If you're really short on cash, go with the Miracle Grow soil. You can get a bag at Walmart or Home Depot for about $10. It has some nutes in it that will cover you for at least a month or more, depending on how nute hungry your plant strain ends up being. You don't want to be adding any nutes to a young seedling anyway, since it will burn easily. If you plant directly into the largest pot you plan on using, you won't have to re-pot and add soil. Of course, the bigger pot means you risk wasting more soil if you end up with a male plant. A cheap alternative is to start out in a party cup - any plant that doesn't make it uses minimum soil. When a plant outgrows the party cup, you re-pot into a larger pot. I got small plastic trash cans and larger black plastic 3 gallon buckets (the final homes) for just $1each at a dollar store. Don't forget to drill drainage holes in them! You can sex the plants before putting them into the largest pots (and toss the boys), then just add whatever soil is needed to top them off in the bigger pots. If you can afford about $4 more, a bag of Perlite from Home Depot would be a good idea to help with your soils water retention. If you're only going with one plant to start, a smaller bag of MG soil may be found for about $4-5 right in the floral dept. of a larger grocery store. If you're doing several plants, this is NOT the cheapest route, as you'd be needing more than one bag - so the larger size is more economical for covering future re-planting needs. You can get white poster board or silver mylar wrapping paper to use as a reflective surface for your grow space - also from a dollar store! Things can be done on the cheap if you get creative...
