before you go down the infinite, bottomless rabbit holes to follow, a word of caution. 4x4 is much bigger than you think, especially considering your circumstances and the ramifications. watering alone is a whole thing. don’t get married to the 4x4 until you see the tent erected in place, and have a clear idea of the cost of all the hard parts you’ll need up front, plus a bunch of stuff you don’t know about yet, plus the soon-to-be very legitimate running costs.
you almost can’t go too small at first. too big is much worse.
a clean, dialed-in cabinet is a beautiful thing, and super underrated. a few years ago, I heard about a guy in NY making full-custom boutique grow boxes that look like posh furniture. not sure if he’s still making them, but that would be super nice to have.
in general, it wouldn’t hurt to dig through the archives of guys like Dr. Bud, blynx, and @Mr.Sparkle
My current grow/diary has a 3x3 bed in a 4x4 tent (no drain tray just tent liner) and a 2x4 bed crammed into a 2x4 tent (no drain tray just tent liner). Running the BuildASoil Take and Bake kit in the 3x3 bed and my own version I threw together in my 2x4 bed. Just days away from a decent harvest in the 3x3 bed, trying to push them along a few more days.
Lots of good info and visuals in the BuildASoil season 1 and season 2 series to get ya started and answer some questions indeed. Watch them all!
@noknees I appreciate your words caution. I’m going to wait until the tent is set up before I pull the trigger on a bed. I want to just get to know it a bit first. I have ordered lights and I went with MIGRO ARAY 8 | 480W - 530W.
Hey @101 I absolutely recommend the build a Soil YouTube series! That will set you in the right direction in so many ways. Can’t speak highly enough about it.
Growing is amazing! I hope you’re ready to have the most fun you’ve ever had in your life. It’s the best feeling.
The beds are super beginner friendly due to so many reasons. Just trust me on this. Jeremy will take you through why in season 2 of the 10x10 series. He does a side by side with pots and you can see how easy the bed is to maintain compared to the pots. The plants respond so well to the larger battery.
There are a few soil manufacturers providing living soil and amendments locally if your interested. As others have mentioned there’s a lot of great stuff to be learned on Build a soil as well as the Kis organic podcast series.
BAS are Colorado based so you are going to eat some shipping charges ordering from them.
I’ll +1 on the blumats as I believe they perfectly complement living soils, just know that more than a few people have had flood outs with them at one point or another, so having a system to deal with that is important if you do go that route.
I have never used them, but have seen other people post them. I use 4x4 raised fabric beds with blumats and testing out a few different living soils currently.
