hello everyone. farmer john here. just recently retired. in my mid 60’s. raised a family. worked my whole life. corporate life and self employed. the latter helped me fine tune my approach to business’s and the financial investments required. i tried to do my due diligence and educate myself. education is priceless, so the initial investment in equipment and seeds is minute. looking forward to sharing my quest with others.
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Welcome to the forum! You’ll find everyone here quite helpful. Good luck in on your new venture. I’m gonna set to watch!
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Welcome to the forum! You have stepped into a GREAT community. Happy growing! Cant wait to see what you develop. I am in my second grow and could not be doing this without the help of this community. If you ever need to tag someone just put an @ and their name like so. @farmerjohn
One love growmie!! 
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Welcome to the forum. If I was you I’d ask before buying here about growing and equipment. I wished I would had joined a forum before ending up investing a total of $1250 on 4 lights.
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Welcome to ILGM, @farmerjohn! 
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Yeah! Welcome! Grow big or grow home! No really, great bunch of folks here… no BS or trolls allowed here. Lots of very experienced growers also.
Do ask about lighting BEFORE you open your wallet! Much has changed in this department.
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Welcome to the FORUM. @Cannabian is absolutely right about lights. If you haven’t invested in your lighting, take the time to read the lighting threads and ask as many questions as you need to help you decide which setup fits your budget and goals.
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hello all. wanted to say thanks to @Southerngal, @Chong420, @MrPeat, @elheffe702, @Cannabian @Bulldognuts for their comments, advise and wisdom. it will be greatly needed. the learning curve is vertical right now for me, so i have to act like a sponge and absorb everything i can. what helps is " i’ve been there before " . so, much appreciated for your thoughts and just acknowledging those above.
i guess before i go on any further, i should back up a bit. where it all began. some 40+ years ago. senior year high school. early 70’s. a night at a local grocery parking lot, closing time, punching out of work. met up with school mate. he just clocked out too. he was sitting in his car as i drove over in mine. cranked our windows down, i shout over whatcha doin? he says, “just twisting one up”. i say “what?” he says " gonna burn this joint and get high" i respond “oh?” he says, " you ever try it?" and of course my answer was “no”. after a few minutes of encouragement from him, i thought " wtf, why not". the rest is history.
i’ve been flying under the radar so-to-speak since that night. i knew i had a good thing and i didn’t want to screw it up. again, this was early to mid to late 70’s for those of you from that time frame. things were different back then. i thought, “if i’m sensible about this, then i can enjoy myself, without all the harsh side effects of alcohol”. i knew this was my ticket. i took my chances, when i had to, but never put myself in a position to ever get nabbed. 
of course, a lot has happened from the 70’s to the present. lets just say i made it through that time unscathed. so here i am today, now…
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There is a wealth of information here. I get lost reading other people’s journals. I love that there is so many different ways to grow this beautiful plant. I get to watch them growing in various environments here 
Whatever your questions may be, they’ve got you covered here👍🏻
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thanks @Southerngal
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Anyway, lets get into my grow. I’ve already purchased my equipment and seeds. I felt like I had enough information to pull the trigger to get started, I have less than $500 invested in this entire system. Here’s a breakdown of equipment:
TopoLite brand 24"x24"x48" mylar reflective grow tent. metal tubular frame with plastic corner pieces for easy setup. removable separate base for easy cleaning. unit comes with four openings. a smaller round opening on the top, two identical round openings on each side near the base and a velcro flap opening in the back. there is a large zippered opening for getting access to the interior.
a Gixxer brand 1000w led, two stage, grow light with both vegetative & flowering phase switches. both can be used simultaneously or individually. there are two built in cooling fans on the top of this unit. the unit came supplied with four steel leader cables for hanging the light. the kit included an analog temp/Rh gauge also.
TopoLite 4" exhaust fan with variable speed controller, carbon filter canister with attached pre-filter, all the necessary hardware for installation including sufficient length of what i call dryer vent hose. this kit included a digital temp gauge and rh meter along with a 24 hour timer module.
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I found ILGM by accident. Probably was searching for seeds or topics or whatever and ILGM popped up in my search results. i “subscribed” to their email notifications and have been following ILGM for a couple of years now. primarily, i’d get notice of seeds sales, BOGO’s, etc. in addition, there were a lot of links to click on in the emails, thus taking me to different areas of the site with different topics. thats how i ended up here.
so the time was right, the price was right and i thought the value was right also. i took advantage of a recent seed sale (10+10) and the aPot4Pot promotion. purchased the 5 gal container kit which comes with everything to get one started.
with everything in my possession, i got started. i put together the grow tent, attached the fan, carbon filter and multi speed controller. hung the grow light. placed my analog temp and rh meter in the tent. all the equipment was attached inside the tent, at the top, to maximize my growing space. this included all the electrical connections too. everything is out of the way to max out my space.
i’ll attached some photographs. please give me your feedback, critique, etc. and last but not least, i chose this size grow tent/set-up for a reason. it fits my current situation. i’m not looking for a massive first grow. i have no certain “expectations” as to the outcome. if my first attempt turns out to be a failure, i’ve succeeded. because as we all know, failure is part of success. happy growing! 
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Have you decided on a grow medium yet?
Hey, it’s not big, but you can certainly have a happy plant and a good harvest if you treat her right and train her to stay in the space.
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when i completed the initial set up of the grow light inside the tent, i immediately saw an issue. the maximum adjustment for the height of the grow light was limited by the length of the steel cables that were included in the light kit. the cables aren’t adjustable. to solve this issue issue, i removed the steel cable and used zip ties. that solved a potential problem. now i have maximum height available for growth, just by adjusting the zip ties.
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hey! love ur handle @GetbackJoJo. beatles! yes, purchased a Pot4Pot 5 gallon size container kit. promo with purchase of seeds. discounts, etc. thought, why not
spot on. that was my initial thought @MidwestGuy. if i can make one work, then the rest is just duplication, over and over again. so, how do you train a female to stay in it’s place? lol i gave up on that idea years ago, lol get never get her to listen. anyway, just havin a laugh. no harm intended…
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I’m training my plants. It’s easy, you just have to understand what is low stress training and what is high stress training and make sure that you give the plant an adequate time to recover between training sessions. The plant needs to recover so that you don’t over-stress it an end up with a plant that hermaphrodites on you.
You’ll have the benefit of maximizing your yield in the smaller space and ensuing that the plant stays within its confines, particularly if you will be growing a lanky sativa.
Read up on topping, fimming, supercropping, and so on. SCROG too. It would be ideal in that space.
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thank you brotha. my initial thought was to just see what happens here. i’d love to maximize my growth and i’m very open to experimenting and trying new techniques! so i truly appreciate the pointers and especially pointing out “what” i need to read and where to find it. a lot of these “terms” are new to me, so having a link or place to direct me to is vital to us newbies. thanks again