Newbie Tips for Having a Successful Grow Step - By - Step

sk12 · Sep 11, 2013

Rounding off my second harvest today so I thought that I would share some of my experiences now that I have a couple grows under my belt.

First off I would like to welcome to the wonderful world of marajuana growing I feel that everyone should grow marajuana at least once in their life whether it be outdoors or indoors. It is a great experience and can really open your eyes and teach you a lot. Marajuana is something special that everyone in the world should experience. While it is special it is just like a lot of other plants there are different types etc but a plant is a plant and with care you can grow it in nearly anything. I know that a lot of people will disagree with this statement but a bag of Miracle grow Potting soil will finish a plant just as good as a bag of some other kind of premium soil. While you might think that the premium soil is better which it is but you can easily grow in Miracle Grow as well. I recommend Miracle Grow Moisture Control Potting Soil. Be sure that you buy potting soil otherwise it won't work right and you will run into some issues as you are not planting the plants in the ground but rather into pots, be sure not to mix soils or you will have trouble working with it and you will sometimes get misreads that you do not want. (I learned this on my first harvest the pot with the mixture yielded a lot less than the one without the mixture.) Also another thing is that you can grow it in almost anything as well I prefer to use smart pots you will want to get a 3 gallon or higher for optimal root growth. I have used 5 gallon pots on my last two grows and will be using 3 gallon pots on my next grow. Smart pots are really a great invention and are fairly cheap they generally produce a greater number of roots than what would occur in a standard pot.
Seeds: Buying seeds should be a labor of love, generally I buy a few nice sounding strains that have a combination of what I am looking for. I have always bought from Herbies Headshop they send the seeds very stealthily and give a lot of freebies. They are a great team and very helpful if part of your order doesn't arrive or something along those lines. Recently I had made an order and they completely forgot to send my freebies I sent them an email and within a week the freebies had arrived at my front door. I don't really recommend using bag seeds as you can easily get a good grow off of seeds purchased usually a better chance than from using bag seeds.
The first thing you will want to do before you ever start to germ your seeds is to set up your grow space make sure that you have the lights set up, the temperatures are ok etc. People complain a lot about pest problems etc spray your house with insect repellant at least 1 week prior to beginning to grow. Another way to cut down on pest problems is to keep your grow space clean. I recommend and what I have done on mine is vacuum sweep and mop the space you will be using at least twice. This should disinfect it and also help cut down on chances of having bugs and other issues further down the road. Your grow space should meet the requirements needed keep the temperatures good prevent, light leaks etc I also recommend reading more than just this post expand your knowledge as much as possible read and get a general knowledge of every step of the process before starting. I know it sounds strange to say but it truly truly helps.
Germinating: the easiest way that I have discovered to germ seeds is to start them in a shot glass of bottled water, put them in a dark place. I prefer a cabinet. Let them sit in there until you start to see little white tails pop out. Once you see white tails leave them in the glass for another 12 hours. The entire time they should be in the shot glass should be between 24 and 56 hours. Now your seeds have begun the germination process now you can finish them off by taking 2 plates and a paper towel wet the paper towel so that it is damp and place it on the plate. Put the seeds on the paper towel then put the other paper towel half on top of the seeds. Once you have done that put the other plate on top and put it back in the cabinet from before. Now wait another 12 to 48 hours and your seeds should be ready for planting.
Lighting: A general rule of thumb is 50W per square foot of growing space or 100W per plant. These are recommendations to increase your yield you will of course be able to go over that amount but it usually a good rule of thumb to go around that amount. You can read about each kind of light in their respective sections. Here is what the best options are for each stage of growth: Seedling, T5HO and CFL during this stage you want to keep the lights on the lower end so they do not stunt the growth or harm the plants; Vegetative: T5HO or Metal Halide. you can use the higher intensity lights during this stage as they are great for producing the plants and helping them grow. Flowering: HPS is the best bet in my opinion it provides the best light penetration and will help you in producing nice large compact buds.
Seed Starting: Start your seeds in a solo cup cut a hole in the bottom of the cup so it has a X shape. Do not use a Jiffy pot I repeat do not use a jiffy pot it is to small and will stunt the growth of you seeds in a solo cup you get a little more time out of it and can develop a better root base before you transplant it to your final pot. How I have done my germinating to seedling and beginning veg stages is fill the bottom of the solo cup with perlite then fill it with Jiffy seed starter. The Jiffy seed starter is a great light soil for starting seeds although it has kind of bad aeration which why I use the perlite. You should fill the cup as high as you can with the soil it will help it greatly. The jiffy seed starting soil should last for about the first 2-4 weeks of growth and you will then need to transplant into your final soil and final pot. At this stage you will want to keep the temperature at around 78-82F. I have found a great light for the veg and seedling stage is a T5HO light you can get them on Amazon or eBay for fairly cheap. You can get them really close to the plants as close as you want as long as the bulbs do not touch the leaves. During this time you should keep your lights on for the majority of the time. I usually do 24-0 or 20-4 that means 24 hours on and 0 off and 20 hours on and 4 hours off. This is what has worked for me also is a good time for using on autos as well.
Watering: The soil should be damp not wet but damp similar to the way that the paper towels were in the first step. A good average to aim for a watering schedule what I use is every 3-4 days. Any longer and your plants will become under watered and any more they will become overwatered. The reason why we cut the holes in the bottom of the solo cups is so that we can detect when we have watered the plants enough. You should pour the water in small amounts until you begin to see the water dribble out the bottom of the cup. It shouldn't pour but a small puddle can form at the base and outside of the cup. When this occurs you will know that your plant has been thoroughly watered. Place it back under the light and let it sit for another 3-4 days or until the soil is dry. You will want to be sure your PH is at a good lever the best way you can do this is stock up on milk jugs or water jugs and simply each time you water set them out with the water to the air so that they can evaporate the bad ph but generally your PH should be around 6.5 you can check this with a PH meter.
Temperature: When growing you want to keep the temperature in your grow room between 72-82F throughout the grow. When your lights are off it should be at the lower end and when they are on it should be towards the higher end. If you are having troubles with leveling the temperatures you will need to vent it in some way. You will also want to have at least one fan that blows onto your grow site to keep the air circulating around the plants.
Transplanting: You want to limit the number of times you will transplant so you will want to transplant into your final pot after you have grown at least the first two to four sets of leaves on your plant in the solo cup. Transplanting is easy if done correctly, the easiest way that I have discovered is to first cut the solo cup so that you can get the plant and soil out of the cup. Be careful during this process so that you don't break the stem, it is always better to be sage than sorry. Anyways cut around the cup don't damage the roots. You can leave the majority of the soil on the roots. In your final pot put the final soil in it mix it up and wet it follow the directions on the bag if this is to vague. Now you will want to dig down into the soil so that you will be placing your plant to be transplanted into it put it in there and carefully compact the soil around the plant and original soil. Then take a little bit of water and begin to water your plant into the soil watering it the same way you did in the solo cup until a little bit of water drains out the bottom of the pot. You have now successfully transplanted your plant. It is ready for Vegetative growth or you can put it directly into the Flower cycle.
Vegetative Growth: During the vegetative stage your plant is in the growing process it generally won't smell to stinky and is the first part of the process. Keep in mind you want to allow your plant to get to half the height you want it to be in the end so say you want a 3 foot plant in the end you will want to begin the flowering process once you have reached 1.5 feet. Your plant should be ok during this phase as it will generally feed on the nutrients that are in the soil to begin with. It is a relatively easy process. Just relax water it on a schedule keep the temps ok and everything should be ok. Pay attention to your plant it will tell you what it needs. You can see this in the chart at the end of this thread. I kept my plants in Veg for about 9 weeks or so before flipping to Flower. It really just depends upon what you want. Personal use grow it as long as you want commercial you can do it as short as you need. Keep in mind that the longer you vegetate the bigger and fuller your end product will be. However Veg is the one step of the process that you can set to your liking. Common light schedules for this stage are 24-0, 20-4 and 18-6. I have used 24-0 and 18-6. Both have yielded about the same results, more darkness usually results in better root development and better root development generally results in bigger and better bud. Common lights for this stage are T5HO, MH and CFL. I like T5 as they run cheap and usually are easy to control the heat.
Flowering: During the flowering period this is obviously when the buds begin to produce and the plants show signs of sex. I always use female seeds so I am really unsure about the whole sex part of this process all I know is you will see bananas on the flowers rather than pistols. Read some other threads around the site to better understand this step if you are growing regular seeds. If you are switching your plants into flowering at the end of 1 month of vegetative growth then you should be able to use the nutrients in your soil or sometimes won't need to feed them at all throughout the whole growth check the chart at the end of this post to see what your plant will need. There are many great tips on nutrition for your plants around the site but I have to say this never feed your plants full strength nutrients or you will get nutrient burn. Learn the signs of problems and you will generally not have any problems with your grow. Flowering time generally lasts around 8-9 weeks. I know that the seed sites tell you its shorter but in general this is the time when you will want to harvest. Toward the end of this stage you will be very antsy and want to cut parts of the bud off and try smoking it but the best thing to do is just to wait. In order to know when to harvest you should buy a microscope that you can zoom in at least 60x magnification they are very cheap to buy at Radioshack I think mine was around 12$ or so. You will take the microscope and look at the tricomes( the little crystals that are on the bud/sugar leaf) You can see what they should look like below. You will want to have around 5% clear, 10% amber and 85% cloudy. The more tricomes that are amber the more couch lock effect you will feel. When you feel your plant is ready be you should water it with clean water for at least 2 waterings before chopping it. This is called flushing your plant because you are flushing the excess nutrients out of your soil and feeding your plant clean water.
Harvesting: There are a few ways to do this the most common is to cut your plant down, trim off the large fan leaves and hang them upside down. This is what I did during my first grow. On my second grow I am going to be cutting it down and hanging it up without trimming anything off. I have heard that this is also a great way to harvest and cure if you are doing it for your own personal use. I will detail the first way tho for informational purposes. Cut your tree/plant down and trim off the large fan leaves. This should leave you with only bud and sugar leaves take your branches and hang them up in a dark room that has decent airflow. You don't want direct air blowing onto the plant but you want it moving around in the room a good thing for this is a oscilating fan on its lowest setting. You should leave it in there for around 3-5 days. The way to tell when its ready to be jarred is by taking the branches and try to bend them they should be dry but should not break and also not extremely bendy at the same time should be somewhat stiff. Now when you have dried the bud it is ready to be trimmed further you can take your scissors or clippers and trim off the sugar leaves at this point and trim down the stems so that it will fit into the jars easily. Now you place it into the jars. Once in the jars you will put it in there for 12 hours then open the jar and leave it open for about 5 minutes then close it again this is called burping repeat this process for about 48 hours after this you should burp the jar once every 24 hours. You can repeat this process for however long you wish. The longer the cure the stronger your marajuana hits will be.

sk12 · Sep 12, 2013

Found another good seed starting soil in miracle grows seed starting potting mix. Seeds went in yesterday and already see sprouts coming up.

Lo Budget · Sep 12, 2013

I used the MG seed starting mix this time too. I didn't have any problems with it. The nute level is surprisingly minimal for a MG product.

sk12 · Sep 12, 2013

Out of 12 that went in yesterday 2 have sprouted.

mikek420 · Sep 13, 2013

good thread. I don't fully agree with somethings, but as a beginner I would definately follow your advice. You can transplant more than that if you wish, but you need to know what you're doing. Also, why don't you mix your jiffy peat and perlite in your first solo cup. One thing I would recommend that you don't is to use those bag seeds. If you are gonna spend money on good genetics, you should know what you're doing. Bag seed is the perfect way to do this, and its free. You have the benefit of seeing male/female, and knowing the difference. also you get a test run of your area. And if things don't go well, you can chop it down without having spent money on the seed. Nice read though, thanks

sk12 · Sep 13, 2013

mikek420 said:
good thread. I don't fully agree with somethings, but as a beginner I would definately follow your advice. You can transplant more than that if you wish, but you need to know what you're doing. Also, why don't you mix your jiffy peat and perlite in your first solo cup. One thing I would recommend that you don't is to use those bag seeds. If you are gonna spend money on good genetics, you should know what you're doing. Bag seed is the perfect way to do this, and its free. You have the benefit of seeing male/female, and knowing the difference. also you get a test run of your area. And if things don't go well, you can chop it down without having spent money on the seed. Nice read though, thanks

Glad that it helped, thanks for the advice I actually did that just forgot to add it in the tutorial thanks for pointing it out. Will be adding it shortly. The reason I did not recommend to use bag seeds is because weed honestly is very easy to grow. So why waste on getting possibly a crappy strain when you can go gold and usually get a great strain that gives you a much better high etc.

mikek420 · Sep 13, 2013

Why waste time on bag seeds? well for example, say you are someone who doesn't know or understand how easy weed is to grow. You go out buy some seeds, do little research plant the seed, get it growing, then all sorts of things happen (boy/girl, why are leaves dying, etc) as a newbie without much experience you read you need Nitro, then you get a shit ton of nitro and drown your plant (hey more is good right I'm a noob) then you nute burn everything. Maybe you just built your cabinet, and you don't realize the temps go down so much with lights off, you say, 75 degrees? good enough for me! then nighttime hits and your lights go out and it goes down to 60 or less yikes! (worst case scenario) Maybe you put your lights on a chain or something to raise/lower, and you f-ed up and you drop your lights (man I wish I hadn't paid money for that plant I just crushed. I hope it does ok... (remember still a newb here) OK, I got my plant in flower, and now suddenly I'm burning corned beef and cabbage and liver and onions on the stove everyday to mask the smell because I didn't put ventilation in, or filtering and everything reeks and now I'm afraid my neighbors know. I'm a newb, but i think I got transplanting down, and whoops I ripped off the roots, see where I'm going? I've had people with decades of experience tell me that growing a couple bag seeds is ideal, you get those newb questions out the way, you learn (the hard way) not to overwater, underwater, overlove your plants.

I like all the links you have going on, you will surely point someone in the right direction. One thing you have missing should be some kind of disclaimer, I did all this on my own, anything that I do not cover, I have not experienced, something like that. A lot of people think that because billy told them something, billy knows all, but maybe billy had a plant that just loved Nitrogen so much, then when Bobby follows his advice, bobby F-s up his plant because Bobby has a low Nitro tolerance Gal. Learning from someone else's experience is good, but learning first hand is better, everyone won't have the exact same strain with the same demands, if they did this would be the most boring job that there is.

and with your trichome part I should add this:
amber trichs on sativa will make it more couchlock indica feeling body high
but
amber trichs on indica will make it more headish sativa high

sk12 · Sep 14, 2013

mikek420 said:
Why waste time on bag seeds? well for example, say you are someone who doesn't know or understand how easy weed is to grow. You go out buy some seeds, do little research plant the seed, get it growing, then all sorts of things happen (boy/girl, why are leaves dying, etc) as a newbie without much experience you read you need Nitro, then you get a shit ton of nitro and drown your plant (hey more is good right I'm a noob) then you nute burn everything. Maybe you just built your cabinet, and you don't realize the temps go down so much with lights off, you say, 75 degrees? good enough for me! then nighttime hits and your lights go out and it goes down to 60 or less yikes! (worst case scenario) Maybe you put your lights on a chain or something to raise/lower, and you f-ed up and you drop your lights (man I wish I hadn't paid money for that plant I just crushed. I hope it does ok... (remember still a newb here) OK, I got my plant in flower, and now suddenly I'm burning corned beef and cabbage and liver and onions on the stove everyday to mask the smell because I didn't put ventilation in, or filtering and everything reeks and now I'm afraid my neighbors know. I'm a newb, but i think I got transplanting down, and whoops I ripped off the roots, see where I'm going? I've had people with decades of experience tell me that growing a couple bag seeds is ideal, you get those newb questions out the way, you learn (the hard way) not to overwater, underwater, overlove your plants.

I like all the links you have going on, you will surely point someone in the right direction. One thing you have missing should be some kind of disclaimer, I did all this on my own, anything that I do not cover, I have not experienced, something like that. A lot of people think that because billy told them something, billy knows all, but maybe billy had a plant that just loved Nitrogen so much, then when Bobby follows his advice, bobby F-s up his plant because Bobby has a low Nitro tolerance Gal. Learning from someone else's experience is good, but learning first hand is better, everyone won't have the exact same strain with the same demands, if they did this would be the most boring job that there is.

and with your trichome part I should add this:
amber trichs on sativa will make it more couchlock indica feeling body high
but
amber trichs on indica will make it more headish sativa high

I have that right at the bottom of the post

and I also said that you need to plan it before hand by reading everything that you can. Although now the way that you say it I do understand your point about running Bag seeds first. I was trying to explain from my experience (the overall grow that I just finished was my first time ever growing anything outside of helping my dad in his tomato garden when I was younger and school science class etc.) that it really is not that hard of a plant to grow. I was trying to bring awareness to this fact. You just need to listen to the plant it will tell you what it needs. Never overdo anything while also not under doing anything as well. Will add your tips to the top though thanks man. Hope there is no hard feelings a little tired right now. Trimming till 3AM yesterday does that to a guy lol. Might have to go smoke a little more in a few

mikek420 · Sep 14, 2013

smoke some for me too I just ran out. If you are a first timer trying to get stuff dialed in, seeing a bag seed grow while you're waiting on your shipment gives you something to look at instead of pacing back and forth pulling hair lol

GrowinDad · Sep 14, 2013

The only reason I see to start with bag seed is just to practice germination and maybe seedling watering. Beyond that, go with the real thing.

I use MG Seed Starter as well with better results than rapid rooters. But that is the only MG I will touch.

sk12 · Sep 14, 2013

mikek420 said:
smoke some for me too I just ran out. If you are a first timer trying to get stuff dialed in, seeing a bag seed grow while you're waiting on your shipment gives you something to look at instead of pacing back and forth pulling hair lol

For sure man, its good You can see my previous grow in my sig.

GrowinDad said:
The only reason I see to start with bag seed is just to practice germination and maybe seedling watering. Beyond that, go with the real thing.

I use MG Seed Starter as well with better results than rapid rooters. But that is the only MG I will touch.

So far havent run into any issues with it only reason that I use MG is because there is literally no other alternatives in the area without driving 2-3 hours each way.

Trousers · Sep 14, 2013

There is no reason to flush plants unless you want to stress them and get less weed.
Flushing will not improve smell or taste, there is no science to back it up.
Buds are sinks, they do not store nutrients.

Amber trichomes mean that the bud is rotting. Amber trichomes are about 90% CBN, which is not desirable and can make one feel ill.
The "couch lock" deal is pretty much over blown.

Organic soil is the cheapest and easiest way to grow.
No ph, ppm or any of that crap to deal with. Just mix your soil well, water with plain water (no ph worries) and maybe supplement with a homemade tea.

Trousers · Sep 14, 2013

DJ Short on the subject of trichomes:

As far as trichomes are concerned, the tall ones with swollen, clear, bulbous heads are what to shoot for.

He recommends harvesting before the trichomes get cloudy.
Amber = rotten

sk12 · Sep 14, 2013

Thanks for your insights I am glad to see this thread is starting to take off. I would add what you said to the first post but for some reason it is not letting me edit it. Again thanks for your insights.

newgroth08 · Sep 24, 2013

Not trying to steal anyones thunder but has anyone ever seen where they flower then before the trichomes turn amber the buds start growing again? Im at 12 weeks and Im having brand new bud growth but still never even turned fully cloudy...

Skyler1200 · Sep 26, 2013

Need help with my plant(s) what do I need to do what did I do wrong

Newbie Tips for Having a Successful Grow Step - By - Step

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