First Time - Advise Appreciated

[Enchanted]

Even my first post here! Grow Tent and equipment arrived this week, but the seeds just arrived - and I am NOT ready! Hopefully everything is here, so I need to start setting up - no more reading and trying to get ahead of myself. I am brand new to all of this, in fact a bit nervous because house plants in general have never really bonded with me LOL... Anyway, with no other way to afford a now legal alternative to narcotics I am hoping that I can do this.

The plan is to have four healthy plants around to take care of each other. This year I will start in the closet (kind of ironic) ... anyway, I digress... I have plenty of room to grow, but I am starting small and praying for a therapeutic relationship with this. I am HOPING, that I can figure out how to set up the closet, and everything in the boxes, before my better half gets home with the distilled water I read somewhere that would be best for germination ? I did check the PH of our well water this morning and it is high, so I know I need to work on that

OK - So any advice would be appreciated. Here's what I think I have learned...
Step One - Germinate seeds with distilled water and paper towels between plates.
??? What temp should the paper towel plates be kept at?
Step Two - Within ?? a couple of days?? I should see a root and put the seen in planting media and place under light for 18 hours a day.
I have 3"x3" cups for the seeds.

NOW - working on not letting my head get too far ahead of me. All of that is IF I get at least MOST of the closet done, and my better half remembers the Distilled water.

I will check back later - Wish us Luck

[Schmokin]

Hi Enchanted. Welcome to the forum. You should try and stop worrying so much. There's a lot of info out there, but you should just concentrate on the basics to get going.Somewhere nice and warm for the germination, like an airing cupboard. But the temp is not crucial, you have a lot of room to manoeuvre. Seeds should pop in anything from a day to 4 or 5 days. Once you have about an inch of root sticking out, pop it - root down - into a hole in the soil. About an 3/4 inch deep.
Spend lots of time reading and watching, but remember, all the info can sometimes be conflicting. There are many ways to do this.
Try and think of it in terms of meeting the basic needs. Once you have a grow or two under your belt you will be able to see much better and will be calmer about it.
You need to provide light, warmth, fresh air, soil and water. If you have a decent soil you will not need to think about feeding for a while yet.
What sort of lights do you have? What sort of soil? Do you have ventilation into the closet? What sort of temps do you have?
Good luck with it. Let us know how it goes and ask away of you have any questions.

[Enchanted]

Thanks for the reply! Turns out my little package was NOT my seeds, but they should be here any day. Yesterday, I got the closet cleaned out and the 2'x4' Gorilla Tent together. I hope to get the rest of the stuff in the boxes put in today. The tent must have shipped with the extension kit - it was ridiculously tall, and I am NOT - so I removed that section, and still had to use a stool to put the top bars on. Anyway, I am a little worried about temps and not sure how to deal with ventilation. The closet is huge - almost 4' wide and 20' in length. There is a 4' doorway, but no door right now. The temperatures, without anything running in there have been from 76 to 90 degrees. I have not yet found a good place to buy soil. I ordered one block of CocoChoir - it says to mix it with 5 gallons of water... I also picked up just one bag of Scotts Organic Soil, because I can't find any of the numbers everyone is talking about. I tested our well water yesterday and the TDS meter said it was 162ppm but the PH was 8.4.

Today, I am hoping to figure out the carbon filter and exhaust vent for the tent. After all my reading, I decided that LED would probably be my best bet, so I got the Kind LED - L450. According to their website, since the LED's put out little heat, they recommend keeping the grow room at around 86 degrees. I bought one small clip fan for the tent. I also got a separate Veg light with two 2' Bulbs.

So, is my warm closet warm enough for germination? In the future, I plan to Veg outside of the tent while flowering another inside the tent. Is that a bad idea? I am a little lost as to how to assure proper ventilation in the tent, but hopefully it will be clearer once I get everything set up.

Thanks Again

LATER - Everything out of the box, up and running. I posted some questions in the Setup Thread of the forum. I powered everything up at about 2pm, went to check the temps at 2:30 and it had gone up 10 degrees to 92! I am going to try adding fans at different locations and see what happens.

[Schmokin]

Hi Enchanted
The Soil will be fine. The numbers will be on the fertilizer rather than the soil. Some soils will come with some nutes in it to get you going. These will be at low levels (unless you buy some of that Miracle Grow shite). Coco is completely inert and neutral. It's a question of preference. With the coco you are in total control of which nutes go into it. This means you need to accommodate the trace elements as well. Personally I always preferred the soil, but others will tell you otherwise. Just personal preference.
Your temps are quite high. Don't let it deter you though. Your plants will tolerate a much winder range than most of your reading implies. There's a difference between optimum and tolerable. However, I find that it is at the other end of the scale, i.e., they can go much lower than people say. Try extracting air by playing the airflow over the top of the KIND light, where the heat is generated. And remember, summer is fast running out. The big temps will drop soon, certainly before you get anywhere near flowering. Also worth asking, where are you taking the temp from? There will be a big gradient within the tent. Be sure to measure the temps at the level of the plant canopy.
One more thing. 8.4 is too high for your water. This much alkalinity will prevent your plants from assimilating some of the nutrients from the soil. A simple pH down will help you regulate it. Or use purchased distilled water, although this is a shame if you have well water to hand. Is the water hard or soft? If it is really soft you may also need to add some Calmag (or epsom salts). This is not a big deal, many growers do this as a matter of course.
I hope everything goes well for you. Keep us informed.

[Enchanted]

Thanks for the reply Schmokin! I have my first seedling I have her vegging outside the tent while I am still trying to get a couple more seeds to sprout. It is still pretty warm in there, but here we go!