First time grow with a very small budget.

So this summer I haven't had a job and I've been really bored so I decided to try and grow a plant just for the fun of it, not really expecting to get any yield from it.

It started out with germinating some seeds in a paper towel just to see if I could get them to sprout. When one did, I put it in a cup full of dirt and let it sit. After a few days I had a nice little stem and sprout sticking up and I had it under a regular 90watt bulb. Then I decided I should get semi-serious about it and so I built my grow box. It's just over 4 feet tall, 2 feet wide, and about a foot and a half deep. It's made out of two cardboard boxes stacked one on top of the other and sealed with tape. The opening on the top of the box has a fan blowing out. THere is no intake fan but there is a vent on the side for intake which creates a pretty nice breeze on the plant.

Like I said, I don't have a job so I had to scrounge to get the basic supplies of lights and later good soil. I only have 2 26watt cfl bulbs on it currently and it's going to need more but I can't find (or buy) and more light fixtures. I am using Organic Miracle Grow Potting soil and she is in a minnow bait bucket which is somewhere between 1 and 2 gallons.

Here is the box, the plant at day 4, and then at day 12.

loose the tinfoil those spots on ur plant could be burn marks from heat reflection. if ur looking for something cheap,(that wont hurt ur plants) use one for those sliver survival blank there like 4$

I went on vacation and she accidentally went without light for awhile but when i got back she had grown quite a bit. (first pic 26 days)

Just 5 days after that she was in the peak of what I've had her at so far. (Pic 2 One month old)

But then last week for some reason i thought it needed more water and so i gave it quite a bit and leaves started dying off. (Pics 3 & 4 month and a half)

She was in a milk jug which I don't think was draining well enough so i transferred her into the bucket she is in now with more soil which I think helped draw some moisture away from the roots. I also cut the dead leaves out and haven't watered her and she is beginning to perk back up. As you can see in the last pic, the baby leaves at the bottom nodes are coming along nicely.

She will be 2 months old in 17 days but she's probably going to need some more vegging since there have been some mishaps during these two months that stunted her growth a bit.

I will post again tonight with pics on how she is looking on the road to recovery.

nice inginuety on the box man, the plant looks good so far, you should have kept some of those minos in there, i had read that they found a hash crop in afganistan or something, and under every plant was a dead fish with the roots taking all the nutes in needed for the life of the plant from the fish...

just a question but why the indoor grow, the sun gives off so much more light for the little guys, i too am on a budget on my grow... but ive still managed to be quite sucsessfull in my summer understakings. its just more manual labor as opposed to expensis.. (and there are bugs)

EDIT: since i have seen the new pics, do you have drainage holes on the bucket???

Looking good upto now man, even with the basics you can still produce good bud ill be watching your progress mate if you have any questions just ask everyone is very helpfull on here. out and happy growing.

Hey Spastics, thanks for the reply!

First, yes the new bucket has got plenty of drainage holes.

And secondly, I did this indoor thing because I felt it was a little late in the season to try an outdoor and I live at home for the time being so it would be tricky to do an outdoor one. The indoor works for me because in my room is a door leading to a really small well room that no one ever goes into so that's where I set it up.

Nice man-i like to see how these small low b. grows work out.
anyway, plant looking little droopy.whatc the watering, do it whenever the pot that U lift is light weight, or in just after 3-4 days.
also, now its a good time to introduce it to vegge nutes with higher N.-

I do have a question about lights. Should I just try and throw more 26watt cfl's in there or should I try and scrape some more money together and get a different kind of light?

oh, and dont give it to full strenghed solution, increase the food dosage gradually

jteether said:

I do have a question about lights. Should I just try and throw more 26watt cfl's in there or should I try and scrape some more money together and get a different kind of light?

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I would recommend you to just toss in some more cfls-8-10 lamps as you have now minimal.This is a interestin grow, when U try to grow on low budget.they are cheap and emit very little heat, also, lower power usage.
Go with cfls man.-less risk 4 a low budget and first time(?)


Keep those cfl an inch away, max-2 inch away, but try as close as U can get with your light fixture.

And on the issue of Fertilizer, what should I do If I can't afford any? I've read that using diluted urine works better than nothing. And I also just read about using a small amount of epsom salt in water because it has magnesium and sulfate.

What would be a good commercial fertilizer at this point?

And one last question. Since I am completely new to this, how will I know when to start flowering? i have an idea but I'm not positive. I don't want it to be too big because it's in a very small space.

From what I see the general consensus is around 2 months but mine is getting close to two months and is still quite short (about 7 or 8 inches)l. I don't want it to get any higher than about 2 feet tall.

So here she is, 44 days old, at about 9 inches.

I am adding 2 more 26watt bulbs in there within the next few days ( I have one more lamp that will have to hit them from the sides and I am going to get a y splitter so i can have two bulbs from one fixture).

I guess I'll look for a good fertilizer for her for the flowering stage (which I'm still not sure when i should induce, but I'm assuming soon considering the small amount of room I have)

If you compare with earlier pics you can see the leaves are already starting to perk back up. hopefully within the next few days they will be reaching for the light again.

I'm really not expecting too much from this as far as yield goes ( i don't even know if it's going to be a female yet!) but even if I can only smoke a single bowl from the yield it will be worth it, plus I've gained a lot of knowledge for my future grows.

Ok, I just added the 2 new light fixtures and this is what it looks like now.

Having that one on the side of the plant won't hurt it right? I assume it can only help to ensure the bottom leaves get light too.

I'd still like some input on when to flower. If I do it now I should get about an 18 inch plant right? And has anyone ever done the 24 hours of darkness thing before switching to 12/12? Did it work better?

do u have any hydro shops(or good garden supp.) around u. u can get bags of mexican bat guano for 6.50$

Alright, in keeping with my poor-ass ways I managed to swindle some ferts from a friend. It's the crystally blue stuff that you put in the nozzle that hooks up to your hose. I just put about an eight of a teaspoon in a 12 ounce bottle filled with water and gave it a bit of that. I'm hoping that it wasn't enough to burn it bad.

Ok, so after some input from fellow growers I decided to do a topping and since I'm looking for as big a yield as possible I tried the FIM method.

The first 4 pics are before topping and the last 2 are post topping.

I'm going to let her go for a couple more weeks and then induce flowering.

EDIT: and now that I've done some more reading I see that I can use coffee grounds and molasses as a source of nutes, and those are both things I have!

EDIT EDIT: No molasses but I do have some potash.

Hey guys, another question. If I top my plant can I super crop it? would it even be beneficial?