Having taught several beginning growers, I've found a very reliable starter settup. Sunshine mix #4 with about 30% added perlite. This is a great soiless mix and the perlite makes it impossible to overwater. Feed it with either General Hydroponics 3 part Flora, or Cutting Edge 3 part. If you use Cutting Edge and RO water you will not need to adjust the PH...it lands on around 6.2 everytime.
You can start in a 1 gallon container and then up-can to a 5 gallon. Water by hand once per day with 1000ppm. If you don't have a TDS meter at first, just use half what the bottle says. That's it.
I used this mix 20 years ago with wonderful results. It's very reliable and idiot proof. There's really nothing to go wrong, leaving you with time to concentrate of your atmosphere and canopy shape/size. I like this combo so much that I used it for the first 3 crops in our current 20,000 watt settup. We wanted a no-nonsense, simple medium/feed so that we could dial in our atmosphere and work the bugs out of the room. Once the room was dialed we switched to coco. Once we had enough patients to allow enough plants for a SOG, we switched to my current favorite, rockwool.
If you do go with organic soil, I suggest you add plenty of perlite (30%). This will avoid overwatering issues (a common problem with new growers). Personally, I don't belive that soil is good for new growers. Sooner or later you'll have to start feeding the plant for good results. It's difficult for new growers to know when and how much to start feeding. With soiless, you're feeding with every watering...the exact same everyday. You only change your mix one time when you go into bloom.
Whatever you choose, keep it simple. Try not to get to involved in feeding your plants a bunch of crazy boosters and additives. There will be time for that later. Pick a system and stick to it. Concentrate on getting your atmosphere as perfect as poissible.
