I wasn’t going to start this but as it is a journal, the good and the bad need to be portrayed LOL. wooooo hoooo got my seeds today, two days after they sent them, 20 white widow fems. no plan survives contact yada yada yada. They said in the email that it would take 5 to 15 days to get seeds, came in 2, I would have been happy if they had taken 15 or 20 as that would have worked with my budget planning, now i’m left to scramble so i don’t have to wait 20 days to get started. I have called my support group here in town and the young lady owner was not in but will be there tomorrow. I am going to go in and try to sweet talk her into letting me make payments so i can get started right away. I was going to give the group 5 of my twenty seeds as i like to think of myself as “Ronnie Marijuanaseed” (i used to give away joints back in the old days) but now it will look like a bribe instead of a “boy scout good deed”. lol So, i have no tent, no light except florescent hanging in basement, no soil, no pots, i think i have a ph meter at the support group but basically all i have in the house right now is the seed 
So, when i get my “poop” together, I will have a secret Jardin 4x4x6 ft tent, a sunsystem 630 Cmh with two 4200 bulbs in it for the veg cycle. The soil will be ready made for me by the Treehouse (they are my support group here in town). A good ph meter, a decent humidity meter, four 5 gallon cloth pots. four 1 or 3 gallon pots (for veg not sure of the size they were going to give me) and a system to help me get thru the germ/seedling stage. so, it will either be a couple days for when i start germination or 3 weeks, you know i have my fingers crossed in hopes of getting a jump start on this project.
Good luck.
I’ve found that no matter how many grows I’ve got under my belt, there are always more things to buy.
Good luck brother, i’ll be dropping in on your grow 
i have already changed my strategy a bit on advice from @SlowOldGuy. I will be only using one bulb for the veg cycle
@monkman go to growweedeasy and read the grow journal where nebula uses a 4200k bulb throughout vegg and flower. She pulled over a lb off I wanna say 6 plants. Lot of great info on there. May save you a little cash for something else
hey @HornHead, thanks for the heads up. i have been to a couple other websites, that one and another one that was 420something… might have been 420grow, and some others for just a bit. but since i found this site i have spent most all my learning time on here and going thru the grow bible. as i’m retired i have lots of “spare” time to put into this project (as an aside, basically i quit putting 2 to 8 hours a day into playing games and figured i put that time into actually accomplishing something) and have done so by reading extensively thru the forums, read lots of grow journals… not just the ones that pertain to my situation, and even found some stuff that i have bookmarked to have it available when it is needed (some photo’s, charts, and a pic of a pot leaf smoking a joint LOL). If the 4200k bulb is the cmh and she had 6 plants that is amazing. by coagulating all i have seen and in talking to dbrn32, i have got it down to 3x3 area flowering for that bulb and 4x4 area for veg. I could probably put 6 plants in my 4x4 area, but i am going to end up with 5 gallon pots so i am going with 4 plants. The reason i put the time, strategy, and money (I quit cigarettes to have 200 extra in budget this month) into this project is to be able to try and make sure that thru this grow i will have enough to make it to the next grow without buying pot. I’ve done projects on a shoe string budget, on an extravagant budget, and just a regular one. i was not going to attempt this on a shoe string. all i need out of this is ten ounces to cover to next grow. but with the budget i put in, i will have what i need to get the job done for a couple years and won’t have to change much to get what i want out of things. when you do shoestring budget, you end up spending more if u take long run because you end up having to replace a bunch of stuff. That was my strategy and why i am spelling it out for someone who will use this as a learning process, u can go cheap and get it done, but if you do go cheap, it tends to cost more than if you would have spent on right stuff to begin with if you take a long run. Cheap is great if you are only going to do it once or twice. cheap is also great when you have got your feet wet and really understand what’s going on. then you can find the way to cheap things out. That is what i’ve learned in projects in my life both personal and professional and i’m sure the same fits here.
The nice thing Monk, is that theses plants are pretty resilient. If you implement the things you’ve learned, soil,PH,feeding,LST you will do fine. Looking forward to seeing your seedlings pop.
I’ll be honest, i would totally try to pull 10 zips with a single 315 in a 4x4 lol. I think if you ran short well trained plants you could do it too. If you haven’t been by @Onlythebest79 threads, check them out. He’s very good at running those small multi cola plants.
I think employing a method like that would help keep bud density up a little even though your light density would be low. Even if you fell a little short of 10 zips, how close can you get? May be something a mover or some small supplemental lighting can fix.
woooo hoooo, just back from talking to my support young lady and she said she will let me do payments so five seeds were put in glass of water at 2pm dst. i got a HM Digital PH-80 hydrotester from her and they calibrated it before i left the shop. i am still trying to figure out how it works but didn’t test the mineral water that i put the seeds in. i got the jiffy professional greenhouse peat pellets to use for germination stage. my light is in, but my tent isn’t, am hoping it shows by Wednesday when i go back to visit her again.
well dmn, hadn’t put the seeds in yet and checked the ph. it was 8.3 and temp 68. do i need to lower the ph before i put seeds in for a day? i definitely need to get that water lowered in ph before i sogg up the peat pellets, i will want it about 6.5 right? @HornHead @Demar @dbrn32 @Drinkslinger
absopure mineral water is 8.3, my well water is 7.8, and my well water thru one of those pitcher purifiers is 8.5. i want to use my well water but it looks like i am going to have to adjust it to make it work. Is it possible that the guy who did my ph calibration didn’t do it right? i’m just real surprised that the mineral water is 8.3 out of the gallon jug.
Is it distilled water? You won’t get an accurate pH from distilled water
Is it the one on the right?
I use distilled water and a tiny bit of hydrogen peroxide to soak my seeds.
it is Absopure brand natural spring water, what i thought was mineral water. i just looked and we have no hydrogen peroxide. @Drinkslinger i still haven’t put the seeds in yet because i’m trying to figure out which way to go. Starters gun went off and i’m left at the line tripping over my own two feet lol
the one on left but i would just as soon use my well water at 7.8
i think the ph of the water for just soaking for a day doesn’t really matter because all i’m doing is softening up shell from what i understand. and the hyd per will help that happen faster, the post i saw the guy said he only did his in water with hyd per for 12 hours, i was going to leave mine in until tomorrow at this time, so i’m jumping off the bridge and putting the seeds in LOL.
I still need to figure out what i’m going to do to the peat pellets
I don’t think the pH will matter too much. Hydrogen Peroxide isn’t necessary either.
Some people soak for 12 hours then go to paper towel. I soak until I see a 1mm or greater tail, sometimes it’s 2 days. Then I go right into seedling soil.
@Drinkslinger i just talked to my treehouse guy and he said i need to get distilled and take it down some. he said the absopure is a little high but goes that way as is. i will keep seeds in the water and hope that i get a tail showing before i put them in peat pellets. i was just going to soak for 24 hours and then put them in, but it won’t hurt to run them in the water until seed cracks. i will have my sis get me some distilled water tomorrow and will get that down to 6.0 for doing the pellets. thanks for your help drinkslinger
Always willing to help.
If you’re using just distilled water you won’t need to adjust the pH.
Any idea what your well water ppm is? Storebought water can be an expensive way to water your plants.
no i don’t have that meter yet @Drinkslinger for ppm. but it is 7.8 for ph and i really want to use my well water so i don’t have to buy distilled for growing. i figure that i might as well start right now getting my well water into gallons and getting them at 6.0. are you saying that when i use the distilled water for watering up my peat pellets that i don’t have to get the distilled water to 6.0 for that? i thought it would help to get the peat pellets and the seeds at the 6.0 ph the sooner the better.
Lol, i now have 5 pellets in my starter tray and 67 pellets in a plastic bag