Ugh I wanna grow already

[TheFertilizer]

I am sick of waiting but everything costs too much. I am disabled and after I pay rent, car insurance and utilities I have like 200 bucks for the entire month. I mean we're talking before I buy TP and soap and all the necessities... Not even counting purchasing the medicine I'm trying to grow.

So this month is going to suck so much because I am going to spend 170 bucks on lights. The month before this I got a tent. Next month I'll get a fan. By the time I have money for pots and seeds I should have been half way to harvest :-( Now I have to figure out how to go a month without basically everything, and basically two months in a row before I can start.

I am so tempted to spend the last 30 bucks I'll have on a single clone and a bag of dirt and grow in my unvented tent just to veg them out in the meantime, but I feel like I should just wait and do it right--but temperatures are still so cold heat wouldn't be an issue, maybe ventilation would but I could leave the tent open. I don't even have pesticide right now so if (more like when) I get a mite infestation I'd be spending hours with a sponge scrubbing leaves. But at least I would not lose two months of veg time...

Ugh I hate it. Has anyone had to deal with this? I keep telling myself the sacrifice will be worth it if I can stop spending ten a gram on my medicine. Last month I went through half an ounce in a week... You can see how unsustainable that is. I'm on some pharmaceuticals in the meantime, but just for my nausea and depression. I refuse to take benzos so I am at the mercy of my anxiety. I'm down to smoking resin, roach weed and sugar leaves just to be able to sit and not fidget. Counselor saw me this morning and said it's the most agitated she's ever seen me.

So anyway I don't really have anyone I could rant about this with so thanks for reading. Just needed to get that off my chest.

 

[Kingsnake235]

So anyway I don't really have anyone I could rant about this with so thanks for reading. Just needed to get that off my chest.

hey! thats a difficult financial situation to in be for sure. Anxiety on top of it doesn't help, I'm sure.

i can't say I've had to face the same situation, but i am familiar with having to stretch my budget to get what i need - i went about it opposite and got my lights before my tent, started in a closet and pick up odds and ends one at a time (even nutes)

Hard to weigh the "right way" to do things when your medicine is on the line.

maybe you could start veg in 2 weeks under CFL and use 85 from this month and 85 from next month to pay for the lights, splitting the financial load a bit more evenly and keeping your plants manageable in the meantime while getting a head a couple weeks and making sure you have a bit of that money left for the rest of your needs. How much is the fan? if its not too much (40-50) you could split that cost with the light as well for 125-135 from each month. Not a huge savings, but it might help even things out.

it would be no fun to have something unfortunate happen in the meantime tho; so there is that risk, but if you have that bit of extra money, it might be all you need if you have to spend a few bucks to resolve it in the mean time..

just a thought! all in all its generally best to have everything ready at once, but, such is life!

 

[TheFertilizer]

Yeah I was thinking about that too but I know I won't be able to resist spending it. So I'm going to to get the lights at once. I managed to find a good option for a little less than I planned to spend though so that at least gives me toilet paper money.

Still not sure what fans I'm getting. The kits with the controllers and filters are almost as much as the lights, so I was going to look in town for cheaper options or just buy the fan kits in parts. I can get the 440 CFM fan for 75 and a controller for 95ish, or I can get two 240 CFM booster fans at a hardware store for 40 to 50 and a controller for 20... I am leaning towards the booster fans because then I can use the money saved on ducting. The carbon filter I'd buy at a later time before flower. I am just focusing on one thing at a time for now though so just thoughts. Another benefit of getting the booster fans is I can see if I can get away with just one.

Or I can just do like with these lights and just get the whole kit at once but two months in a row of that will be rough. However once I get my ventilation setup, then I already have nutrients and pH Up/Down, bunch of gallon and 5 gallon pots, a timer and fans.

 

[Kingsnake235]

I can get the 440 CFM fan for 75 and a controller for 95ish, or I can get two 240 CFM booster fans at a hardware store for 40 to 50 and a controller for 20...

what size is your grow tent? you may not need 440 cfm.

i use a 4x4 tent and a similar booster fan with a homemade filter and its working just fine, no controller needed 41 days into flower.
my fan also cools my 600W hid, so its quite effective for the investment. After I've got a few grows down, i will no doubt upgrade, but for now its just fine. my tent is around 83F without a fresh outside air intake, 73-76 when i run the line from the window to cool things down a bit.

cost me about $35 bucks for the fan, but it didnt have a plug, so i salvaged an old extension cord and wired it up.

careful looking at those HW store fans tho, a "booster" fan is made to be used in a forced air heating system, so the 240CFM is probably its "boosted" rating, mine is identical, but actually runs at ~160CFM with out the forced air system blowing behind it.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Mine is 4x4x6 but I will have trouble keeping the grow room at 70 F, gets pretty hot here, so I was just going to try to vent as much as I could and exhaust out of my chimney.

 

[Kingsnake235]

ok makes sense then, you very well may need more exhaust power than i, its cold where i live.

70-80 is ok, 85-90 is pushing it, but there are people who grow successfully in this range so don't sweat it too much, let your plants tell you what they need when the time comes. anything over 90 should be avoided.

re: ventilation, using 2 exhaust fans might work, but a single larger fan would be better, so going with the controller and 440 is probably better in the long run .. make sure your passive intakes are large enough to accommodate the extra airflow, or else it might work against you by pulling all the co2 out before the plants get a chance to use it.

 

[Lazarus13]

I feel your pain. I am tightly budgeted too man. I started a grow in about the same size space last year and took it to a decent finish with cfls and parts i found to rig up exhaust and stuff and used store bought nutes.
Starting slow and cheap like that i was able to save up for a tent, led panels, exhaust fan and parts for diy dwc. This grow is producing much more than the last but wanted you to know it can be done fairly cheap and fairly successful at first. Grew enough meds for about 2 months. And it was damn fine quality.