First of all, contrary to Anarchist's Cookbook, I've heard that interrupting the daily cycle doesn't produce more females but plants turn to hermaphrodites. Of course, if you don't fancy males and all signs show that it's what you're going to get, the interruption can be consider useful.

Other important issue is light. There has been a lot of debate about the most efficient setting but it seems to be that experienced home growers promote high pressure sodium lamps.

Furthermore, more than 400 watts is recommended but this may cause problems with temperature (in the case of you're growing your "flowers" in a closet or something). But don't worry, below you may found the solution of dedicated DIY-experts. I hope the ASCII picture can be seen without serious headache.

____closet______________________
|                            |                                        |
|            wire        |                                  (electric fan)
|              ______|_______                air out ->
|              |          Lamp          |                      |
(fan)       |_____________|                      |
air in->                                                         |
|-------------------- thin glass ----------------|
|       ## edges of plants ########       |
|      #######################    (fan)
|      #####################       air out ->
|        ###################                |
|         #### plants #########                |
|              #################              |
(fan)       ###############                   |
air in ->                                                         |
|______________________________|

The thin glass could be plastic (harder to cause damage, lighter). The lamp should be hanged from the ceiling of closet so that you can relatively easily change the height of it. The advantage is that thus you can keep the lamp closer your plant. The glass should be attached into same wire as the lamp so that you can change the heights of them simultaneously.

Air-conditioning in the upper part of your closet garden is essential! Otherwise flowers will suffer from overheating. An electric fan used used upstairs can be powerful because the glass keeps the plants safe. The air-conditioning downstairs should be controlled by temperature i.e. it can be considerably less powerful.

And last thing to note about water you use: It's a good idea to let water bottles (without tops) to stand still over a night because thus they become oxygenated and your flowers will like it.

In addition to this excellent source, I'd like to add the advice of an associate who is currently growing marijuana in Canada for fun and profit.

Growing any significant amount of marijuana indoors will produce a noticeable smell that practically anyone can detect, unless your neighborhood is particularly windy. In neighborhoods with multiple grow houses, the odor can be especially strong. If you find that several nearby houses are also growing, you have a chance to grow yourself and avoid suspicion by simply blaming the smell on the neighbors when anyone asks. This works especially well if you distinguish your house, yard, and cars in a way that makes you look nice and square.

With a widespread electricity crisis in full swing, many indoor growers are resorting to electricity theft to power their grow lights. Law enforcement agencies have generally caught onto this, and may bust growers on electricity theft alone if local laws against growing marijuana aren't very strong. During winter, indoor growers can save on their heating bill, since their house can be at least partially heated by their grow lights. With enough lights, it might even be necessary to vent cold air indoors to keep the indoor temperature bearable. Because of this, it is possible to spot a high-volume grow house in winter because its windows are open and the snow is melting off the roof. In summer, many serious grow houses may not run at all, since the cost of operating a refrigeration unit all summer long for the rest of the house could be substantial.

Big-league indoor growers may not even live in the grow houses, both for reasons of comfort and the risk of arrest. Careful planning and cutting-edge hydroponics have made it possible to run remote grow houses that require very little maintenance, as little as a quick visit every two or three days to refill the equipment.

The advances in growing technology are surprising even the most seasoned indoor growers, so it pays to find a grow shop you can trust. Once my friend figured out his local grow shop owner was cool, he stopped claiming he was growing tomatoes and got the shop owner to reveal all kinds of soil and fertilizer blends optimized for marijuana. The common sense rules still apply here. Pay cash, use a safe mail drop for any ordering, and drive a car with untraceable plates when making grow shop supply runs.

One great way to experiment before you commit to a plant is this beut of a program, High Grow. A freeware game by Slick Software, it is a Marijuana growing simulation. You can choose from thirty species, and then you must set the light levels and times, temperature, humidity, water the plant(s) (you can have up to three at a time), fertilize them, prune them and, when they are ready, harvest them. This works in realtime and uses complex calculations through years of research done by the people at Slick Software. It is meant to grow like a real plant. If you do something wrong, it won't grow, and next time you will know what not to do. After you have harvested your plant(s) it rates the potency and how much you have. I used this a few times before I got my plant and I grew one killer plant, so I reccommend novices check this out. Even if you don't smoke or grow dope, this is still a fun little program to mess around with, especially if you are into gardening.

You can find this nifty little thing at: http://www.geocities.com/slick_software/index.html
Or you can email the creator at: slicker@mweb.co.za

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