Then switched to LED.

Here is some details...

Ended up with 3 Northern Lights Autoflower and 2 Fast & Vast Autoflower out of 6 Soaked for about 15 hours and then straight into 3 gallon fabric pots at about 1/2 inch deep. I kept the top layer moist but not too most.

Northern Lights:
http://www.herbiesheadshop.com/vision-northern-lights-autoflowering-feminised-seeds-4402

Fast & Vast:
http://www.herbiesheadshop.com/heavyweight-fast-and-vast-autoflowering-feminised-seeds-4648

Soil:
50/50 mix of Fox Farm Ocean Forest and Happy Frog with a Happy Frog core in 3 gallon fabric pots. I added about 2 inches of perlite at the bottom of the pots first for drainage.

Lights:
For early veg: 2 - 2' x 4 bulb T5HO fixtures on 20/4 light cycle.
For veg/flower:
Mars Hydro 2 900w LED on 20/4 light cycle.

Space:
Grow space about 30"x30" x 5 feet.

Nutes:
Using Grow More nutes starting very diluted. 16-16-16, Jump Start, and Maxi-Cal plus more now they are blooming.
Also using rain water I gathered in my rain barrel.
http://plantsthatproduce.com/guide-nutrients-for-cannabis.html#275

I take these shots through my special sunglasses. Kind of a pain to do. If I didn't the LED would make it all pink color. That orange colored light in the pic is a halogen light I use sometimes to inspect the plants Under more natural light.

Lots of flowers coming on.

There are many good tutorials online for harvesting, trimming, and curing.
This is my first grow so we will see.
I plan to make cannabis oil so curing the flowers is not as critical however I will cure some flowers for the vaporizer.
The sugar leafs I may make infused cooking oil with.
Here's a pretty good tutorial.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/curing

This is wonderful medicine for my wife and I as a sleep aid and cancer preventative and more.

I'm not sure this is really appropriate for the forum though.

I grew for many years beginning in the 70's. I even invented my own hydroponic system. One of the most enjoyable periods of my life was having an indoor garden shining away down the hall.

This forum is going to be great.

...to grow their own medicine.

I actually have some seeds that I got from my Alaskan Ice buds that my budtender said was very viable and also was given 6 seeds of Island Sweet Skunk for free from the same budtender after talking about the said seeds. Both strains are VERY nice sativa strains that I love.

I live in CO, so no problems with growing it at home.

I'm an absolute novice on it, but I would love to try to grow my own. I actually have a small shed that I can use, but I have to figure out the electricity part.

And what lights I can start with as an absolute novice grower, you know?

So at a minimum, what can I start with?

I started mine under T5HO lights.
Here is my journal.
http://www.rollitup.org/Journal/tedeboy.892876/

Search the heck out of the Internet.
Here are 3 sites I frequent.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/home
http://www.rollitup.org/
https://www.autoflower.net/forums/forum.php

On edit...I made a little video. I hope you enjoy.

And beautiful.