new Grower with questions...please help im a noob..

[Airnar]

The 1st time i smoked i was about 13 years old and i just fell in love with it.I am now 30 years old and have been smoking sense. i have also been married for 10 years and my wife smokes also we do smoke for recreation and when we are feeling sick or sore from everyday life challenges. She prefers drinking to smoking and i am the complete opposite, hard alcohol just makes me sick so i smoke
Well anyway let me get to the point we just moved into a new two story house and i found a nice storage space under the stairs in the garage. It has no windows one outlet and its painted white ( i can only guess what this room was used for in the past...) I have always wanted to grow my own smoke and it took a lot of convincing with the wife to let me do it. I have done some reading and found a few free ebooks on the subject. I have already decided to use CFL lights because they were already available to me for free. I have 2 100 watt 1700lm 2700k cfl lights and 2 13 watt 800lm 2700k. I am on a tight budget also. I have a nice small fan in the space and a table where i can use for growing. I am Worried about ventilation because it does get a bit warm in there. I have also bought feminized seeds that are used for indoor growing it also came with a free grab bag too. I am setting up the 2 smaller lights as hanging lights and the 2 big ones as stationary lights. So what i want to know is am i on the right track? am i leaving anything out? what do I do about ventilation? ( making a window or vent is a no go) and a lot of guides and books keep telling me different soil mixes I dont know witch one to use? Also any helpful tips or tricks or if you have a favorite guide please let me know about it i dont mind reading..
Thank you very much for reading this and for your feedback i hope to post more and even some pictures.

 

[PeytonManning]

You'll need a way to cool that area through ventilation, and you'll have to find a way to stop the odor. You'll still need ph meter, nutes. What are the dimensions of the grow space?

 

[Airnar]

its about 8ft long 5ft wide and the height goes from 1ft to about 7ft i can leave the door open during the day if that would help with ventilation and the smell and for my 1st grow i was thinking only growing 2 plants i know i have the space to grow more but i know more plants more smell...are there ways to hide the smell without ventilation?

 

[PeytonManning]

Can't really hide the smell without ventilation or a carbon scrubber. And two plants will smell strong, especially when they flower. Unless you got c99 seeds cause those are supposed to not smell much. That's a good size space, but with those 4 bulbs I would only do 1 plant. And even then, you'll need a fan to move air or you're more susceptible to mold and heat issues. I usually recommend first timers grow hempy style with Lucas formula. Pretty much foolproof and you can't over water it

 

[Airnar]

it does look like i can make a vent near the bottom or would putting it at the top be better. it would have to be a regular sized vent would that be enough?

 

[David Bowman]

to

Your intake vent should be on the opposite side of where your exhaust is located. If your exhaust is up high, then the intake vent should be down low and vice versa. This will allow for the most effective airflow from intake to exhaust.

 

[Airnar]

it looks like i can only cut into one wall that leads to the outside as i said before this room is under the stairs. Would leaving the door open to the garage give it enough fresh air? and putting the vent up top get rid of some of the heat and smell? also i do have a very nice fan its very small but very powerfull and has no problem moving the air around in that space

 

[PeytonManning]

if you can get a decent exhaust moving air out then it should pull cool fresh air from under the door

 

[Airnar]

i did some poking around in my future grow room and it looks like i cant cut a vent to the outside...bummer i did read that someone had almost the same problem as me and he fixed it by leaving the door open a little bit and putting a fan on the ground for the intake. My garage is a 2 car and its long ways instead of being wide would this be enough space to hide the smell when i hit the flowering stage and should i also leave the door open during the flowering stage and then close it at night? I really want this to work and thankyou you for the info.

 

[PeytonManning]

It all depends on the air in your area, your neighbors, and your girl. if you had to convince her, the first time she smells it she'll probably get real paranoid. It could work, but you'll have to do a lot of tweaking to get it right

 

[Airnar]

i also forgot to mention that my neighbours are hindu and im hoping that the indian food they cook might help mask the smell as for my wife she just bought a new car so she owes me

 

[Graytail]

If you can't vent air to the outside, and you have to vent it into the garage, the garage will end up smelling different than a normal garage. It won't necessarily scream "Weed!", but it will definitely smell like there's something alive in there. Mostly, it won't smell "normal". But you can mask that fairly easily. There's a gel product in a bucket that you could put in the room, for instance. It'll end up smelling kinda like fresh laundry instead.

That's a pretty big room you have, so you won't have much of a heat problem with your CFLs. You'll have to vent, but not a lot. Two holes in the door would do it, one at the top and one at the bottom, with a fan blowing out the top. You're going to need more CFLs, though. I run six 23watters over each plant in veg. That's a little overkill, but you'll need more than one each.

Be prepared to blow any budget all to hell. Many of us started exactly the way you're starting.

 

[Airnar]

there is also a overhead light i didnt mention it before becuase i couldnt find any info about it but i just tested the room with all the lights on and the fan going with the door cracked open, i sat in there for a good 30min and i was very comfortable it didnt feel to hot or to cold was very bright and it didnt feel stuffy like some rooms do when you dont open the window. i have read a lot about lights but im still a bit confused as to how many cfl lights i will need as i said before i want to start with 2 plants. right now i have 2 hanging lights witch move up and down and 2 lights on the side along with this overhead light ( it looks to be a fluorescent light its a small tube that kinda goes around in a circle i took the light cover off and the difference was night and day.

 

[Airnar]

well i was wandering around the internet looking for more info and found this. it fit my budget and was pretty easy to make

now with this many lights should i still lower them to 2inch above the plants?

 

[CrimsonDesdem]

Did you ever decide on a soil mix? Considering this is your first grow and your on a budget you could just use Miracle-Gro Potting Mix. Or an off brand if you wanna go even cheaper. This is how I started growing.

 

[Airnar]

i did decide on my soil mix its a store brand potting mix called kellogg it seems to have everything that a lot mixes ask for like worm casings and other types of plant food and Fertilizer and its organic and costs about 4$ a bag

 

[brightlight]

A passerby may wonder, "Who's cooking that skunky curry?"

 

[Airnar]

got my seeds today and already started also found a survival blanket in an old 1st aid kit. but i have another question.... how should i place the blanket right now i have it on a table like a tablecloth and i am going to put my plants on top of it well that work or should i mount it on the sides some how? also the strain i picked is Yoruba Nigeria as anyone tried that strain before and if so do you have any tips about it? like should i use the LST method or just let it grow?

 

[Graytail]

The plants don't enjoy being lighted from underneath, so you should use the blanket on the sides and/or top, depending on whether you have a reflector on your light.

Yoruba is a sativa, so you'll want to control height somehow. I don't have any experience with it, myself, but I've done well with my sativas by bending the stem over and letting the side branches catch up. You can get more than a dozen tops that way.

 

[indica vet]

can you put hole in one of walls under stairs and vent to under house?
also try and use cfl in 2700k for flower and around mid 6000k spectrum for veg at least 130w lights x2.
on the underside of the stairs(the roof of your grow space) i would use light fixtures on every step if possible and start at the bottom when plants are young slowly moving light up the stairs and sliding the plants across to stay centred under light and grow in height
my first time i just read as much as i could and just learnt and developed my own way over the years.
learning was fun and exciting, a cherished memory for me