kelvin for flowering and around 6500k for flowering a cheap 150 watt hps costs around 70 dollars of line so i would go with the cfls. Hmmm i cant really help you out with soil cause i use hydroponic. Smell well just get a fan not much you can do because its one plant and you shouldn't waste 150$ on ventilation unless its that necessary.

P.S. for your lights use around 150 watts that should do and cfl actually put out good lumens thats why it says sometimes equalls to for example 200 watt equal to a 600 watt it gives out that many lumen s that a 600 watt would. Oh ya just get two lights so you dont have to buy a ballast a 100 nothing more than 108 i believe and a 50 watt.

prebs said:

nice.. glad to see another grow beginning. welcome by the way. its always fun with the first grow

ok to begin with, the soil. I used miracle grow the first time and despite what other people might say, it actually does work really well if you know how to work with it. You're gonna have to be careful especially in the seedling stage because its gonna be really sensitive to any nutrients, and any time you water the soil will release nutes. So youll have to watch how much you water at first

Lights, try and get the compact floros with higher watts cause of more lumen output and all.. but if not your floro should be good depending on how many you have and their outputs. but you you can use it for veg and flower.

lastly smell.... dont worry about it.. air fresheners as you said are good. if you start poking your plant and bending it and cutting into it and all itll smell bad. but if you dont touch it much at all it shouldn't be releasing a lot of smell at all

hope this help some.. gonna watch this.. btw try and get some pics up

Click to expand...

I see i was beaten to the post lol. Im a slow typer. Well not really i was just watching youtube.

1. you could use flouros, but a much better investment would be a 400w hps, heres a remote ballast one that comes all ready to go, just screw the bulb in and plug in the ballast to any grounded household outlet.
2. Miracle grow sucks for serious growing, dont waste your time and money bro, get you some fox farm ocean forest and some pearlite and mix so its about 75% soil and 25% pearlite.
3. I would get a carbon filter, a nice big healthy flowering gal is gonna stink like crazy.

whoops, forgot the link to the hps's i was talking about. http://www.htgsupply.com/growlighttypes.asp?categoryID=1&subcategoryID=155

hey bro,
for your first question, you can deffinatly veg, and flower with flourescent lights. you will just have to use the right spectrums, 5600k(blue) for veggatative growth, and 2700k(yellow/orange) for flowering. you wont get the biggest yeild, but you are on a learning experience for your first grow and i would recomend to use flourescent lights.

#2. in my honest opinion, stay away from any miracle grow soil or nutrients. you dont want to put a seedling into soil with nutes because it will give it a killer overdose and most likely burn it. and throughout the entire grow it will be getting uneven amounts of nutrients causing all kinds of problems. i use black gold potting soil, its really cheap, and works great.

i dont know much about smell because i dont have to worry about it very much, but im sure some air fresheners and incense would work for one plant.
hope i helped some haha
good luck!


[EDIT] all those while i wus typing? haha my bad..

first time grower here check out my journal. Dont have a great setup yet but they light i got is working great. CFL from menards. massive lumens i think over 4500. hope to see your progress take some pics. Some people love miricle grow some dont. I used it with a mix of perlite. id say 25% peralite. Working great for me so far. Ive heard fox farm is the best but noone in my area had it. I just use nutrients in water. posted on my grow blog. hope at least i can help you out a little im a newbie as well.

https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/335071-first-time-growing-ever-well.html

im amazed at how many people responded with such detailed answers, good job everyone, +rep to all. It always makes me happy to see people helping others(especially noobs).

Kushmaster18 said:

example 200 watt equal to a 600 watt it gives out that many lumen s that a 600 watt would. Oh ya just get two lights so you dont have to buy a ballast a 100 nothing more than 108 i believe and a 50 watt.

Click to expand...

this is untrue? on the box of CFLs when it says 23W equivelent 300W, its saying its equiv to 300W of incandescent light, witch is totaly useless to plants. it will say how many lumens the bulb has on the box, pay no attention to the equivelent.
just sayn..

yeah, we go by actual watts, not incandesent watts equivelent. thats just gonna confuse him.

yea wusnt tryn ta bash or anything, just dont wanna send this guy in the wrong direction befor he even really starts =] lol

Wow you guys are fast! Your all awesome! Thank you very much you all make me feel very welcome and noobie

Were going to be ordering 5 feminized Auto-Berry seeds this coming week, but I promise to post pictures of my set-up before then, i'll need to make sure it'll past the test! I'm hoping to have more than one plant growing at once, but I am a very patient person and I have a passion for marijuana. I believe strongly in its medicinal benefits, a long with its agriculture benefits as hemp. I want to work out all my growing bugs with one plant for now, and hopefully when everything falls into place i'll be able to benefit from more than one!

Thanks again guys, i'll definitely have many more questions for you as I go.

P.S. - I'm a lady, btw but I guess I can be considered one of the bro's

I have another random question to bump this with -

Is there anything wrong with planting the seedling in the 5 gallon pot we're planning on harvesting it in? I haven't seen anything that says don't do it, but i also haven't seen anyones grow gardens with seedlings in 5 gallon pots.

not to much no. I have had problems with drainage. So i usually start the seed in paper towel to germinate. then throw it into a plastic or Styrofoam cup. larger supersize Styrofoam cup. And let it grow. with the Styrofoam cup i poke holes in the bottom for air. When i went to transplant though the top was moist and the bottom wasn't. my bad with that one. I think you should go small then upgrade when the plant is healthy. I might be wrong but that's what i have done in my journal. Starting off at 5 gallons seems like alot of dirt for a plant still in the stages of growing. it might die you never know what happens. I have had lots die before i learned on my own then i found this forum. With my plants i have i still don't want to transplant them into 5 gallon containers. Just seems like a waste plus i have to change my grow space. haven't made a box yet. I started my seeds in a large shot glass till i saw roots hit the bottom. so I dunno just my experience.

5 auto's in 5 gal pots is alotta cubic ft for cfl's also prolly a waste 2gals 7.5x7.5 pots plenty and much smaller foot print a 70 or 100 hps street light from lowes 42 or 62 bux would do you better pull it apart and remote ballast the 70w and its cooler than a cfl as for nutes alaska fish fert is cheap available at lowes and home depot for 7bux a quart and easy to use and hard to burn bottle of unsulpered molassas 4 bux at grocery store are good start for nutes cause they gonna do better if you feed em id stay away from time relased soils

although there's nothing wrong with it, it would be better to start small. gernminate first in a paper towel then to a little cup or small pot and replant later so the roots can build up and the plant can grow stronger but you can go straight to a 5 gallon if you really want. And you'd have to be vegging it for a while to make the 5 gal. worth your while but youll have a nice tree if you grow it right

you can go straight to a 5 Gal if you really want. but the biggest problem with this is over/underwatering. if you water the entire pot your poor little plant is going to have one hell of a time trying to wick away the water, and form a strong root mass. and if you just water around the plant theres a good chance you wont get the entire root mass wet and leave it under watered. using smaller pots and transplanting is mostly to help make sure there is no errors on the growers part.

Your not really considering going with the cfls still, are you? if your doing 5 plants in 5 gallon pots you really should use the hps, i wont go so far as to say need, but your gonna spend more to get enough cfls to do a decent grow with that many plants of that size. Get you at least a 400w hps. Cheaper, Easier, Faster and more growth. choice is easy really, I'd get 2 400w if you can. 400w of hps will greatly out perform 400w of cfl, so you'll have to spend more on electricity for a cfl grow to get similar results. Cfl's work good for small grows and as supplemental lighting, but for a big grow its really not a good choice imo.

I saw some really cheap lights 250watt at walmart i only glanced at them but they were extremely cheap 6 bucks i might consider that in my grow