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Vegging in a Greenhouse vs Indoor under 1000’s

What’s everyone think? Going to be either using a greenhouse or my gavita 1k’s to veg next year from late April to June. I’m gonna use the gravitas for a couple weeks while they root.


This is not caring about cost for power either just wondering which would ppl prefer?
 

St. Phatty

Active member
Depends so much on the weather.

I have an outdoor garden grow now that would have been insane in previous years, because we always had cold & snow by now.

Instead, we have had a sunny October, and now a sunny November.

And, after a week of temps dropping below freezing, nights are warming up from the 20's to the mid-30's.

All completely atypical weather.

I put the garden in thinking, it would be great to have plants in the ground if the weather cooperated - knowing that the weather probably wouldn't cooperate.

But the weather cooperated !


Maybe - be prepared for both & make the call towards the end of March.
 

EL Picos

Member
What’s everyone think? Going to be either using a greenhouse or my gavita 1k’s to veg next year from late April to June. I’m gonna use the gravitas for a couple weeks while they root.


This is not caring about cost for power either just wondering which would ppl prefer?


Always indoor 17/7 hours, often under natural light with bad spring temperature the plants begin to bloom, it's a long waste of time before they regenerate.
 
Ok ok. I’m getting on probation in a county that has a ban on outdoor and I don’t want my PO coming to my house and seeing you know what.


Hopefully I only have to report and they don’t make home visits. Getting charged with possession over an ounce and got 2 years paper. It should have been way worse but I got a good lawyer and got things reduced.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
No contest. Heated greenhouse. Especially during the months you are talking about. I have tried so many things over the years. I can just look at a plant and tell if it's been growing inside. The structure is different.
If i am ever short on starts come planting time, and i have to buy plants from other people (i hate doing that), the first thing i ask is "are they being veged inside or in a greenhouse". I won't even touch indoor starts.
A tried and true way of keeping moms vigorous long term is to bring them outside during the summer. Shantibaba kept moms for 25 years like that.
Heating when necessary is no big deal and the difference in growth is unreal. We want our starts to be in a super aggressive state of growth and to never skip a beat. You don't want to be hardening plants off. Plants grown in a Greenhouse usually grow twice as fast as inside. They also show sex earlier on seedlings. They also grow wider with better branching because the angle of light arcs instead of just coming from above. It just sets the structure up for a better outdoor plant.
The longer you grow a plant inside, the harder it is for it to adjust when you bring it out. If i had no choice but to veg inside, i would be using little babies to plant.
A little tip i have for your starts. Don't start them in little pots and keep transplanting them up like you do inside. Start them in big fabric pots.
 
That makes sense and I’ve always wandered why my plants look different than my neighbors. Mine always grew taller and theirs were lower and more squat/stout. I topped them but they still grew tall compared to others around me. I’m gonna get clones mid April and veg them for a cpl weeks indoors(starting in 5 gallon hard plastic pots) then move them out to a greenhouse til June 1st. I would like to plant them early one year an keep a light over them so I can get them adjusted sooner. My wife found these solar lights than I can stick in the soil and just switch off a cpl hours each night. Might have to use some pallet wrap to keep them protected from the cold. One of my neighbors said he does that. This was my second year outside an I doubled my yield from last year. Trying to get better each year. I didn’t prune like I would have liked so I got a good bit of popcorn so that’s another thing I need to MAKE myself stay on top of next year.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
Solar lights are a great idea. If you find a good cheap solar light, share it!
Plants seem to want to grow in the shape of their roots. don't like to grow much wider then the pot without a bunch of manipulation.
I think the pot they are veged in is one of the most important things. Once a clone hits the side of a pot, the roots start to circle a little And its hard to get aggressive lateral root growth again. I think this is the main reason i have seen small starts outgrow big ones so many times.
I have had the best luck veging in a single big fabric pot. Roots don't circle. There is a company online that sells 7 gallon pots with Velcro to transplant out of for $1.60. If i want to veg some monsters, they sell 15gal pots for $2. I just cut them out of the 15s.

I like the pallet wrap idea. How do you do it? What kind of structure do you wrap?
 
Everyone I know uses roughly 100-200 gallon boxes made of plywood and have wooden stakes coming up out of each corner. My neighbor says he just wraps around with pallet wrap then uncovers in the day time. My wife found solar led lights that are attached to a stake for $7 at Costco I believe. I like hearing from you crushingyuba. What do you think about going from a 1 gallon plastic bag from 2 weeks under 600-1000w lights to directly in the ground early may? I want to get the timing right so the roots don’t hit the end of the bag. Maybe 2 weeks under 600-1000w will be too long in that little of a bag? I have 1 gallon plastic bags and 5 gallon hard plastic pots. Should I just use the 5 gallons? Where I’m at this year the last frost was first week of May.
 

CrushnYuba

Well-known member
That's a cool idea. So he uses his trellis posts. I think i was thinking about a different type of pallet wrap if you can just take it off.
The earlier you can get them in with weather permitting optimal growing conditions, the better. But it seems like your climate is colder then mine. The soil and air needs to be pretty warm. It will definitely be more difficult to heat a bunch of mini greenhouses then 1 big one. I wouldn't plant until your daytime highs are about 70.
Maybe the best thing for you would be a june 1st planting. Keep em in a raging heated greenhouse until then. My May average high and lows are 73f and 53f so i can plant in May.
I have a friend that is at a much higher elevation then me. He gets snow sometimes in May. Some years he can't plant until like june 7th. He just keeps them in a heated greenhouse until he can tell the weather is right. He pulls some pretty big plants.
 
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