Hi Forumites!
What a wealth of information! Complete brain overload!!! Thanks so much to all the contributors. I hope one day in the future I may be able to add something of value here too!
I'm a 20 year consumer of medicinal herbs as a leisure pursuit, but I've now decided that the time has come to dedicate a spare bedroom and some funds to producing them and getting my habit to feed me, rather than the other way around. But I have some stumbling blocks I'd love some help with please...
1) The big issue - I have never been a handy guy with tools and such and I'm shit scared of creating a fire/flood hazard or destroying myself or my apartment in the process! So building a system is completely daunting to me and I have a fantasy of skipping over that part, at least at the very beginning.
2) I can put together some cash right now to invest in something ready to go as long as it is fairly low maintenance and reliable enough for me to "learn on the job". I'm really keen to start, but when I look around online, the grow room packages seem very overpriced. I don't mind overpaying a little, but only if I'm going to get some real after sale support and guidance from the firm. Are there any recommended service providers out there who I can genuinely trust to help me get set up and on my way to a reasonable yield, or are they all smash and grab artists who will desert me as soon as I've paid them? Anyone know a company who will both sell me good "hardware" and offer a good level of support?
3) My brain's being completely fried looking at options like lighting etc. I know for instance I should go for LED to keep my energy consumption under control, but to the layman it all looks pretty much the same and they all say they're the best. Aaaaarrrrrgh! Stressfull!
4) Forum navigation - I've taken a QUICK look at the 101 already asked questions thread, but many of the links there seem not to be active anymore. And for example, in the following thread, the diagrams are not visible to me for some reason:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/indoor-growing-systems.694/page-7I just see red "X"s. Is there a best starting point herein for someone wanting to go out and buy something ready to go (ideally with some form of go-to support thrown in)? Have ANY of you ever done this? And if so, did anyone have a good experience getting started?
Thanks in advance and happy medicating. And thanks again to all of you that have created this centre of useful info'.