First time growing.

Since this would be my first try I can use any help I can get. And so you know I will start with only 1 or 2 plants.

a couple of questions:

What lamp should I use?
When should the lights be on?
What tempeture is needed?
How often should I water it?
How long does it take before I can harvest it?

And if there is something else I should know pls write it ;D

 

First of all: gud ideo to start with just a few plants as something ALWAYS goes wrong with the first crop lol .... not actually always bt its all bout experience mate ... i'll do a list after this but first i just wana say, if ur plants get any fungus or pests and u wana spray them to fix the problem, or if ur just fertilizing them, use organic sprays, fertilizers etc. u wana smoke the bud, and u dnt want it to kill u lol ... most the sprays and stuff u buy from a indoor grow shop are organic anyway bt if ur getting them from just some local hardware shop or something then search for the organic ones!

Anyways, the list: (these are what i recommend from my experience and the reason why, hope it helps...

Lamp: 400W HPS ... They dn't use huge amounts of power, they're excellent for both vegetative growth and flowering so its a win win there and 400W is small enough for a few plants to start and big enough for a few more plants later on if u so choose to err... double ur *cough* tomato crop lol

When it should be on: when u want ur plants to grow have the light on for 18 hours a day ... use a timer so the light turns on and off at the same time every day ... once ur little plants have rooted u should only need have them on 18 hours of light for bout 3 - 4 Weeks (after they've rooted memba) then when u want them to flower and start producing bud put the light on for 12 hours a day, this is called 12/12 (12 hours light/12 hours dark) they're usually flower 4 bout 8 weeks and will get bigger while they're flowing so dnt worry i u think they're too small (lots of small plants are better than a few bigger plants!)

Temperature: 25 - 28 degrees C seems to be fine, people over emphasize how important temp is, it's not THAT important, weed is pretty hardy and will do fine, if ur lights to close to them and the leaves start getting burnt then raise ur light higher.

Watering/Feeding: Ok water them every day for the first 2 - 3 weeks (with no fert) ... then every second day from bout week 4 onwards, bt dnt let them dry out too much, if they'rewilting WATER THEM! even if u watered them the day b4 ... as far as fert (fertilizer) goes, use liquid fert, mixed with water and bout half wat it says on the bottle, better yet a quarter evey time u water, E.G pack says 10ml per L water once a week ... u use 2.5ml per L water evry second day (or every time u water) cannabis is sensitive to fert so if the tips of the leaves start turning brown then stop using fert and just use stright water for a week or so ... bt should be fine if the fert is diluted enough ... (its all bout learing from experience mate, i overfertilized some plants once coz i was excited and thought they'd grow faster, that was a mistake lol) ... use a high nitrogen fert for vege growth and a high phosphorus fert for flowering ... the bottles usually say either for good plant growth (high N fert) or for flowering and fruiting (high P fert), the people at the garden centre or where ever u get it should b able to tell u if its for vege growth or flowering growth *of ur errrm, tomato plants* lol. NOTE: try get organic fert as it won't kill u so easily lol.

How long: If ur growing from seed ... say 2 weeks for germination, if ur growing from cuttings then they're already germinated and jst need a week or 2 to grow roots lol ... after those 2 weeks i recommend 3 - 4 weeks in the vege growth stage (the longer u let them grow the bigger the end plant will be but the longer it'll take till u can harvest (take some cuttings and try grow them under a fluro lamp so ur nxt crop will be ready after u flower this lot ... after the vege growth stage u put ur light on 12/12 and they will flower ... chuck out the male plants, (look for pictures of males and females so u no which are which, u dn't want males in the crop) ... flowering seems to usually take bout 8 weeks give or take a week or so.

that's the basics of it ... i no its kinda confusing and stuff bt im rushing to write this lol, just ask any questions u have or bout any parts of wat i've written and i'll try get back to u and explain it better when I've got more time.

Hope this helps anyway. Cya.

 

Hi I didnt ask the questions but the answers where very helpful. if you could take a few minutes to answer a few questions I have I would really appreciate it.

I have recently grown some plants from seeds......I have six!!!! and more seeds to grow!!! they are currently in the garden about 4 inches high and are looking good. I have just bought a 400Watt lamp and was wondering if it would cause a problem if i brougth them inside????????? also they have small leafs sprouting from between the leaf stem and the trunk of the plant. does this mean they are males????? a friend told me it does but im not willing to sacrifice them and then find out they where fine!!!!!!

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

PHANTOMSCRIBBLER.

P.S. im working on getting pics on this site.

 

Everyone says bringing plants from outside to inside is a big NO NO ... BUT! that's usually if ur bringing them into an environment with other plants, it can be no problem at all, they'll cope fine with the outdoors to indoors change, the only real risk is that u could be bringing pest and disease into ur grow room ... u can spray them and all that if u find pest or disease bt that can b a hastle, if u can then it would b better to do a crop all indoors bt if not then bring the others inside, just keep an eye out for any bugs etc. for a few weeks, bugs have a short life cycle so if there are eggs or larvae in the soil u should notice them affecting ur plants within a few weeks.

As for ur mates comment, he is wrong to put it simply ... dnt get me wrong, they could be males bt u can't really tell till bout 2 weeks into flowering, then it becomes very obvious, and its easy to remove males b4 they knock up ur females lol ... the space ur referring to between the stems off the main stem is called the internode, the 'V' or 'Y' shape u might call it, where the leaves come off the main stem are called nodes, and it is very natural for more leaves to be produced from these, tomato plants do it, a lot of shrubs do it, its got nothing to do with the sex of the plant.

Here's Some more info I hope Helps:

DETERMINING THE MEN!!!

- There are many rumours bout how to tell if ur plant is male b4 u flower it bt most of them are total crap, i would hate to throw a plant away bcoz i "thought" it was male and waste a possible 2 - 4 ounces of bud (or more!)
- About 2 weeks into flowering, if ur plant is male, u will no! ... The little buds forming at the top of ur plant and the internodes/nodes will have no little hairs (the females should have little white hairs) and the males will also produce oval (rugby ball) shaped pods, anywhere from 2mm - 6mm long there abouts ... If u notice these, chop the plant down and discard it (unless u want to seed ur plants and get seed instead of bud for breading purposes, which i doubt lol)

AN ALTERNATIVE:

- Instead of bringing ur plants inside u could take cuttings (or clones) of them if u like ... make a straight cut below a bout 3mm below a node, remove all leaves from the bottom half of the cutting (dip cut end in rooting hormone if u have any) and plant in soil or rock wool and put under a floro light (or try ur 400 Watt but have it very far away from them and make sure the room is cool and humid and keep the soil moist) for a week or 2 till roots form then transplant to a bigger pot (the best part is if ur cuttings die, they're only cuttings! the point where u cut them from the mother plant will 'Y' and that's another point where she'll produce bud (some strains can be pruned to make more growing tips and internodes, which means more buds produced but how many and how big the plant can make them depends on strain/genetics etc. ... if a plant doesn't 'Y' its genetics dnt allow it to create anymore groing tips, so dnt prune it anymore)) (Note: Don't prune while flowering, do it in the early stages or vege growth if u do it at all) ... If u have the time u can root a cutting from each of ur outdoors plants, (bout 2 weeks for roots memba, a week if ur lucky) then put them under 12/12 light/dark so that they flower, this will make them either produce little hairy buds (female) or little none hairy buds with rugby balls (male) (mayeb u call them footballs, u no the shape i mean lol) ... and seen as cuttings (also called clones) carry the exact same genetics as the plants they're taken from u will no if the parent plant is male ir female. (The cuttings will not produce a lot of bud coz they're probably bout 5 - 10 cm high at this point lol, u might just wana throw them away or something as u can't stop them flowering once they start with out risk of shocking a female into a male or something stupid like that (seriously tho u can shock a female into a male by changing the lighting back to 18 hours instead of 12/12) ... O and the reason for cloning ur outdoor plants instead of bringing the big beasts inside is so that u can remove any diseased leaves etc. while they're growing (just cut brown tips off leaves, remove dead leaves, leaves with obvious bugs, that sorta thing, common sense really).

I'm getting lost myself now so hope i didn't confuse u too much, if i got sidetracked and didn't answer ur questions or u have anymore then go ahead and ask! Knowledge is power ... or is it pot? lol

HERE ARE SOME LINKS TO SEE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALE & FEMALE PLANTS:

http://www.marijuana-seeds.net/malefemale.htm
http://www.weedfarmer.com/BB/viewtopic.php?t=2175

The second page is best probably ...

 

O and check out my pics if u want, there's only a few and they're quite old bt all the better ones i hav a can't really put on without incriminating myself or someone else lol

 

Thanks m8
The ones outside are only about 4 inches high so im not gonna take cuttings. all your info was very helpfull and the pictures OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! maybe if im lucky and work hard i will have pictures of that calibre to display. how high should they be before i start to flower them???????? any particular height?????

Thanks again.

PHANTOMSCRIBBLER.

 

Height ... ummm hmm lol ... That's really a matter of personal taste, people think that when u start to flower ur plants they won't get any bigger, bt they will, they grow quite a lot in 8 weeks (the usual time it takes for them to start and finish budding) ... I dnt think i left my example i commonly use on this thread thingy so i''l put it in for u now, this example is my theory from personal experience and advice so just consider it as a basic guideline:

The example:

In ur closet u have either:
2 big plants which u bud once every 8 months and they produce between them about 12-14 ounces of smokable bud

or

8 small plants which u bud every 4 - 6 months and they produce 2 ounces each, total of 16 ounces per harvest and u can get about 2 small plant harvests in the same amount of time as 1 big plant harvest bcoz ur wasting less time in the vegetative growth phase

Total:

Big Plant Harvest, Once in 8 Months = 12 - 14 Ounces
Small Plant Hravest, Twice in 8 - 12 Months = 32 ounces

(I'll try finish up now before u get completely bored with reading my crap lol) ... That's just an example but my mate did 2 big plants and it took nearly a year for 1 harvest, he got some killer size buds and they looked wicked bt he totaled bout 15 ounces i think it was while in the same time i got 3 harvests outa my small plants (which were clones from his lol) and my bud total was over double his and i got 3 freshly harvested bud in a year so the smoke didn't turn to shit or get fungus or anything ... just think bout the different options and then decide what u wana do, a few big plants or lots of little plants.

_______________________________________________________________________

There's also i theory that in the last 2 weeks of flowering u can increase ur light from 12/12 to 14 hours of light (some say even 24 hours of light) a day to increase the bud size, while this is from a reliable source i hav not tried it myself and prolly wont for bout another year, also i've always stopped giving my plants nutrients in the last week of budding so that most their fan leaves turn yellow as the buds absorb the last of the sugars from them and swell (The majority of bud size increase is in the last 10 - 14 days) ... but i've recently heard its better to stop giving them any nutrients for the last 3 weeks so pretty much ALL the fan leaves turn yellow (this i haven't tried, bt would be interesting), i think i'll try cutting of the nutrients and going with straight water for the last 2 weeks of budding nxt time seen as its nicely between the two theories lol.

O BTW ... A good height is very hard as all strains differ in size etc. (u've prolly heard this a million times lol ) I tend to go on time as i'm happy with the results i get, bt experimentation is the key to finding the best size for u
The time schedule i got (and this is for cuttings but from seed is bout the same, maybe add a week or so) ... Take cutting - 1 week under fluro for roots to form (2 weeks sometimes necessary depending on ur propagation set up) 2-3 weeks under a 400W HPS lamp for vege growth (some strains can get very big in this time others not so much, bt there are plenty of things to do to keep ur plant from getting too close to the light no matter wat stage the plant is at) ... after the 2-3 weeks under the 18 hours of 400W HPS they go under the light schedule known as 12/12 (still using the 400W HPS), they're here 4 bout 8 weeks, i'm yet to find a strain that takes much more or less than 8 weeks to flower.

Least total time taken to complete life cycle: 10 Weeks
Most total time taken to complete life cycle: 14 weeks

It's usually somewhere around those times and has reasonable results, i'll have to start weighing how much i get off each crop again, bt unfortunatly im currently not doing a crop as i'm waiting on some supposidly very high quality seeds or cuttings depending on wat my mate can get bt this is one of these guys that takes for ever to do anything so fingers crossed it doesn't take him anymore than another 2 months lol ... in the mean time im experiementing with tomato plants and a lovely purple leaved plant called Strobilanthis dyerianus (Common name: Persian Shield) ... It's always gud to hav side projects while ur waiting on unrealiable people lol

 

nice 1 I will put some pics on soon

 

well would you look at that I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hello ppl
Today I moved some plants around in various pots and then I put them inside under a 400WATT sodium light.

These plants have since wilted and some have perked up after watering, is the problem just because of the transfer from pot to pot????? or am I doing something else wrong???

 

too much water

 

I have sorted the wilting problem woooooooooooohooooooooooooooooo

things are back to normal and looking good!!!

 

From wat ur saying it sounds like u bought them in from outside and put them under the 400 watt ... they should be fine bt wen u transplant its better to leave them in the environment they're used to for a day or 2 so they dnt get such a shock ... the main reason they wilted was probly coz they nt used to the amount of heat and moisture obsorbtion they getting from the 400 watt lamp (my spelling sux 2day lol) ... as long as they have water (nt toooo much) they should be fine, if they're not perking up over night (when the light is off) then put them somewhere cooler for a while ... Hope this helps

 

They perked up over night and I am very happy with them now.

I will keep news flowing

 

cool dude ... plants are natural built so they can wilt during the day and refresh over night when it is cool and moist bt they have sumthing called a permanent wilting point where they won't come back, this is after they've had no water and too much heat (or tooooo much water) for a few days (depending on plant)

 

hey richy,

I haven`t been able to log on for awhile but things have been goin great apart from a minor thrips infestation which I hope I have conquered.

I Grew the plants to 14 INCHES and have had them on 12/12 for ten days.

2 of the 3 have shown themselves to be females, not sure about number 3 but heres hoping.

Thanks for the advice, hopefully I can post some up to date pics today.

PEACE.

 

kewl ... gud on ya mate, 2/3 is enough to b happy with lol