Medical grow ideas/suggestions

Hello everyone, I have recently purchased a house in the lovely state of Colorado and will be setting up a small scale medical grow upon arrival. I would like to discuss possible ideas and any input or constructive criticism is welcome. The scale of this grow, will be to supply myself a medical patient with a chronic condition with plenty of meds as well as any patients I may sign on as a caregiver (1-3) and alittle bit extra to make into RSO and donate to a cancer patient or a reputable not for profit like Grow For Vets. Any ways I have a 10'x6' office I plan on using as a veg room. I have a 2 car insulated garage I plan on building the flowering room in of equal size. In the flowering room I plan on using (2) 1000 watt hps for the bloom room. Veg I will either use a 4ft T5 fixture for clones/seedlings and a 1000 for moms and veg. They will be air cooled 8" hoods. I will install window ac's if needed and use those during the summer until I have enough money for a mini split. A sizeable yield would be nice however, quality will be my number one concern and play into the strains I decide to run. I would appreciate some suggestions on a regime that may suit me. As it is looking right now, due to county zoning laws I will be limited to 18 plants. I plan on using no bottled nutrients and running a probiotic no till organic soil. Would I be better off constructing a raised bed or running smart pots in the 7-10 gallon range?
Thanks yall!

Its usually pretty agreed on by men much smarter than I, that if you're going to do a TRUE no till operation then you should be looking more in the 15 gallon range at minimum. Stay away from El Paso, they just set a VERY strict 12 plant limit.

Thanks for your input, I have been told that I would want atleast a 7-10 gallon containers minimum but larger would be more ideal. I am looking to run several diff strains at a time in the flower room in order to have a nice variety so I am not sure that I want to grow one tree per light. I am still trying to figure out how many plants I would like to run per light and how long I plan on vegging for before putting into the bloom room. I am not in El Paso county but I am fairly close.

In-house grows with soil are messy. I would go hydro. I would also seek alternatives to the 1k bulbs and a/c. A/C doesn't do well in Colorado we tend to use swamp coolers. You CAN use A/C it just means you're electric will be higher than it needs to be.
Welcome to CO.

WestDenverPioneer said:

In-house grows with soil are messy. I would go hydro. I would also seek alternatives to the 1k bulbs and a/c. A/C doesn't do well in Colorado we tend to use swamp coolers. You CAN use A/C it just means you're electric will be higher than it needs to be.
Welcome to CO.

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What would be your suggestion for an alternative to 1k's, 600's? Right now I have a 4ft 8 bulb T5 panel and 600w MH I plan on using in the veg room. Would that be enough light to use most of the 10x6 space efficiently that I have for veg and allow for good vegetative growth? I plan on keeping a few moms, cuts and seedlings and several veg plants waiting to go into the flower room. I appreciate the suggestion on the swamp cooler as well too. I am open to hydro but at the same time soil is what I know and I am nervous about making the jump because I have a few years experience playing with dirt.

I guess your options will depend on your budget.
A 600w MH and a big HO setup should be fine for veg.

If you are new here and don't know what the weather is like it may surprise you.

WestDenverPioneer said:

I guess your options will depend on your budget.
A 600w MH and a big HO setup should be fine for veg.

If you are new here and don't know what the weather is like it may surprise you.

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I have an idea on the weather however, I do not know how much this will effect my indoor growing environment so any input or suggestions on problems I may run into or ways to counter them are very much appreciated and welcome. I am in the southern part of the state so I have a very dry and warm climate. Temperatures can average in the mid 90s during summer. I have a fenced in private backyard I would like to put up a small greenhouse in if feasible with only 1 or 2 plants and run only the veg room during the summer and take a break from flowering in the hottest months.

Southern Colorado is leaning more swamp cooler than A/C.
Hit up a local grow shop and see what info they have.
Hopefully there is some talent near you than can help you

Hello Iriemedicine. I live in Maine and here we can have 5 patients. I just bought a house in the state myself. Here we can grow for folks out of state. If this is the case there and you need a card for when I travel to Colorado, which is very very rare, let me know. I would love to see plants grown for me there even if you have to discard the supply if I don't buy any. I actually can do the same here for you if you are interested. I love seeing people be able to grow legally.

For indoor I run Hortilux blues for veg. Nothing better. I air proof the room with pond liner and install an a/c. So much easier then venting things and you will not have to worry about spores from mold and such if the humid is under control. Outdoor is the way to go and if you want quality throw out the ferts and find compost or castings and use about 50% with straight water. If its city water you will need to do a couple things to it. You likely can run your bud lights at night for discounted rate and worry less with heat. I use root pouch fabric pots though if your doing outdoor I can introduce you to the supplier of the white ones.

SahTiva said:

Its usually pretty agreed on by men much smarter than I, that if you're going to do a TRUE no till operation then you should be looking more in the 15 gallon range at minimum. Stay away from El Paso, they just set a VERY strict 12 plant limit.

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For sure, 15 gallon minimum for organic soil. I'd go even bigger. I had plants in 10 gallons that weren't even that big and I had to finish them out with Vegamatrix.

If you care about quality and not yield you want organic. I just use bagged (Sensi Sci) super soil with great results, although I've been wanting to look a recycled soil(and a lot of other shit).

WestDenverPioneer said:

Southern Colorado is leaning more swamp cooler than A/C.
Hit up a local grow shop and see what info they have.
Hopefully there is some talent near you than can help you

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If you are running sealed you will need an A/C and humidifiers and CO2 and cannot use a swamp cooler.

If you are not sealed a swamp cooler will give you about 10 degrees and you probably don't need a humidifier but it wont hurt, especially for winter.

Someone said something about outdoor, which would be pretty cool but really depends on where you are. In the city with neighbors, forget about it.

Also hit me up and we can talk strains. I've found a few that love Colorado. Or rather, Colorado abused with its cold dry air and they just didn't give a fuck.

Iriemedicine said:

I have an idea on the weather however, I do not know how much this will effect my indoor growing environment so any input or suggestions on problems I may run into or ways to counter them are very much appreciated and welcome. I am in the southern part of the state so I have a very dry and warm climate. Temperatures can average in the mid 90s during summer. I have a fenced in private backyard I would like to put up a small greenhouse in if feasible with only 1 or 2 plants and run only the veg room during the summer and take a break from flowering in the hottest months.

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ShelterLogic delivers a very well built Green House for under $400 bucks(10x20)

Soil beds over pots any day. Eliminates/avoids a ton of problems you can get with pots. Also roots have more room to grow freely. We did a comparison grow pots vs beds in 4'x25' rows. The beds won out in about every aspect. cant really tell in this pic. I'll have to go pull some better one of my hdd at home.


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there is a LOT of extra work with not raised smart pots, I would try raised trays with smart pots inside, I wouldnt go with beds.

kmog33 said:

Soil beds over pots any day. Eliminates/avoids a ton of problems you can get with pots. Also roots have more room to grow freely. We did a comparison grow pots vs beds in 4'x25' rows. The beds won out in about every aspect. cant really tell in this pic. I'll have to go pull some better one of my hdd at home.


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I am actually leaning towards a raised bed. Approx how much soil would I need for a 4x8 or 5x10 raised bed? How deep are your raised beds @kmog33 ?

Iriemedicine said:

I am actually leaning towards a raised bed. Approx how much soil would I need for a 4x8 or 5x10 raised bed? How deep are your raised beds @kmog33 ?

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We were running 8-10" there's kind of a sweet spot around there. 6cubic feet (2-3 bags of soil) per 4x5 area. We were using 3 bags of the big promix bags but definitely ran out once and ran 2ish and it wasn't a huge problem.

With beds I wold say anything deeper than 6" is ok. 8-10 is where I have found that worked for me. Deeper than a foot seems to be a waste.


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What a mess. Hydroponic trays of the same size would outperform those raised soil beds and be cleaner and much easier to tend to.