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[MEGA] Basic Cultivation

Hey guys
basically I'm a first time grower, I don't have any problems with the growing process (yet!), it's more of an electricity/lighting issue I'm having.

I have to grow my plant in my shed outside so that my 'rents don't clock (they think I've stopped blazing), so need to use an external power source, a battery of some sort. But I'm hopeless at electronics like this, so I'm wondering if any of you have experience in hooking up 250 W CFL lamps to some sort of battery...what type of battery do I need etc.

There's almost no info on this on the net, so any help would be much appreciated
thanks again!
 
no can do my friend. those cfl lights are for operation on an A.C. power system. Batteries are D.C. you would have to use car batteries to power an A.C. inverter. the amount of current you would be drawing would make recharging the car batteries impractical. and you certainly would have a hard time hiding a system like that.
 
no can do my friend. those cfl lights are for operation on an A.C. power system. Batteries are D.C. you would have to use car batteries to power an A.C. inverter. the amount of current you would be drawing would make recharging the car batteries impractical. and you certainly would have a hard time hiding a system like that.

Thanks a lot man, thats gonna save me a load of time and hassle, I'm just gonna have to connect it to the mains and hope the 'rents don't see the difference in the electricity bill!
 
if you're just gonna use the CFL's, there won't be any noticable change in the bill. Its when you start hooking up the 1000 watt HPS and the fans and timers and exaust, etc etc. Thats when your bill will change

even then it won't be too bad. A 1000 watt HID will draw 9 amps of current from a 120 VAC source. Fans and exaust, maybe another 3 or 4 AMPs. Still nothing major. The larger operations use multiple 1000 watt systems and the draw a lot of total power. A little closet grow is really no big deal.
 
hey guys i have a simple question. me and my brother are leaving for the weekend so we're not going to be able to have anyone to water the plants for the weekend. would this cause a problem? should we put a little more water than usual before we leave for the weekend?


Well, it depends on if you have them in pots or planted in the ground. You have a few options:

Ground: Depending on how big they are, and if the soil they are planted in has water crystals or not, you can water them very heavily, say twice what you would usually do. That should have your plants happy for 3-4 days depending on your climate. Another choice would be to use a "Aqua Spike" http://aquaspike.com/ which can be used so your plant should stay happy for 4-5 days.

If you are indoors, use a Aqua spike if the pot is big enough, or get a tub of water and put the plants in them, the water only needs to be deep enough that its just covering the drainage holes, leave them there for 15 minutes or so, so they plants can drink as much as possible. They should hold up for 3-4 days depending on your climate.


Hope this helps.
 
Alright, I've got 4 plants coming along at the moment on my first grow, its an outdoor grow. The plants are about 7 inches tall now. I'm growing 3 Northern Lights, and one from a mixed bag of White Widow, Jock Horror and Northern Lights.

They are planted in some fantastic compost with water crystals, I want to add organic nutes to them, but I've got no idea about nutrients or anything like that. What should i use?

I can only buy locally, not over the net.
 
I've heard of people who spray their plants with soapy water to get rid of any pests that may be feeding off the plant. I was wondering if this can harm the plant in any way, and what type of soap if any i should use.

the soap used is horticultural grade soft soap. dont try and use normal soap. the horty grade soft soap blocks the spiracles insects breathe through, suffocating them.

using food crop safe insecticides is a more reliable alternative
 
Back when i had a plant, it started to turn yellow dispite that fact that we had enough water and sun. I asked my friend what was the problem and he said my plant needed nitrogen. Is this what my problem was?

it can be a lack of nitrogen, magnesium or other trace element. it can also be root damage due to overwatering, underwatering- if the leaves are drooping, or a number of other factors.
are the leaves drooping/dropping off?
are they uniformly yellow or are the leaf veins still geen?
what colour are the roots? are they white or yellow/brown?
are the leaves standing up, following the light?

you really need a good book when you start out

if you are still having problems, describe in more detail and SWIM will help you out. he knows cannabis
 
Alright, I've got 4 plants coming along at the moment on my first grow, its an outdoor grow. The plants are about 7 inches tall now. I'm growing 3 Northern Lights, and one from a mixed bag of White Widow, Jock Horror and Northern Lights.

They are planted in some fantastic compost with water crystals, I want to add organic nutes to them, but I've got no idea about nutrients or anything like that. What should i use?

I can only buy locally, not over the net.

go to home depot or walmart and look in their garden dept. You'll find everything you need. I used a fish emulsion and some blood meal. be careful with blood meal. too much is not good. bat guano is good too but not very common. Remember, all these organic nutes give off an odor.
 
cheap compost is better IMO. not everybody will agree here, but the less complicated the better. once your plants are established it is better to give them foood as they need it. the slow release foods found in most commercial composts make it difficult to controll their feeding. during the veg. stage they need a resonable amount of N but when you trigger them any excess nitrogen can make potassium difficult to access by the plant. i recommend flushing the compost with AT LEAST 3x the volume of the pot/bucket of water, then giving a 13/14 P/K feed. this also cleans out any metabolites from the compost. excess nitrogen will only encourage foliar growth, slowing down the flowering process and lowering yield
 
Alright, I think fish emulsion sounds like it would be suitable. Is this stuff expensive or dirt cheap like soil?

This is my first grow and the only thing I'm not knowledgeable about outdoor growing is nutes, so thanks for the info.
 
cheap compost is better IMO. not everybody will agree here, but the less complicated the better. once your plants are established it is better to give them foood as they need it. the slow release foods found in most commercial composts make it difficult to controll their feeding. during the veg. stage they need a resonable amount of N but when you trigger them any excess nitrogen can make potassium difficult to access by the plant. i recommend flushing the compost with AT LEAST 3x the volume of the pot/bucket of water, then giving a 13/14 P/K feed. this also cleans out any metabolites from the compost. excess nitrogen will only encourage foliar growth, slowing down the flowering process and lowering yield

Oh this stuff is homemade in my backyard. :)
 
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