INDOOR TUTORIAL #1

Kia Ora Green Friends 💚

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Growing indoor cannabis comes with its risks, so if you are going to risk it you might as well do it right!

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Firstly to those who are completely new to growing, indoor cannabis plants can be completely controlled to do what you want.

Cannabis grows differently to the different amounts of lighting you give it. 
Cannabis can be in its "vegative" growth Cycle (which requires 18 to 24 hours of lights ON) - veg cycle means the plant will only grow leaf and branches NO flowers (or buds). Plants can remain in the veg cycle until they reach their desired height for flowering or in some cases mother plants may be veged for years allowing you to take clones off them. (cloning in this tutorial!)

To make your cannabis plants grow flowers (or buds) the plants will require a change in the light cycle, cannabis needs 12 hours of COMPLETE darkness to flower successfully (and 12 hours of light) - any light leaks during the dark period may stress the plants and cause hermaphrodite plants (female plants with flowers AND pollen sacks that will seed your whole grow).

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Your grow space:
To successfully grow indoor cannabis, the space in which you grow it is VERY important. I highly recommend indoor grow tents as they come ready to go, how ever some may choose to build secret rooms , or stealth cabinets, whole rooms, attics and basements - and sheds or whatever!! What ever it is you are going to grow in there are some factors to keep in mind.

#1. Ventilation - Ultra important - at the very least air needs to be able to be pulled from your grow space via an extraction fan. so vent holes are very important.

#2 Reflective walls - though you may get away without them, the difference is huge with them! if you are building - matte white paint can be sufficient - otherwise mylar/tinfoil.

#3 It needs to be sturdy enough to hold your lights above your plants.

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Lighting:
People will advise you on all-sorts of ideas on lights that work... I say if you are going to risk it inside - do it right, no messing round!
Here's a run down on lights good and bad for your cannabis plants:

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HPS - High pressure sodium lights. Red/orange spectrum light - Perfect for flowering. These are hands down the best for both your flowering ad veg cycle. HPS lights come in a variety of wattages available from 250watts to 1000watts, (I recommend nothing under 400w for a space 1m squared)
To use an HPS you will be required to buy a ballast - there are many advanced ballests on the market - but the cheap "Magnetic" ballasts work just fine, without needing any exotic digital ballasts.

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MH: Metal Halide lights. Blue Spectrum, Mostly used for the vegative cycle. Much like an HPS (requires a ballast, and also comes in many wattages). Not a good Idea to flower with these. Healthy growth in the vegative cycle how ever not the same vigor as an HPS.

LED: Light Emitting Diodes. Alot of talk about these. Generally you get what you pay for with these, and there are some expensive rigs available (ballasts are built in). Cheap LEDs will grow buds for you, but are not worth the time and money. An expensive LED rig can have results comparable to HPS, but they do lack the vigor you will get with HPS.

LEDs come in a variety of wattages, the higher the wattage the more expensive - but the better the results (same goes with ALL types of lighting).
LEDs do not emit the same amount of heat as HPS therefore coldness and humidity CAN be an issue in the winter months. A plus side to that is your cannabis, if it has colour such as purples or blues and blacks in its genes - these colours will really come out in your end product giving it great visual/bag appeal.
Good things will come out of using an led in combo with an HPS.

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CFL: Compact Fluorescent Lamp. even the most basic of CFLs will grow cannabis. Id strongly disagree with using them for a full grow (flowering and all) however it CAN be done, the results however are less than ideal... airy, low yielding plants.
I do however feel these have their place. They are excellent for keeping mothers under, mother plants will grow just fine - stretching out a little searching for the light - and growing not too busy - rather staggered making them PERFECT for cloning. Clones will also happily root under CFLs without the need for shade,, they will also happily grow their first few set of leaves nice and slow while you maybe wait to finish your main grow under HPS or LEDs

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My personal choice is HPS for the whole process. I would consider LED for vegative growth, but again... i cant compare to the vigor of HPS. What ever lighting you use, you will need a timer... if you are using Ballasts - DO NOT use a manual analogue timer... spend the $5 or $10 extra and buy a digital timer, they are tricky to program at times - but are far less likely to burn out and stop working.

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Ventilation:
This is one of the more expensive sides to set up in a grow, how ever it is very much necessary. With out ventilation... just about dont bother... you will have issues with mold and rot, that will taint all that good work and risk potentially with un-smokable unusable product.
Firstly you need an extraction fan. the intention of this is to pull air out of your grow space. Spaces around the 1meter square mark can get away with buying "inline" fans - small basic fans that are $100s cheaper than extraction fans. Spaces any bigger and im sorry but you will need to invest in a good one (anywhere between $300 to $800) big enough to pull air out of your space.
Carbon filters are usually added to these to remove the smell (THEY WORK) they range from $100 to $500 and are worth every penny.

The next minimal piece of equipment you need for successful ventilation is an oscillating fan blowing on your plants... set the fan up so your plants lightly dance when the air is blowing on them.. not too vigorously blowing.
I run all my ventilation 24/7 so long as plants are growing, fans are blowing.

As long as you have a decent space with NO light leaks when dark and adequate ventilation, choose your lighting rig, and you are ready to start growing.

Cannabis indoors I say can be grown so many different ways, If plant count doesnt bother you, you may give lots of little plants NO veg time and put them straight into flower achieving lots of small compact plants directing all their energy into single columns harvesting roughly an ounce per plant. 
OR you may veg your plants under 18 hour light for a couple of months before flowering growing huge high yielding single plants... needing less of a plant count... but more veg time... and small popcorn buds as well as big columns.
There are also many advanced training techniques to improve plant form and yield. I will be covering EVERYTHING I know in many separate tutorials, but for now I'll have to call it a night!

The best is yet to come! I will offer many techniques.. use the ones you want to... Indoor cannabis growing has a technique to suit every grower.

Any questions, fire away