also if you want to do less plants but still have a bunch of colas try uncle ben's topping method, which gives you 4 main colas on each plant.
many people seem to have success at this even on their first grows, as long as you are absolutely clear where and when to do your topping. basically, you wait till you ahve 5 or 6 nodes then cut the plant just above the second true node where you see fan leaves. this causes the auxins in the plant (plant hormones) to be re-distributed to the two remaining true nodes causing new colas to form. it's pretty easy, but if you cant figure out what "true node" means then i would wait until you do.
p.s. thats on the rollitup site
Thats called FIM topping as well. You'll see it everywhere you look on growing forms :p Its definately the way to go imo though. And plenty of tie downs.
Anyways you ask about soil, In my experince good soil can go a long ways. Thats generally expert mixed soil etc with the perfect servings of Guano etc for each strain. If you hunt Caregiverken down, I know he has a great recommendation on the cheapest soil around, and he says it works pretty well. Its about 5$ a bag from lowes I believe. Now I always like to go to the next step and either mix my own, Or buy the expensive stuff... FF: Ocean Forest is some damn good soil, and your plants will love it through veg. That runs more like 15-20$ a bad but is really worth it.
*Just a warning though, Im kinda worried I got Root Aphids in a bag of Light Warrior from FF so keep your eyes open gents.
Try not to spend a bunch of money on seeds your first time, I mean you can by all means you may grow better pot just because of it (Better genetics lead to better pot, its like 75% of growing right there...) I always tell noobies to grow from bag seed though, You learn how to sex a plant off the bat along with the fact each plant doesn't have a very big price tag (At 10-15$ a bean it adds up)
Fem seeds? Start ten flower them all? Gonna start a mom and take cuttings? If you are in a cool state I would suggest buying clones from a reputable dealer. Save some serious time and head ache...
^^ I was going to tell you not to buy Fem Seeds but then I saw this here. So I thought I may. In my experince, If I had never originally grown from seed for my first few grows, I would have never known what a male flower looks like, and when I ran into problems with hermies etc it made it much easier to spot and prevent.
For the learning curve I argue for normal seeds :p Clones are an even better choice if you can get them though, but yet again you loose out on the learning curve (They will just expedite your Day to harvest).
Chobble
