Micro Adventures with Mr. Sparkle

Nice thread! Great setup! Consider me subbed

nice, sparkle!

i look forward to updates in this thread, it's great.

For all the people wishing to make the fabric pots who don't have a sewing machine, a needle and string will provide good results aswell!

ouroboros said:

For all the people wishing to make the fabric pots who don't have a sewing machine, a needle and string will provide good results aswell!

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For sure it will , and doesn't take too long either, but i'm glad I've had a machine for the good 100+ pots i've made in different shapes and sizes over the years

I should say again though, so bare with me repeating this, but these are just what work for me with my bottom feed, flooded tray setup.

People should use whatever works for them, in there specific applications, and to say that I have and still sometime use standard containers, and in the past i've used custom molded plastic ones, modified stock ones, bed style ones, and even cut down bottles aka Dr.BudGreengenes style, and they all work.

The fabric ones just offer some advantages in my application, such as more aeration, root pruning, and easy water intake from the bottom instead of having containers float or having very slow water uptake.

Disadvantages, more frequent watering is required, due to evaporation from the sides and clean up and removal of root balls when everything is done, as they don't easily slide out like plastic containers.



Oh and to add i think im gonna be chopping that one Lemon Kush Clone shortly, its kinda done, but just keeps going, and when i took a look at when i think i threw it in its at 11 weeks or so, but due to that i might get a harvest shot tomorrow or mid week, as it about done or at least for me which will free up some space, for some Orange Bud and C99 clones.

Mr. Sparkle said:

People should use whatever works for them, in there specific applications, and to say that I have and still sometime use standard containers, and in the past i've used custom molded plastic ones, modified stock ones, bed style ones, and even cut down bottles aka Dr.BudGreengenes style, and they all work.

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Were you growing in beds on this small a scale dude? Any more details? I'm looking for something height efficient.

Mr. Sparkle said:

For sure it will , and doesn't take too long either, but i'm glad I've had a machine for the good 100+ pots i've made in different shapes and sizes over the years

I should say again though, so bare with me repeating this, but these are just what work for me with my bottom feed, flooded tray setup.

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Yeah, sewing machine is definitely handy to have. I think the biggest advantage for us PC growers is that we can make pots with the optimal dimensions instead of having to settle for the dimensions you can find at the store. Thanks for the inspiration by the way!

Gnz said:

Were you growing in beds on this small a scale dude? Any more details? I'm looking for something height efficient.

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The issue i ran into was when growing multiple plants in a bed was because the roots aren't confined in there own respective space, then tend to go for as much soil/mix as possible, so i would start them off in the corners and have fewer plants than i normally would, which helped. But i also had to LST them by tying them down to keep them short enough for the grow space instead of limiting there root size for height, and when one plant was under performing it would quickly get out grown by the others and the roots would fight for that plants space, also when running standard seeds, it also sometimes left big holes in the canopy that took longer to fill, from where males were randomly grouped together then plucked, and also different harvest times created some hassles

But if i ran clones and or was lucky with plants that finished in similar times and grew similar, it worked nicely.

But ill say this by going with individual pots it allowed me to run a wider range of genetics all at once, and it allows me the ability to pluck a plant when i want whether because its harvest time or if i want to get rid of a plant for whatever reason, and rearrange how the canopy is, and which allows me to run in a somewhat perpetual state.

But saying that like ouroboros just commented about, there is no reason you cant make short wide containers that fit your application and how you want to run your grow. I just run alot of different plants cause i like hunting through genetics, and crossbreeding my own.

Gnz forgot to add, that if doing only like one or two plants trays do work nicely, i just kinda went off on a tangent of the issues i ran into with running a bunch of plants.

That aside I just wanted to do a quick update for my own sake as i changed somethings tonight and this is a grow journal.

First ive decided ill chop the Lemon Kush shortly and possibly one or two other plants by the end of the week.

Next my one remaining MMJ old seed cross i have, is doing the whole grain like, fox tail thing at the moment, and has shown a couple of single pollen sacs right at the end of the tails, which ive just plucked, but as i don't see anymore forming before its done which should be in a week or less possibly, ill let it run out and not re-veg it. But that kinda pins down that these seeds came from that hermi prone plant that got into the mix.

Also i trimmed up the mothers, the orange bud could of gave me 6 clones today if i wanted them, i also culled one of the sin mints that was under performing and stretched alot which is one plant i had to pinch and bend over before i left for a week. And i also put three clones into flower, 2 orange buds and a c99. I'm gonna see how these orange buds perform, if they do as i expect, then im gonna let the mother plant run out its course as well, so saying that ill be starting my last 4 orange bud seeds aswell, just to see if there is a better pheno, if not i possibly wont be keeping it.

Don't get me wrong its decent stuff, ive just been seeming to go after other jars instead, which to me means in a very basic way, that i have other favorites which probably deserve more attention than something that i just like instead of really like. So gonna run out my final seeds to see if there is a difference.

Mr. Sparkle said:

Gnz forgot to add, that if doing only like one or two plants trays do work nicely, i just kinda went off on a tangent of the issues i ran into with running a bunch of plants.

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Thanks for all the advice dude! I've got a little more space and was going to try a single plant in a 5" deep tray (I'll have 18" from soil to 'too hot')

Roughly what kind of dimensions did you find worked well? I really can't find much info about growing small in beds.. I'm mostly wondering how shallow is too shallow and is it relative to plant height?

Gnz said:

Thanks for all the advice dude! I've got a little more space and was going to try a single plant in a 5" deep tray (I'll have 18" from soil to 'too hot')

Roughly what kind of dimensions did you find worked well? I really can't find much info about growing small in beds.. I'm mostly wondering how shallow is too shallow and is it relative to plant height?

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5" deep tray will be more than good but if going single plant you will definitely have to scrog, lst, or top your plant, to give an idea my current small 400ml pots are 4 3/4" roughly and i pretty much only fill to 4" or so, and when they are done they are 11-14" tall from soil, but that is dictated by my pc case's height restrictions, they can easily go taller if i wanted but they wouldn't fit, also then i would have a bunch of wasted height that is taken up by non productive larffy junk. As i don't have the light penetration that a high wattage bulb like a 600w hps or the sun can give off. So for alot of us micro growers our stuff is really only productive in the the top 8-12" or so, due to out light choices.

That's something ive run into in the past with taller grow chambers is you end up with alot of wasted height, like currently with Ashla my flowering box even though its taller by 2 or so inchs than the other box, its in reality just wasted with stuff i strip off early in flower as they wont be productive. As my goal has always been to have a Budsicle from soil to the tip of the plant, as you can only go so tall with the lights sources we use before things start stretching out leaving small larffy stuff in the their wake.

But saying that extra height allows you some leeway when things get out of hand, or plants decide to shoot for the sky for whatever their reasons, which is most likely lower light density's.

As for the dimensions of the trays, they were always dictated by the space i was growing in such as a 20"x20" floor space meant a 20"x20" tray as i was always trying to maximize the space. Also the height of the plant wasn't really dictated by the height of the tray it's more how much soil/mix the roots could get into that dictate how big the plant could be, so obviously if a tray is shallower of the same dimensions then it will yield smaller plants as there is less soil/mix for them to get into, but when comparing shallow wide trays to taller narrower tray of same volume, it didn't really matter when given time to spread out in, but i will say with deeper narrower beds vs shallow wider beds, the deeper ones plants would take over more quickly due to the nature of their roots driving for water, but were only talking about only a couple days to a weeks difference they still yielded similar size plants and harvest weight.

Screw it the Lemon Kush Clone gets the chop tomorrow after i get home she will be around 80 days or so, grabbed a pic and threw her into a cupboard for her dark period till i can chop her and slightly trim her.

The MMJ will come down this weekend as well, she is more or less done a little early but she isn't doing much.


Here's the photo

Looking frosty as always, good job!

Mr. Sparkle said:

5" deep tray will be more than good but if going single plant you will definitely have to scrog, lst, or top your plant, to give an idea my current small 400ml pots are 4 3/4" roughly and i pretty much only fill to 4" or so, and when they are done they are 11-14" tall from soil, but that is dictated by my pc case's height restrictions, they can easily go taller if i wanted but they wouldn't fit, also then i would have a bunch of wasted height that is taken up by non productive larffy junk.

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I was planning to use two 12x16 trays with a single plant in each, topped and trained. I have plenty of room for them to grow into nice little bushes just don't want to get too close to the CMH so LST could work really well.

Bet you're looking forward to that Lemon Kush! Definitely one of the tastiest looking things in your PC so far.

Gnz said:

I was planning to use two 12x16 trays with a single plant in each, topped and trained. I have plenty of room for them to grow into nice little bushes just don't want to get too close to the CMH so LST could work really well.

Bet you're looking forward to that Lemon Kush! Definitely one of the tastiest looking things in your PC so far.

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You'll be fine, that's way more than enough at 5" deep.

And thanks, actually i still have 3/4 of a small jar of the stuff from previous harvests, so yeah i'm interested to see how this one turned out but will get to it in time. I consume very little compared to most likely 99% of people out there in this hobby, not to mention i have all these different strains I've been sampling as well, which right now the lemon kush, c99, and cherry bomb are at the top.

To tell the truth i'm actually in a situation of over abundance now, and have been for the last couple of years, recently i've ran out of jars more than once which i could always buy more of, but i don't need as much as i have as it will take me years to consume at my rate, so i've been scavenging bigger jars to store all the non favorites in a communal fashion.

I'll probably just alcohol extract the stuff to reduce what i have, and turn it into butter/oil for baking, but again with my consumption i still have some untouched butter i made about 4 months ago, which came from the same issue, and i just got rid of a bag the other day of fresh frozen trim i was never gonna use.



Which not to go off on another tangent but that had me thinking last night that i should potentially build a smaller veg/mother box, and do side by side runs in the cases to see which one actually produces more, or of a better level of quality, as i could easily get away with just running one case with a small veg/mother box, as Bogan isn't really getting fully utilized at the moment and is acting as that mother/veg box.

The MMJ gets the chop tomorrow, around 8 weeks for her, not the greatest but more smoke for my miscellaneous jars, and who know she might be tasty after a cure.

You can see the foxtailing/grain like structure, and an extreme measure that i sometimes use when things go too tall.

I just noticed the beautiful supper cropping job you did. That Z-bend has never worked for me.

ReikoX said:

I just noticed the beautiful supper cropping job you did. That Z-bend has never worked for me.

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Thank you, but if referring to that last plant for the supper cropping, i cant take credit for it, that's just its genetics, throws outs spikes at every floral cluster.

The z bends or loops work in those times of need, and this isnt even one of the more crazy ones where i have the stem looping and lacing in on its self, but my objective is to avoid all that when possible.

Im with reikox on the z bend. I tried it once and it developed powdery mildew at the site of the cropping. Had to keep wiping the stem after every watering to keep it from taking over.

Sunday update:


Bogan is alright, the think different and the auto chem dog, were definitely stunted from drying out when i was gone, so that sucks but oh well, but the dark devil is moving along nicely, hasn't been ideal but i wont complain on its front. The mothers are all doing great, and there are 3 new Orange bud seedling that have been started, was gonna be 4 but one of the seeds had an issue.

Also ill be adding 3 Auto Mazars shortly, one of which i'm gonna run alongside some photo-periods in Ashla, and also i will be adding a Jack Herer Freebie, they all just need to germ for about another day before i throw them into soil/mix.




Ashla is doing alright, the plants should be a bit bigger well denser i should say, but due to slight issues that arose when i was away i had to pluck fan leaves, but there doing well . You can notice the 3 new clones in the center, starting their stretch. The box should fill out more in time, also the one plant "ice bomb" will probably be harvested sometime this coming weeks, as its almost done, its the small one on the right hand side near the center for reference.

Wow, I forgot about this thread. That is some beautiful craftsmanship on your PC cases man, and your plants look fantastic as well. Great job. Love the plant photos with the dark background.