Growing Marijuana At Home For Only $50?

Building a $50 Growbox that actually works

How to Grow Marijuana at Home on a $50 Budget from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

Ever since I started smoking weed at the tender age of thirteen, I was absolutely fascinated by the plant. I remember buying my shwaggy bags of reefer and collecting the seeds and at one point had roughly a half a pound of seeds in possession. On several instances I attempted to grow cannabis as a teenager only to have my efforts foiled by external anomalies.

My first attempt was thwarted by my dad who found twelve little plants on the roof of my house. I created a small roof grow box garden and would sneak up to care for them daily until one day I saw a scene that would be the equivalent of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but with cannabis instead of people. My father never said anything to me about those plants, but he knew that I knew that it was him. It was a sad day indeed for Reginald Reefer.

My second attempt was a bit more professional. I actually went out, bought soil, nutrients and the lot and started growing in my closet. The brother of my brother’s girlfriend who was into horticulture told me that he had a special formula that he developed that would speed up the growing process of the plants.

Since he literally lived across the street from me, I thought it would be worthwhile to let him care for the plants for a bit, to get it growing just right. Everything was going fine until the day my brother and his girlfriend broke up. I figured that despite the fact that my brother’s relationship didn’t pan out, at least my plants would be safe. I was totally wrong.

In a fit of rage, my brother’s ‘now ex-girlfriend’ took out her anger on my poor defenseless plants and destroyed them right where they stood. The worst thing of all was that they were about to start flowering and once more Poor Reginald Reefer was left with nothing. Hell knows no fury like the scorn of a woman!

The cycle of planting and destruction continued for many different grow attempts yet it wasn’t until I built a mini CFL grow box of my own that I had complete control over the outcome of my grow-op. That and the fact that I live now by myself so no parent or angry lover to ruin my efforts. With the grow box, I can effectively grow two plants and what’s more important is that it cost me roughly $50 USD to build the thing. While it won’t produce monster yields, I can probably muster out an ounce or an ounce and a half from the two plants I’m growing. It’s nothing significant, but I can finally become a self-sustainable stoner.

MACGYVER GROWING HACKS

So How do you do it?

After scouring the internet for grow box plans, I decided to go with one design that seemed attainable.

Materials:

2 x Large Plastic Storage Containers (You can buy these at Walmart or somewhere similar if you don’t want to support the corporate monster Walmart)
2 x Mylar Sun reflectors (those that you use for your cars)
2 x CFL lights with 3400 lumens each (make sure to check the lumens)
A small slab of wood
Light sockets and whatever else I needed to hook up the lights
Timer (like $10)

At first, I wanted to build two boxes, however in order to reach the 6000+ lumens required for cropping out, I decided to place the two containers on top of each other, lid facing lid in order to make a large box.

On one box (the top part) I placed the light fixtures. Both CFL lights are placed side by side and I used an old hanger to secure the bulbs. With an exacto knife, I cut the sun reflectors and covered the walling and the floor of the boxes. You can use screws or tape, but screws work better to secure them.

Essentially at this point, you have a grow box. However, I quickly realized that without air ventilation, the plants would not survive the box. At first, I simply placed the boxes on top of each other (open lids facing each other) in a T-shape. This created two opening on the sides which was perfect to let the heat out. That was until my plant started growing. When it got close to the light source, the leaf started canoeing due to heat stress so I had to think quickly on my feet. I rushed down to the hardware store, bought some small PVC pipes and cut four pieces into a meter each. I then simply lifted the box. Now there was a large space in between both the top part and the bottom, meaning I was losing light.

To remedy this, I took some of the left over sun reflector, and just covered the space and acted as a removable wall.

Finally, connecting it to a timer, I now only have to water the plants every now and then and the rest is up to the box.

I must admit, I didn’t think the box would work so well, but for $50, I finally have the ability to grow two plants simultaneously in the box. To maximize production, I am going SCROG on the next harvest. I should be done with the first crop out in about a month, of which I’ll do a follow up article. I’ll eventually make a video for you folks.

So if you want to grow your own, think about this $50 solution. It’s not the best box out there, not by a long shot, but if you live in a hostile environment that shuns cultivation practices, this is definitely a small scale operation worth considering. And it won’t hike up electric bills like HPS.