Since we are just beginning to grow our website, we felt it would be fitting for our first article to be about some things to consider prior to growing indoors. Before you go out to the store or go online to shop for tents, seeds, building materials, or equipment consider a few things. First and foremost, do you have the time and money? Even a small grow can cost a decent amount of both time and money depending on your approach. Time sweet, lovely time. From the start you can save a lot of time and money by simply reading, watching, and looking for information about growing prior to just jumping in. Inform yourself of the basics. Youtube, podcast, reddit, other forums, and this site offer information to help you start growing with more knowledge directly from the start of your grow. Even with the best knowledge be prepared to lose some time and money. Learning takes both time and money but furthering your knowledge prior to starting a grow room build or starting a grow will help reduce any extra monetary expenditures. Even the best of us messes up sometimes. Messing up or having plant issues is part of the learning process that also takes up money and time. Don’t try to shortcut this process by paying for someone or some company to wave a magic wand that won’t help you learn. What you are messing up in the short term will offer a lifetime of knowledge for the long-term. Just stay focused and continue to seek more knowledge as you continue to grow.
Second, do you have the area for the grow you are thinking of in your head? Just winging it on any budget can quickly become time and money pits. Make sure you have the room. Measure your available space. You will need to be able to access control climate, ventilation, electricity, and water in the area you are choosing to grow in. Make sure the electrical circuits in the grow room can handle however many amps you will need total. Just plugging a ton of plugs into outlets can be dangerous without figuring out the electrical draw. Prechecking the outlets and figuring what circuits they are on in the fuse box will help determine how many amps you have available in your grow room. It can help you stay within a safe amperage limit as you decide on your grow equipment or if you need to have more electricity added to the purposed grow area. Make sure the area you choose is easy to ventilate or that you can vent. Bad ventilation can lead to many problems like excessive heat buildup, high humidity, molds/ fungus, and other plant issues.
Third invest time now or invest money later. As with most markets, any time there is money to be made everyone will do their part to make it. The cultivation products and services market are no different. There are a plethora of good cheap and good expensive products and services out. This is another reason for spending extra time in the beginning and doing research. It will save you a ton of time and prevent you from replacing items sooner than you wanted. Also, while making equipment choices watch for large name brands who just buy rebranded products. These larger companies can be a nightmare to deal with even if the warranties on their products are still intact. What you think may save $10 to $20 now may end up costing the full price of a complete unit to replace if you pick a bad company. Seriously do you research before buying any grow equipment and be wary of reviews on big sites because some of the companies pay for those reviews.
These are just a few things we feel you should consider when wanting to cultivate indoors. What other things do you feel people should consider prior to starting their own indoor cultivation?
Ken@MaskedGrowers 03/05/2021