Plan your first weed grow with the right equipment

While you are fully equipped for growing in the garden, greenhouse, balcony or terrace with a manageable amount of accessories, such as plant pots, peat-free tomato soil, some water and tomato fertilizer for cultivation, indoor cultivation is somewhat more extensive in terms of the accessories required for successful cannabis home growing.

It is therefore perfectly normal for inexperienced cannabis growers to quickly become overwhelmed by the multitude of offers available online for indoor cultivation and, due to a lack of knowledge, to be tempted to buy overpriced complete grow kits because it seems easier that way.

Therefore, I would like to go into the individual components needed for successful cultivation, including the cannabis law, so that every reader of this blog post has the opportunity to afford a complete set for a very small budget.

So let’s start with the basics:

Ideally, cannabis should be grown indoors in a grow box, also known as a grow tent. The advantage of this is that the plants are kept in a small space, creating the ideal climate. Furthermore, the plants receive more targeted light, and you can also give them CO2, which makes them grow more vigorously and vigorously.

For three legal cannabis plants, a tent with an area of ​​60 x 60 cm is sufficient. Those who want to grow feminized THC seeds should choose a tent with a height of 180 cm, while for most automatic plants, 160 cm is sufficient, as they don't grow as tall as feminized cannabis genetics.
Grow tents measuring 60 x 60 x 160 (or 180 cm) can be purchased for around €70 online!

The second important component required is light. In my experience, a full-spectrum LED with at least 80 watts and up to 120 watts is perfectly sufficient for each of these three plants to produce a yield of over 20 g of cannabis flowers.

Full-spectrum LED lamps (80 - 120 watts) including a switch, hanging device for the tent and power cable cost about €25-30 when purchased online.

The third important component of the tent is the air circulation, which prevents temperature and humidity spikes that can lead to mold growth. Furthermore, the air circulation in the tent helps create a consistent and optimized microclimate for your weed ladies.

In general, a grow fan is sufficient to prevent mold growth and provides excellent indoor climate conditions for the plants, but it does not prevent the formation of odors.

However, if you don't have neighbors bothered by the smell of weed plants, a fan will do the trick. Prices for a grow fan range from €20 to €30.

Here you would be well advised to get a grow box, light and circulating air for a maximum of 130 €.

However, if you want to grow it secretly without your neighbors being able to smell or sniff out your beloved fun flowers, you should do without the fan and get an activated carbon filter system, which ensures that you create an optimal indoor climate in the grow tent without the smell of the cannabis plants getting outside.

Such activated carbon filter exhaust kits can be found quickly and inexpensively by searching Google for "exhaust ventilation kit with 100 mm flange." Prices range from €60 to €70. Please don't expect them to cost more than that.

Overall, a "Top Secret Indoor Grow" with a grow box, light, and odor filter would cost a maximum of €170.

Therefore, please avoid complete grow box offers that cost €300 and more, as these are simply overpriced and only serve the purpose of swindling ignorant cannabis enthusiasts into spending a little more money.

Another component required is a timer to set the light duration for the plants, eliminating the need to worry about automatically adjusting the optimal lighting. This costs between €5 and €10.

A thermometer with a humidity indicator is also recommended for monitoring the climate in the grow tent. This will also cost approximately €5 to €10.

I would also recommend a pH meter to keep an eye on the optimal nutrient content. A pH meter costs around €10, but it shouldn't be too expensive. Alternatively, you can also use pH test strips, but since they're disposable, you'll be better off with a meter in the long run, as you can use it again and again.

The topic of optimal conditions such as temperature, humidity and nutrient soil for cannabis will be discussed in more detail in further blog posts, where we will cover germination, cultivation, the growth phase and the flowering phase.

The final long-term investment you need is suitable flowerpots of sufficient size. For automatic plants, which only have a maximum lifespan of 8-12 weeks, I recommend 5-liter pots.

Unfortunately, there's not enough time for more root development, to exploit more soil, and to spread. However, you don't have to worry, because even automatics with the above-mentioned components can produce upwards of 20 g per plant, so you're guaranteed to reach your 50 g yield with three plants.

For feminized photoperiod plants, I would recommend pots of 7 to max. 10 liters, so the plants have enough nutrient soil and space for root formation to increase yields by topping the plant.

A little personal advice from me for your wallet:

Please save your money on coco-gel tablets. Even if they help germinate the seeds, they'll have the wrong pH value from the start and will slow your plants' growth, especially at the beginning. It's a myth that cannabis seeds germinate better this way.

You also don't need small growing pots, as you should place the seedling directly into the final pot to avoid repotting later, which only causes unnecessary stress to the plant, so that it needs 1-3 days to recover before it can continue growing.

How to germinate seeds in a 100% reliable way will appear soon in a separate blog post where we will take a closer look at this birth topic.

Likewise, you don't need to buy expensive CO2 bags, which you can order online; you can make your own organic CO2 in just a few minutes for just a few cents. How this works will be explained in the next blog post very soon.

Finally, both for outdoor and indoor use, a trichome magnifying glass with at least 40x magnification (although I would recommend 60x) is required to determine the ideal harvest time, when the plant has produced the most THC.

For lollipoping (removing the leaves from the lower fan leaves), topping (removing the top tip of the main stem to get more side shoots, which leads to more flowers and flower shoots), as well as for later trimming the harvest, you will also need sharp trimming and cutting scissors.

Apart from that, there are a few little things worth mentioning, such as a spray bottle to give the plants a little more moisture by spraying water when growing indoors. In my personal experience, the plants gratefully accept this during the flowering phase if they are sprayed 4 to 5 times and form larger flowers.

The ideal soil is peat-free tomato soil, which can be purchased for as little as €10 for a 40-liter bag. Special, expensive "cannabis soil" doesn't offer any more optimal nutrients. The same applies to fertilizer: Tomato fertilizer contains all the nutrients needed for cannabis. No need for overpriced special fertilizers, no matter what they claim.

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We thank the author Jorge Rieger for this blog post on the topic of the right equipment for your grow. Feel free to follow him on his Facebook account. --> Click here