Indoor GROWING

Setup

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(This is not a full tutorial, just a general guide on a outdoor grow season. Please contact us to schedule with a coach)

 

Step 1:  Pick between soil or hydro.  (This will determine how you need your space to flow for drainage, water sources and cleanup.)  

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What to take into account for hydro: 

• Budget - hydro can be costly at start up.

• Hydro is unforgiving (if your PH is wrong, you could lose your entire grow.

• Where is your water drainage? The water in hydro system needs to drained and replaced constantly so the location to a drain is critical to making your grow manageable.

• More freestanding water will lead to higher humidity.

• You will be using a lot of water; so where your water source is located is critical to making your grow manageable.

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What to take into account for soil:

• Budget - soil is budget friendly

• Dirt and water can dirt can get everywhere. 

• You'll need to water so you will need to lay down a drain pan to keep the water from flowing through the soil into your rug or floors.

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Step 2:  Selecting your space to grow in.  The more space you have, the more choices you have available to you both with strains and lighting.  If you are unlimited in terms of space, chose your space based on the strain you want to grow.  If you are limited by space, then choose your strain based on the space you have available.  (Indicas and Autoflowers work great in spaces with limited height, while Sativas tend to grow much taller, needing more vertical space.)  

1. Small spaces (2'x2'x4') are inexpensive to start, but are somewhat limiting in choices of strains and lighting.  

2. Medium spaces (4'x4'x8') will cost more, but allow for greater choice of strains and lighting options. 

3. Large spaces can be expensive at first, but you have a lot more options for lighting and strain choices.

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Small available space (2'x4'x4' grow tent, closet, cabinet, other small enclosure):

• Budget - this size growing space can accommodate almost any budget ($60 - $500 startup cost)

• Select strains that are bred to be shorter in height.  Typically this includes Auto-flower, Indicas and some hybrid Sativas.    *This is because Sativa strains can grow to be huge and the small size constraints will limit their growth potential.   

• Probably not suitable for HID lighting due to heat output. LED lighting works better in this situation. 

• Benefits:  Much lower potential budget, very contained and easy to maintain and clean, low startup cost, easy to hide and manage sight and smell of grow, potential to relocate for growth or better management.  

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Medium available space (4'x4'x8' grow tent, walk in closet, spare room'):

• Budget - this size growing space requires a higher budget to run and higher startup costs ($500- $2,000 startup)

• Still tend to stick to the shorter bred strains as mentioned above unless you are growing in a spare bedroom or high ceiling basement.   

• You can use HID lighting or LED.  

• Remember with a larger space, you'll need to reflect lighting more.  Grow tents have reflective surfaces built in but spare rooms do not reflect light well.  You will need to install reflective paneling or material to the walls and ceiling to use your light most effectively.  

• Slightly more expensive to control the climate.  

• Benefits:  More options to choose from (strains and lighting), larger yields. 

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Large available space (8'x8'x8' grow tent, garage, large storage unit, multiple rooms in a house, grow house / shed built specifically for growing, warehouse / metal building):  

• Budget - this size growing space requires a large budget for startup and operating costs.($2,000-10,000+)

• Depending on the size of the large space and the grow method you choose, you may need help to manage everything. 

• Benefits:  Grow whatever strains you want.  Use whatever lights you want HID/LED, and grow large quantities at a time.  

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***In a nutshell: 

1. Small spaces save money, space, and should work with any budget but are somewhat limiting in choices of strains and lighting.  

2. Medium spaces cost more but allow for greater choice of strains and lighting options. 

3. Large spaces are can be expensive but you can grow almost anything.  

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Step 3:  Choose what type of lights you want to use.

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Historically, growers have used HID lights with great results.  However, lately, LED technology has gotten better and produces at least as good or better results as HID in many grower's experiences.  You also now have to filter through all the marketing that gets thrown at you when purchasing a light.  So how do you really know how to pick a good, high quality light system that will work effectively?  

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• First you need to match the light to the space you have decided on.  For example, big space equals big lights and lots of heat and small space equals very small light that does not put out much heat.  

• Second, your budget is also something you need to consider - LED lights are more expensive to buy but operate at a much cheaper cost over the long haul.  HID lights may be relatively inexpensive but require more equipment for cooling your plants and grow space.

• An HID may be cheaper to purchase initially, but it will cost you more to operate.  

• An LED light may seem expensive in comparison to an HID light, but will only cost you a fraction of the cost of an HID to operate.

 

 *Here at Grow Nerd, we have tested and assessed the effectiveness of many light systems. We use these considerations to help with choosing a light to test and suggest that you also take this into       consideration:

• Warranty - If a company offers a long warranty, you know they stand by their products and are made of high quality, low risk materials.  

• We also like a company to list where they get the materials they use in their lights.  For example, some companies use generic or low quality brand components.  We prefer components like Samsung LED Chips instead of generic LED Chips so you can research their quality, output and reviews.  We don't like to take the lighting company's word for it!

• Heat output - how many fans will you need to keep your grow area from overheating?  HID lights can require an air conditioning system to cool the grow space which equals more electricity cost.

• How much space can you afford to lose above your plants? If the light generates a lot of heat it might need a large amount of distance between it and your plants as well as the top of the tent or ceiling in a room.  The plants will require more distance from the lights with HID lights than with LEDs.  

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Step 4:  Control your environment.

This is dependent on the first 3 steps we mention above.  You need to take into account how much heat you are generating from the lights you chose, how much space you are trying to maintain optimal growing conditions, how much humidity you are having to manage, and always, your budget!  

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• Budget - of course, the smaller the space you need to condition, the less it will cost.  If you chose LED lights over HID lights, it will be cheaper because there isn't as much heat generated in the grow space.    

• You will need to purchase a hydrometer / thermometer with a maximum and minimum display preferably with an inside reading and a probe for an outside reading. This instrument can help you determine what equipment you might need to help manage the grow space. An example: If your hydrometer/thermometer showed that at night it was 20 degrees cooler outside than in your grow space, we could have your lights run at night and exhaust the hot air outside while drawing in cold fresh air to cool the grow space. With the information from the hydrometer/thermometer we determined fans would be helpful for cooling the grow space while running the lights during the night.

• As a general guideline, you will always need to pull fresh air with fresh CO2 into your grow space, circulate it to feed the plants and then exhaust it out when it gets too hot and low in CO2.  This requires fans.  Depending on your grow space size, you can use a portable AC unit (those start at about $250) or, if your budget does not allow for it, regular old oscillating fans and cool air from the outside can work well. The optimal temperature and humidity level are as follows:  75 to 85 degrees for vegetative( growing) and 68 to 76 degrees for flowering. For humidity, you should be between 55% and 65% for vegetative (growing ) and 40% to 50% for flowering.  If your humidity is too low, your plants will not absorb CO2 and if the humidity is too high, you create an environment that could produce mold on your plants and buds.  

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Step 5:  Chose your genetics

• This is your foundation.  If you start with junk genetics, you'll end up with junk.  The majority of your budget should be put towards picking verified, good genetics both in seeds or in clones.  This means it has good reviews, it has been grown consistently over and over again and has shown to produce great flowers.  

 

The Execution

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We just explained the basics of how to set up your plan, here is the step by step execution of that plan:

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Step 1:  Germinate - your seeds following the soak and paper towel method *If cloning skip this step

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Step 2:  Create and maintain a healthy environment for your plants to grow in: 75 - 85 degrees and 55% to 65% humidity with 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness  

 

Step 3:  Transplant - Wait for the plant to grow  about 4 sets of leaves (two near the bottom and then another two at the top) then transplant your plant into your medium of choice (soil or hydro) then place them into the environment you created for them to grow in (see step 2).

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Step 4:  Follow a nutrient feeding schedule - There will be 2 sections to the feeding schedules.  One for growth (called vegetative/grow) and another for flowering (flowering/fruiting).  Typically the first 4 weeks will be the growth / veg nutrient schedule and the last 8 weeks will be dedicated to flowering(fruiting). 

You can stop vegging (growing) your plants and switch to flowering usually around two to three weeks after your first transplant. Remember that your plants will double or even triple in size from the point when you start to flower them.  

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Step 5:  Switch to flowering - In this step you will change the light, climate and feeding schedule to get your plants to produce the flowers. You want to change your light schedule to be 12 hours on / 12 hours off and reduce your temperature to 68 - 76 degrees and your humidity down to 40% - 50%.  The last 8 weeks of your feeding schedule will be dedicated for flowering. 

Make sure to leave the last week to "flush" your plants with no nutrients (just water them using water with no nutrients mixed in).  This allows the plant to use up all the available nutrients so you don't get any leftover nutrients left in the flowers.   

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Step 6:  Harvest - Time to cut down your favorite green friends.  This is it...you are about to be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.  Cut down your plant and hang it upside down in the dark.  You can use the area you were growing in.  Just adjust your temperature to 65 - 75 degrees, turn off your lights and keep the area at about 45% to 55% humidity.  In about 10 to 14 days you will be able to start trimming. 

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Step 7:  Curing - When your flowers are dry (after the 10 - 14 day drying period) they still have a small amount of moisture in them and this is what the curing process will get rid of so you get optimal flavor, smell and potency!  Curing removes this small amount of moisture in a really slow process. So how do you do it...put your flowers in a jar or any air tight container and keep it closed. Open that container for 20 minutes at a time daily for about 14 to 30 days. The flowers humidity should stabile between 50% to 60% when the cure process is finished.

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Step 8: Enjoy!

 

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