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I think I'm finally ready to try my hand at growing my own stuff. I'm kind of tired of street prices for mediocre weed of unknown origin and "ingredients".

So here are my parameters:

- space is limited. This will have to be a small box. I've found a ready-to-go everything-included setup with a box that is 60cm x 60cm x 120 cm (2ft x 2ft x 4ft) that would fit a stealthy space perfectly.

- I have ZERO experience growing weed. I don't want to mess with having to identify males and generally want these plants to be "easy" grows. To me, that screams "auto". Since I want rather short plants with good yield, I've been looking at Dutch Passion's "Think Different" after stumbling across Hazy Nevilles grow diary here on the forum. I am aware that he was using 600 W HPS. I think he got 300g from 3 plants. Another grow diary I found had one plant yield 168g.

- the idea is to produce around 40g per month. Since a grow of Think Different appears to take 85 to 90 days, the little box would need to produce around 120g per grow.

- here's the catch: I am trying to keep the initial investment in a reasonable range, since I have no idea if this will work for me. I am also trying to keep energy use reasonable. The ready-to-go setup I've been looking at comes with the 60x60x120 box, 125W lamps, ventilation and charcoal filter.

My guess is that I'd be able to fit 2, max 3 plants in that box. So I'd need 40g to 60g per plant to reach my "production target". ScroG may help here. SoG may also be an idea, but would raise seed costs (until I get the hang of cloning my plants)

Now here are my questions:

1. Do I have any chance? Or do I need at least the 250W "expensive" version of the lights to have any chance of getting a half or a third of the yield experienced guys are getting? Remember, it's a fricking small box!

2. for 2-3 small-ish plants per grow, how much will I be spending on "as we go" stuff, i.e. soil, nutrients, whatever.

3. Will these babies survive the weekends without me (eh, water)? I think I read somewhere that it's a good idea to get them good and wet and then let them get almost dry. Will this work when I am gone fairly exactly the 48 weekend hours?

Insights, anyone?

Check this out, more of a grower site... http://www.icmag.com/
Happy farming...
...

Sounds like you have done a bit of reading. Nice. Good choice for auto seed, but femenized would also prevent you from having to sex plants, and yield more than autos.
You say you want to keep initial investment low to see if this will work for you, but I'd say take a different attitude. Your either all in or you ain't. I'm not saying start a huge grow op, but to achieve good yields, yes you need 600w light. If you know your secure in your setup, and your only concern is success I encourage you to go all in for what it would take to sustain yourself. A $500 investment to get all the proper equipment required to help achieve success is worth while because, its an investment in yourself. Tell yourself you will make it work, if not the first time, then the second or third time. You're a virgin. Everyone will be bad their first time, but it gets better each time. One of the hardest parts is looking at those beautiful uppity bitches day in and day out. You can look but, don't touch! Just remember, wait=weight.

read and read some more, keep it simple for the first grow then get ambitious. redeyez is right i would go for feminized first time. white label skunk #1 took 48 day if i remember correctly and worked out nearly 4oz per plant. my fav auto is pandora takes a little longer(11 weeks in total) but the yield is totally awesome highs were out of this world too (those 2 strains are really piss easy to grow). cheap grow equipment will work but i would invest in top of line kit. i also use gumtree and ebay to buy an occasional second hand item. the last bloke i brought off had to stop or his girlfriend was gonna leave, so i got a real good deal.have you thought about bubble bags to make your own hash. i enjoyed doing this more than growing the green..

if you researched everything properly you wont mess it up, what 125w light you get?? cfls wont give you the biggest yield. i had a 600w HPS is best for me but it cains your electric MH lights are ok too. the cheap filter will not work well once the plants start to stink.do you have a fan with that set up ? i gather its a tt fan, you want an rvk
i got hesi nutrients (£49.00) coco soil (£12) lots of different sized pots, pipets, ph up & down honestly theres alot of little things to get.
i would do the seeds after you get back. hope it works out for you mate, but it will require an investment which it will pay you back untold. it would be a shame not to see if you can upsize the tent, it will cost just pennys extra to to double / triple the plants and final yield..

Congratz dude on taking the first steps to your own herbs. I just harvested 3 plants with about 250 g's dried using a 400w in a 2x4x4 tent. First let me say the posters above me are experienced accomplished growers but I take exception with their light recommendations...Getting a 600w cooled in that size tent will be next to impossible. I would get a 250w or maybe a 400w at the very most, with experience and a little luck the 250w would give you at least 120gs every 3 months.
Like DUR predicted(LOL) Check out his link it and Rollitup.org are the 2 best grow sites IMO..
Good Luck

Thanks for your input, guys!

I forgot to mention that the dutch passion auto seeds _are_ feminized, they call them autofem

Yeah, the tent seems awfully small. I may be able to go up one size, will have to actually measure the intended space.

The 125W lights would be these: http://www.homebox-shop.de/popup_image. ... 05&imgID=0 and they also have these in 200W and 250W. The alternatives are 2 x 55W CFL or the "real" thing in 250W or 400W. Like BigDanHaze, I see a heat problem with 600W in that small box. Also, I feel if I'm going to be burning 600W for 20 hours a day over the entire time (apparently that's what these auto babies want), it should be for 3-4 full size plants. Just a gut feeling, though.
12 KWh per day is 90€ per month. That would quadruple my current power bill (I'm in a small apartment away from home during the week).

So I think BigDanHaze has steered me toward 250W HPS/MH. Still intrigued by the CFL, though. I guess more research won't help here. Can't beat the process here. Throw in more light, get more bud.

They CLAIM their filter is NOT a "cheap Chinese filter". I have been getting the impression from the "Think Different" grow diaries that this strain is real easy on the stink, not the typical weed smell.

The shop I've been looking at has these complete kits in the sizes I'm looking at for anything between 300 and 400 Euro, varying mostly with the lighting options.

The alternatives seem to be:

1. Go with the power saving lights, save not that much in purchasing the kit, but cut down running costs and yield. Be prepared to supplement own supply with street weed as needed.

2. Do it "right", double or triple running costs, but never need to buy street weed again.

Oh, about making my own hash: I may think about it, once I have so much weed lying around that I don't know what to do with it Seriously, I grew up on street hash. Weed was just not available back then in southern Germany. Since weed has become available, I'll only buy hash when my weed guys are out of stock. Oh, and maybe in Amsterdam when I see something that looks yummy.

So yeah, I may eventually end up investigating that also. Might be nice to have nice hash without any street ingredients such as clipped toe nails, cut up car tires and other crap. But I guess it'll be a while until I get there

A 250W CFL won't cost really less than a 250W HPS with a digital ballast. It's more expensive when you buy it, but it's more light (superlumens !) and 250W aren't that much heat with a cool tube

Just an update to let you know that I haven't dropped off the earth. Still researching. And over all the researching, I noticed that I've missed the starting gun.

The thing, I'll be in the Netherland for two weeks beginning the last week of July. That doesn't leave me enough time to make sure evertyhing is dry and cured. Not even with fast autos (which apparently aren't always that fast)

And I'm definitely not carrying jars to the Netherlands to burp them regularly. That's like taking sand to the beach.

if you are concerned about smell do not grow anything with a skunk in the title. Wow. What a smell!

Yeah, I keep reading everywhere that Skunk #1 is super easy to grow. But then the name has to come from somewhere

I'm currently shifting my thinking from "few grows, maximize yield" to "keep a perpetual, small yield stream going". With just a small box, dropping an auto seed every 4 weeks might doa the trick. Everybody gets the same light period, regardless of age, lamp will usually be up high to accomodate the current largest plant, smaller plants will be raised as required and little guys can sit at the bottom at a safe distance from the light.

Why? Legal reasons. Here in Germany, if a bust produces less than 7.5g pure THC the repercussions are far less serious. Until I know I got the odor issue under control, I'd rather err on the safe side, produce too little and have to keep doing supplemental street buys. So I should be halfway on the safe side if at any time I only have one plant ready to harvest with a MAX yield of 35-50g and the next one being 4 weeks younger.

But growing like this you gonna have to make a special nutrient solution for each plant instead of making it for them all

Oops, that's one I've overlooked. Let's see, with probably 4 stages in the box (1 just germinated, 1 growing, 1 entering flower, 1 ready to harvest) I'd be hoping that two solutions should be sufficient. Will think some more about that.

Yeah because the same nutrients won't work for the one entering flowering and the one ready to harvest, because you have to flush 1-2 weeks before harvesting. If you do this you'll need 3 differents nutrients mixs. For the one germinating plain water is enough