Hi everyone, I've been trying to garner as much information as I can on this site but also feel like I'm confusing myself. Some background...a friend gave me some seeds for secret Santa this Xmas and I went and germinated all 3 of them. Hasty of me but here we are and I've got to live with it. Then via various bits of reading here and there have come to the conclusion there's a probably a lot more that needs to be done to ensure I get something out of these plants growing. I'm not looking to do this for anything more than curiosity/wanting to understand more about growing so don't really fancy spending a lot of £££ immediately - if that changes I'm more than happy to invest a lot more. I'm aware you get what you pay for but currently I've got 3 plants growing (and it's unlikely to ever be more than this in one go tbh). Would someone be able to recommend kit that at most would probably max out at £200. Honestly I've tried going through different threads here but I feel like every time I've come in with a clear question and looking for it to be answered I come away with with about 20 more. I live on my own (and a cat) so not too worried about having to hide it away or anything - are grow tents worth the hassle? Or is it okay to just fence off an area and use LEDs - fan to get rid of the smell when need be? Thank you in advance for your patience I'm just really struggling with information overload at the moment...

Life, never an easy one. So I am still ( I was hoping to have started a couple of weeks ago by now...but never mind. Preparation is the key, although necessity is the mother of invention- as some might say) getting the final bits together before embarking on a grow. This is the problem atm. Heating. Temperature in a growing space needs to have some sort of control, so what is the best way of heating a 80cmx80cmx160cm grow tent? So far I have looked a numerous methods, tube heaters, small fan heaters, etc.. but would anyone have advice from experience of heating this space? I am using a Mars Hydra II, 400w, a 5inch RAM air fan to extract attached to a 5inch Rhino Pro carbon filter. At present the temperature with the lights on and the fan running is only 22c (RH- 57%). No plants in yet (unless you count a couple of chilli plants to check out the heat and humidty levels in the tent). I appreciate RH levels will change with plants in and growing, the bigger and more water then higher levels. What am looking for is a simple heating method with some sort of thermostat to regulate temperatures. Any suggestions/ideas more than welcome.

How man plants could I realistically grow in a 1m (39.3") x 1m (39.3") x 2m (78.7") grow tent if growing in soil and how many if growing with hydroponics? With hydro, the res and chiller (if I need one) can go outside, yes? Thanks all.

Hello everybody, i have some questions about growing indoors... 1) how many plants can i grow in 1m x1m x1m (not sure if i'll use a tent or a little handmade wardrobe or something like that) . 2) Let's assume 4 plants can be grown in 1m x1m 2m do you think that a 300W LED will be enough? Or is it better to stick to just 2? Also thinking to cover the inside walls with Myalar to make the best use of the 300W LED ( i know i could use a 450W or a 600W or even bigger but the bill would be higher...) 3) How many months do i need to veg them and how many months to flower them? I thought/worked out a total of 4 months between vegging (18hrs on and 6hrs off) and flowering (11hrs on and 13hrs off). Please correct me if i am wrong regarding the hrs of vegging and flowering. I read that 18hrs is the optimum number of hrs for vegging and same thing for the flowering (11hrs on and 13hrs off not 12hrs) Thank you all for your helping replies - p.s. forgot to mention that the growing would be for seed production rather than bud production

So I found this post while doing some research. It has already been posted to UK420 by @@corky1968 but it is hidden away in a thread from 2009 - it can be found here: Highland Thai And Kerala thread in The Real Seed Company forum. Big thanks to @@corky1968 for finding this and for generally being a treasure of great info If you know who wrote this, please let us know. If you can update the info, again, please comment. I expect living soil and CMH lighting is radically changing how manageable NLD cultivars are to do indoors, so anybody with experience of both/either please share HOW TO MANAGE SATIVAS INDOORS: The method I use for the 100% sativas such as any of the African Seeds strains, South East Asians-etc, is similar, whether I grow them indoors completely or start them indoors and then take them out. Chris from African Seeds a few years ago told me that it was near impossible to get a good harvest from his strains if grown under a HID environment using only soil as a medium due to their excessive stretching and high light power requirements. Making it open wide and tall and not keeping it compact. I have informed him since that this is not the case. He sent me a sample of all his strains to try out and give him my opinion on them (which btw: I loved so much that 2 years later I ordered 3 packs of each one off him that I gladly paid for). All except for his Tanzanian as it was not on his list of strains back then. After the first go, I realized the only problem with growing them indoors was, as he said, their stretch. But to eliminate that, I merely grew them from the beginning under 12/12 regime AND all in small pots till they showed sex (at 5 weeks) prior to transplanting into a slightly larger pot, but not too large (I'll explain this). This is how I do it: Start them at 12/12 (no vegging at all) in a small milkshake sized pot, and crop the top when they "first show sex (around the 6th node - around 1 foot tall)", at the 3rd true node (the cut that is). Then transplant into 6-8 inch pots, they'll finish stretching at 3-4 feet tall and very bushy with 2 main colas and a lot of lower branching that end just passed mid-way up the 2 main colas...thereby making them very indoor friendly due to their low height. Now having controlled their height, the only other thing one need do is assure a good yield. To maximize the yield, transplant again at 4weeks flower (after 2 weeks of pre-flower/showing-sex) into a large pot for mega yield indoors 2 to 2.5 months after that...or..in the case of Rooi Bart, harvesting can occur 1.5 months/6 weeks after the final transplant. The trick to successfully growing 100% sativa indoors so that they yield more than a good hybrid (ie compact with many many bud sites) is: a. Never veg from seed - 12/12 from start to finish. This does not increase male rates in Africans dramatically, as it does in many other gene pools. b. Never transplant the first time (upon showing sex) into a pot that is LARGER than 8 inches in diameter (6 inch diameter pot is better for grows under 600W) - or they'll stretch to the moon. c. Once they've finished stretching (5-6 weeks after the first transplant), and NOT BEFORE, transplant into as large a pot as possible for scrog type grow till finished. They'll then grow out and fill with compact internodes even though they won't use all the new soil in the larger new pot that they've been put into(they won't finish root bound, but they'll finish with an excellent yield given their size). Also given that the plant will NOT root bound itself in this last pot, they breath well till harvest and fan leaves find it easier to remain green even after the buds amber up. So beware of this...do not wait for yellowing fan leaves as a sign of maturity if using this method. I have also grown 2 types of Durban Poison indoors - African Seeds's and Dutch Passion's. DP's is a hybrid so I vegged it as normal for 5-6 weeks before 12/12 for a good yield. BUT... using the above pre-mentioned IBL method, African Seeds's Durban Poison yields twice what Dutch Passion's does when both strains finish at the same height. About 4 foot tall and cropped once giving 2 main colas. The difference is amazing. The Dutch Passion 4 foot tall finished under one 600W HPS yielded 4 ounces. The African Seeds Durban Poison 4 foot tall yielded just over 8 ounces and was much more aromatic (fruity aniseed) and about twice as potent. Outdoors, when I transplant the African Seeds into a large pot (40 litres) for its final resting pot, it can yield up to 1lb before our Summer Equinox - and the resin is more activated due to the sun's more intense UVB rays at that time of the year. So the secret/trick to regulating the stretch of the 100% sativas is not vegging them at all from seed, but more importantly, restricting their root system's growing volume from the beginning of stretch, till the end. After that, transplant them into as big a volume of soil as you wish and NO further stretching occurs - so long as they stay in flower. The larger the volume of soil that they have after their stretch has finished, the bigger the yield - not the stretch. You will always get very little stretch from any strain that is allowed to veg for a good time in the same pot that flowering is induced under(weeks after vegging has occurred). The same applies to anyone who has ever tried to revegetate and flower an already finished plant in the SAME pot that its' first harvest was taken in. People should be aware that the only time real stretching can occur with cannabis, especially in pre-flower, is when a good volume of NEW/virgin soil is introduced or is allowed to surround the already WELL established root-ball. It is only then, that the plant can provide us with a sudden and spectacular 'final reach' upwards as flowering commences. This is why 'stretch factors' that are quoted by good growers and seed suppliers can only be had as such IF the plant is vegged in its' 2nd largest pot and then transplanted into its' largest pot 1-2 weeks PRIOR to initiating a 12/12 regime. As this gives the plant just enough time to grow into the soil and realize that there is plenty of NEW soil with which it can suddenly grow new roots to compliment its' final stretch. Also keeping in mind that MOST of these quoted stretch factors are 'true' when a plant of NOT cropped/clipped and has only one main shoot. The more the main shoots it has, the lesser the stretch factor 'provided' as it has to be dispersed into more than one main stem. So this is why I outline that one do their LAST transplant into the plants largest/final pot AFTER all pre-flower stretching has occurred...as it has ALREADY been restricted by using a small pot during re-flower and 2-3 weeks after, for if it wasn't then instead of ending up between 3-5foot tall at most, it would've stretched to an easy 8 foot tall and much more(with Sativa IBLs and Landraces). So, it is this restriction of roots at just the right time that can be used to opposite effect to maximize the size and yield of lesser stretching plants like indicas and the like with MINIMAL vegging period. You'd be amazed how heavily internoded and yielding a 3-4 foot tall IBL sativa can become when grown using the method I outlined above that restricts stretching by root restriction of the right proportion. That way one NEED NOT veg the plant for a long time and trim back twice to then hopefully end up with a reasonably sized indoor sativa. The vegging period with an IBL/Landrace sativa with an UNCLIPPED main shoot can be effectively reduced to the minimal period required for the plant to show 'sex' when started under 10-11 hours day from sprout or a few days after sprouting under an 18hour light regime...which can trigger sexing in IBL's a little faster than had they been sprouted under a flowering photoperiod, but NOT with landrace sativas. The only thing that gets pure landrace sativas into flowering quicker lots of darkness and flowering fertilizers in the soil from day one. But not too much fertilizer as this can also increase hermaphrodite and male rates with landraces. It's all a balancing act that can be easier won with patience rather than eagerness. So if you try the method I outlined above, it's success will lay in the TIMING of the last pot transplant into the largest/finishing pot. If you do it too early, the plant will go into a state of flowering-stretch/vegging-flowering and end up stretching excessively...as do landrace South East Asians when provided with lots of spare soil that the roots can continue growing in. They'll stretch to the moon if transplanted into a larger soil volume at anytime after vegging. Be they in pre-flower of flower they don't care...if they sense more soil, a stretching they will go. So to grow them successfully and restrain their height while still getting an excellent yield without clipping the main stem requires a COMPLETELY different strategy to the one I outlined for the Africanas (or most IBL sativas that are NOT landraces). I should also point out that most African strains available including those from African Seeds, are NOT true pure landrace sativas. They are more an IBL sativa heavily acclimatized to the region they came from, but where originally a blending/crossing of other pure sativas that where available long ago. This is why NONE of them have pre-flowering stretch factors in excess of 20 to 1...as does the DALAT Nam which can easily go 25 to 1 even in a 20 Litre pot. From a couple of inches tall to over 5 foot tall finished with 10/14 from day one and flowering commenced from the time the clone has set-root and been placed into the 20L odd pot. I had Shantis Nevilles Haze do me a 9 to 1 stretch that seem considerable, till I tried the Nam and other South East Asian landraces. They stretch so much that they need no vegging to become huge.

Looks like I might have a stroke of luck with a friend in need that will be living in one of my spare rooms temporarily. Just had my annual gas check done and signed off, so should be safe to get a grow on. My friend has a 7 ft x 7 ft tent and some experience growing. I know that it's in his interests to keep things quiet. He is a very private person with a healthy amount of paranoia, for a good reason. I was originally wanting to set up inside the house, but my friend noticed I have a large garage that was bricked up years ago (now basically a large outbuilding) He seems to think this would be a better idea. I'm not so sure, it would mean having to have electricity and sockets wired in there, so there are extra costs straight away. I know there are fans that run almost silently, but I'm worried about my neighbours noticing anything suspicious. I used to let them use my garden as a way through when they were doing some work in their own garden and also to let them in my shed to borrow the odd gardening tool. I've started locking my shed door now and want to cool things off with them a bit as they have pissed me off a bit lately. Won't bore you all with the reasons why Wanting to grow in as natural medium as possible and was wondering what the optimum number of plants would be in the 7 x 7? Also what lighting, extractor and fan size I would need? Many thanks in advance. I would take the time to read up more, but have an illness which has got worse over the years that leaves me easily fatigued and causes problems with my vision when reading/trying to concentrate

Hello everyone, ive recently had my first outdoors season and came away pretty good had over 10z plus loads of seeds from a 2 females i pollinated, now my question is, since i have a 600w light and tent plus the usual bits and bobs, would it be worth having a indoors hfh grow. how diffrent would it be and taste from my outdoor, will it be less leafy? more weight? plan a) germ 50 seeds and keep light on for 24hrs in the hope of finding and non autoflower variety. then take clones. or plan b) germ 50 seeds and go just straight to 12/12. or 18-6 and keep only the autoflowering varieties. i will be starting with 50 as they are reg seeds i should end up with around 20-25 females of which i will probably keep the best 16 p.s its a mix of hfh not sure what. peace out.