What kind of soil can i use to begin my grow? Also what are the steps i need to take for budgeting on my lighting to begin my grow?
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A lot of people like happy frog soil by fox farms out of california. I have used hp pro mix which is peat moss and perlite 50/50 mix.
Not sure what you mean by taking steps to budget?
Indoor grow lights some real good ones from horticultural lighting group that a lot of folks recommend on these forums. Just know your power bill will spike quite drastically as you will be running likely 1000w for at least 16 hours a day for months.
Hope this helps a bit? Cheers!
First you want to define your space. Once you determine how much room you have, then you can assess your lighting needs. Remember, lighting will be your most important and most likely your most expensive component. As to soil, how you want to grow will determine the best soil for you. There are as many ways to grow weed as there are soils designed for growing weed. Ask questions here BEFORE you load your amazon cart and the folks here will help you find the best equipment for your budget.
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What i mean by budget is I’m not wanting to go expensive, but not cheap. I want to kind of stay in the middle of the bracket,but i don’t want to spike my energy bill neither. Any suggestions?
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Grow outdoors.
Start seed now keep indoors with a cheap light on a 16/8 cycle. Train over winter, do LST or SOG etc to get the plant where you want it.
Put in ground come spring.
Only way to budget with indoor friend. If you sacrifice lighting you will have fluffy popcorn nugs on a small penner plant.
You might try Bonsai a singlr cola with success on a cheap light, but yield = available light…basically.
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Greatly appreciated. I’ll give it my best shot.
you want around 50 watts of wall drawn high quality light per square foot of canopy, using the sq ft of your grow is a good estimate. dont be fooled by advertised watts for leds, the wall draw is always significantly lower than advertised wattage
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what would you say is the upper limit per sq ft?
Trying to keep this sort of high level without too much detail but…
Plants expect a certain intensity of light to hit their leaves. Watts and such is, in my opinion, a bad way of measure.
You can have the perfect light but have it too far away and get leggy plants, too close they burn.
Get the baddest light you can afford to run. Put it as close as possible without light burn. If it hurts them, raise it. The plant responds to stresses of light in minutes.
I do not try and calculate best light based off sq ft by wattage etc…
As an actual farmer, I listen to my plants. It is a better skill to learn than punchin a calculator…though I do that a lot too but for yields and row calcs 
Get one grow under ya, note your mistakes, come back the secons time and own it.
You can do all your homework, but just wait til mother nature hears about your perfect plan 
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Will a T5 HO 2ft 4 lamp for a 2x4x60 tent be enough light for that area until i get into late veg? My thumb seems to be so brown. I dont give up easily and i wont stop until i get my first harvest.
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T5 is Perfect for veg, though at that size of tent I would double up… I use 2 of those in my nursery.
I also got a model 74054 from costco that is dang near indistinguishable from daylight. My plants love it.
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A short opinion. You will get out of it what you put into it for lighting. QB’s are good for both energy efficiency and intensity. A quality light will produce more weight, density, and overall make your grow easier. Ventilation is a little cheaper (I think) if you have any LED light that does not have a cooling fan. heat rises, exhaust sucks it out, little fans on the side of a light blow hot air around.