Everyone always directs people to the faqs, I can't see why they don't just give people the basics, so here I go; I'm obviously not an expert but I know a reasonable amount. Obviously you need a grow space, a cupboard will be fine. You can line it with foil and it will slightly increase the reflectivity but strangly tin foil has quite a low reflectivity, matt white paint would be best, tin foil can also concentrate heat on small areas of your plant like hotspots in a microwave(that's why they turn) so most people advise against it. If I was you I would buy a bit of white paint and paint the inside of the cupboard.
For the first week or so you should use blue spectrum cfl's, sometimes called daylight or cool, keep them really close to your plants. The best lights for vegging are metal halides and the best for flowering are high pressure sodium. If you have some cash to spend I would advise to get thse kind of lights, you can buy a 250w hps with a reflector and ballast(everthing you need) for £70 and get a MH bulb for another £15, that's what i did. If you'd rather not bother with that then get as many cfl's as possible, blue for vegging and red (warm) for flowering. You can also buy 125w cfls like i mentioned earlier, get a blue and a red. I would guess that one 125w cfl would be ok for about 3 plants.
I heard that the most comman mistake for new growers was overwatering, how often you water depends on the size of the pot. You should let the soil dry slightly between each watering to allow oxygen to get to the roots, if it's constantly waterlogged the roots will "drown". Every few days would be my guess.
The plant needs a fertiliser with lots of nitrogen in veg phase because it's growing fast and needs N to do so. the numbers on a fertilizer are it's N-P-K ratio N for nitrogen, P for phosphorous and K for potassium. About 10-5-5 or something is about right for veg. It needs more P in flowering phase for bud production so about 5-10-5 should be used. The actual numbers don't really matter because the instructions on the fertilizer will tell you how much to use, it is the ratio that is important. If you over fertilize then your plants will get "nute burn" and maybe die, it's best to dilute the fertilizer more then the bottle tells you to because cannabis needs less nutrients then most plants, use about 1/4 of what it tells you at first then build it up to about 1/2 over time. It's best not to use nutrients for the first week or so becuase the soil has enough for the plant and seedlings are very fragile.
You might already know this but i'll mention it anyway, the first 3-5 weeks of the plants life are it's vegging phase where it grows and not much else, the lights should be on for 18 hours a day in this phase and blue lights should be used. When the plant gets to a decent height after 4 weeks or so switch the lights to 12 hours on and 12 off, this makes the plant start the flowering phase and begin bud production, this phase last between 8 and 12 weeks depending on a lot of factors. It might double or even triple in height in the flowereing phase. When the plant is in darkness make sure it's virtually complete darkness, light destroys a hormone in the plant and once this hormone gets to a certain level the plant starts flowering, that's the reason for the longer dark period. I heard that with white widows in the last week or two before harvest you should put the lights on 8 hours a day which somehow makes the plant produce more resin, don't ask me why.
Thats the gist of it, ask me if there's something else you want to know, i'll try and give you an answer. The south east? Would that be london or kent or around that area? I'm from west yorkshire, but i'm not one of those idiot tykes, our reputation has been marred by that retard chavy scum Sharon Matthews, what a disgrace that lot are. I should set my whippet on the lot of them.
