Howdy! I see the awesome welcome wagon has rolled through already!
Cheers to you for kicking the "market" to the curb!
LOL! .... now, time to spend that $$ elsewhere,... The soil, "soilless", and hydro' choices are so myriad that your frontal lobe will collapse if you try to review the lot of them, so for beginners, it's KISS all the way,... that usually means soil, a good base nutrient line plus some select supplements, and some very important tools... which ones will depend on what you can get locally (soil in particular-- never cheap low quality stuff! -let us know what you can find), or may want to order online (nutes/equipmt.),... recommendations gladly given.... as for tools, I mean pH and water/nutrient solution measuring equipment, mostly for managing your pH's of water/nute soln.'s, and especially soil! Off pH's are one of the biggest cause of grow headaches, so managing it will go a long way to preventing and fixing troubles,... You'll need a pH meter, for testing nute' solutions/water- (also, the calibration and storage solutions used to keep it accurate); a soil pH probe- Accurate 8 makes a good one for the money (nothing beats actual
in-soil measurements!), and an EC or TDS meter (this is for testing water hardness, and if needed, nute soln. concentrations).... it all may sound complex, but the why and how-to's will be easy to learn! So, fell free to ask questions of any staff, and many members are more than qualified to offer good advise as well,....
Also tent size, what strains your gonna grow, meters (do you have a way to test your water and soil?) All this will lead to a fun grow and a nice harvest!
....well, if you want speed to harvest, auto's are the way to go,... they are a bit more tricky than photo's, particularly with nutrients-- generally, they're sensitive to overfert'ing, but that can be minimalized by reducing the dosage conc., typically starting at 1/4 strength, and easing you way up from there,...BUT specifics on that will depend on what soil (how rich it is) and the NPK#'s of the nutrients you have,... Oh!- about soil, for auto's you need to use something mild, at least to start with; overly rich soil tends to stunt and/or burn them,... When you find what available locally, let us know, and we can advise you about this,...
