Makeshift Greenhouse Problems

[brown_thumb]

So you think they're root-bound. It's been stated earlier (maybe by you) that I need to transplant. I guess I'll have to transplant into 1 gallon (3.5L) pots first because I can't fit 15 larger pots into the grow space. By the time they outgrow those, moving them outside and into 5 gallon (18L) pots will be just fine (temperature and weather) though the light hours will be increasing rather than decreasing.

Okay, I'll round up 15 one gallon (3.5L) pots and mix some soil.

BTW, the plant in that photo is only 10 inches (25cm) tall and the pot is 4 inches (10cm) diameter.

 

[Levitationofme]

yea, I see. You can only grow in the space ya got...

Anywho what is your soil mix?

 

[Levitationofme]

Ingredients:

Crafted with pride from composted forest humus, sphagnum peat moss, perlite, worm castings, lava rock, humic shale ore, fish meal, shrimp meal, crab meal, kelp meal, dolomite lime, gypsum lime, glacial rock dust, oyster shell and azomite.



I looked up your soil. It looks like a very nice mix and in a larger pot may have enough nutrition to last maybe thru Veg stage. It has lots of
good stuff that breaks down slowly and lasts a long time.

You may not want to cut it too much with your rice hulls and such.
When you do transplant, I would hold off on the nutrition right away and just use ph'ed water to start. Then a low PPM start. The extra soil will carry them for a couple weeks easily in the next pot.

With soil like that I would make a TEA once a week.

The soil has a good amount of slow release nutrient, the Nutrients you add are all chemicals and don't really need the microbes to be absorbed. The microbes work wonderful with all those nice organic ingredients.
I have found that when I use a 3 gallon smart pot their is not enough nutrients to carry grow thru flower even when I repot from 1 to 3 gallon. So I also augment with nutrients as you are.

You can make a easy version of the tea by putting a couple handfuls of your bagged soil in a 5 gallon bucket with a couple gallons of water. Bring it in the house where it is warm for 24 hours stirring as often as is practical. Add a big tablespoon of Unsulphured Molasses
in for the food. Most any sweet natural goo will work. Just look out for preservatives which may mess with the microbes. The more refined the sugar the harder it is for the microbes to use I think. not sure.

You do it every week because the 1 gallon pot cannot keep the population of microbes alive for a long time. The dead microbes are food for plant and other microbes. Spraying Tea as a foliar is great in Veg. You can possibly add some of your nutrients to the tea and use it as a quick fix to add some nutrients quickly to a hurtin plant.
The bottles you use should give some idea if you can use as a foliar.
Adding simple Kelp extract is very nice also. And easy.

I have givin up watering/feeding until 20% runoff. It is more approriate when you are using Coir alone. Coir is very interesting medium and its very close to Hydroponics. But it is more difficult to dial in.

For a "Flush" I use a 1/4 power nutes Ph'd and just water as usual.
If you do this you will get less build up in those smaller containers. I do this every 4 or 5 feedings or so.

Can't say how often, as only you can figure that out. The guys who use my line of nutes all have their own schedules and it all seems to work.

You dont have to dump tons of water to "Flush" in this case. It gives the plants a chance to absorb any buildup. May as well not flush um away if you don't need to.

 

[brown_thumb]

yea, I see. You can only grow in the space ya got...

Anywho what is your soil mix?

I'm going to enlarge the box and transplant to 1 gallon pots. That will buy me some time to make a more permanent solution, or in lieu of that, I'll just move them outside and into 5 gallon buckets when it's warm enough.

There's about 25-30 percent Victory Sea blend. The other 70-75 percent is an equal mix of perlite vermiculite and rice hulls.

 

[brown_thumb]

Ingredients:

Crafted with pride from composted forest humus, sphagnum peat moss, perlite, worm castings, lava rock, humic shale ore, fish meal, shrimp meal, crab meal, kelp meal, dolomite lime, gypsum lime, glacial rock dust, oyster shell and azomite.



I looked up your soil. It looks like a very nice mix and in a larger pot may have enough nutrition to last maybe thru Veg stage. It has lots of
good stuff that breaks down slowly and lasts a long time.

You may not want to cut it too much with your rice hulls and such.
When you do transplant, I would hold off on the nutrition right away and just use ph'ed water to start. Then a low PPM start. The extra soil will carry them for a couple weeks easily in the next pot.

With soil like that I would make a TEA once a week.

The soil has a good amount of slow release nutrient, the Nutrients you add are all chemicals and don't really need the microbes to be absorbed. The microbes work wonderful with all those nice organic ingredients.
I have found that when I use a 3 gallon smart pot their is not enough nutrients to carry grow thru flower even when I repot from 1 to 3 gallon. So I also augment with nutrients as you are.

You can make a easy version of the tea by putting a couple handfuls of your bagged soil in a 5 gallon bucket with a couple gallons of water. Bring it in the house where it is warm for 24 hours stirring as often as is practical. Add a big tablespoon of Unsulphured Molasses
in for the food. Most any sweet natural goo will work. Just look out for preservatives which may mess with the microbes. The more refined the sugar the harder it is for the microbes to use I think. not sure.

You do it every week because the 1 gallon pot cannot keep the population of microbes alive for a long time. The dead microbes are food for plant and other microbes. Spraying Tea as a foliar is great in Veg. You can possibly add some of your nutrients to the tea and use it as a quick fix to add some nutrients quickly to a hurtin plant.
The bottles you use should give some idea if you can use as a foliar.
Adding simple Kelp extract is very nice also. And easy.

I have givin up watering/feeding until 20% runoff. It is more approriate when you are using Coir alone. Coir is very interesting medium and its very close to Hydroponics. But it is more difficult to dial in.

For a "Flush" I use a 1/4 power nutes Ph'd and just water as usual.
If you do this you will get less build up in those smaller containers. I do this every 4 or 5 feedings or so.

Can't say how often, as only you can figure that out. The guys who use my line of nutes all have their own schedules and it all seems to work.

You dont have to dump tons of water to "Flush" in this case. It gives the plants a chance to absorb any buildup. May as well not flush um away if you don't need to.

Yes, it's supposed to be good soil and I think, regarding nutrients, it is. However, it stays FAR too wet. It just doesn't drain well. Perhaps it's this particular lot... I don't know but I'm sure I need to add at least 30 percent perlite to promote drainage. Even then I'm afraid it'll stay too wet.

EXAMPLE: My very first try was during hot summer (80F at night and 95-100F day with average 50-60 percent humidity). Of the 10 seedlings I started, all but 2 died after they reached 4 inches height. I transplanted the 2 surviving seedlings to 5 gallon pots. I started with and transplanted into straight Victory Sea Blend with no amendments. I didn't understand why most of the seedlings died and the transplants stalled at 12 and 18 inches. I learned the soil was too wet so I waited for it to dry out before watering again... and waited and waited and waited. The soil was still registering 'wet' on the meter at just 3-4 inches deep after 5 weeks with zero water. Both plants died from root rot. The pots have 5 large drain holes in the bottom and they were resting on very porous sandy soil. I figured that was good drainage condition but since then, I've added a 3 inch layer of smooth river rock for the buckets to sit on to better facilitate drainage.

I've been adding the nutrients because there is so little actual soil in the current mix in the little pots.

Maybe I could try a 50/25/25 mix of the Victory Sea Blend, perlite and vermiculite when I transplant to the 1 gallon pots.

I didn't know one could make a tea from good soil... good to know, I'll try it. I do use Grandma's molasses regularly but I've been out of it for several days and forgot to buy more the last time I drove to town. I recently added sea kelp and Humax to the feeding regimen.

I water until run-off because my soil mix is so light. I figure I might as well to prevent build-up of salts. Also, it assures the entire pot of medium is thoroughly wet so every tiny root is fed. I don't know... maybe it just makes me feel better to know I'm allowing a little waste to make my babies happy.

 

[Levitationofme]

I suggest next run you try a run in coco coir.
It fits your personality better then soil.
You can hand water with nutrients 2 or 3x a day.
Lots of stuff to do. Its more like hydro then not.

You can get that faster growth you are fishing for. Things happen faster in coco. You can run higher ppm. Plus you get to use all that cal/mag
You have. Essential for growing in coir. But you dont need fancy anything.

I switched to dirt to slow shit down and keep controll.

Coir is cheap and you can reuse many times......

 

[brown_thumb]

Thanks. It's also been suggested I switch to PPK. But I'm stubborn so I'll keep trying a soil mix for awhile. I'm thinking the very loose mix is a reasonable compromise regarding moisture and nutrient retention/release vs. good drainage. If I can't make this work then I'll try another method.

 

[Levitationofme]

The stuff in your soil has microbes in it. It has Humus and EWC in the ingredients. It has other goodies in it no doubt that you can leec out as well

 

[Levitationofme]

You can make it work, you just need to find the balence

 

[brown_thumb]

You can make it work, you just need to find the balence

Yes, 'balance'. In the next few days I'll transplant. I hope I can 'guess' at a good workable soil mix. The lights will be a bit sparser due to the plants being farther apart but I think they'll suffice for now.

 

[HarvestMoon303]

Yes, 'balance'. In the next few days I'll transplant. I hope I can 'guess' at a good workable soil mix. The lights will be a bit sparser due to the plants being farther apart but I think they'll suffice for now.

Maybe you could try taking some of them indoors and using the 315 CMHs that you have? Even with twelve medium sized plants, you could get away with 1-2 lights for now, and they would be warmer.

 

[brown_thumb]

Maybe you could try taking some of them indoors and using the 315 CMHs that you have? Even with twelve medium sized plants, you could get away with 1-2 lights for now, and they would be warmer.

That's a good idea but, at the moment, I can't afford to hire an electrician to run the 220v wiring. When I was younger and in better health I would have done it myself but I don't trust myself anymore to not make a silly and potentially dangerous mistake.

 

[HarvestMoon303]

That's a good idea but, at the moment, I can't afford to hire an electrician to run the 220v wiring. When I was younger and in better health I would have done it myself but I don't trust myself anymore to not make a silly and potentially dangerous mistake.

Are you certain that your 315s are 220v only? They exist, but many are switchable 120/220v.

 

[aridbud]

Read up....seems they run on 120v. Guess it depends on the model. Email or call where you got them. They can confirm. Surge protector is a grower's friend, too.

 

[brown_thumb]

Are you certain that your 315s are 220v only? They exist, but many are switchable 120/220v.

They were advertised as 208-240v but I haven't looked to see if they're switchable. I'll look in a few hours.

 

[brown_thumb]

Read up....seems they run on 120v. Guess it depends on the model. Email or call where you got them. They can confirm. Surge protector is a grower's friend, too.

I'll look at them but the seller told me they're 220v. I have line conditioners for both the 110v LEDs and the 220v CMH. I'll also be adding UPS to prevent the rapid power flickering that happens here occasionally. The electric power is so bad here that until I added a line conditioner and UPS to my computer, I was losing a computer once per year on average. They were so badly damaged none were worth repairing even if I did the work myself.

 

[brown_thumb]

These ballasts are not voltage switchable.

 

[HarvestMoon303]

These ballasts are not voltage switchable.

Sell em and pick up some 120v fixtures? Ask the seller to exchange them for 120v ballasts? Buy one phantom 120v 315w ballast and use the hood/bulb that you have. A 120v phantom ballast is less than $200.

 

[brown_thumb]

Sell em and pick up some 120v fixtures? Ask the seller to exchange them for 120v ballasts? Buy one phantom 120v 315w ballast and use the hood/bulb that you have. A 120v phantom ballast is less than $200.

That's a good idea but by the time I sell these and replace them I'll have the funds to wire the 220v setup. Even if I change to 110v fixtures, I'd still have to hire an electrician to run more 110v wiring to provide enough current draw.

This spring or summer I'm moving my grow into an unused closet. That closet is where the main breaker box is so cost of wiring for eight 220v fixtures will be affordable. I will no longer be fighting outside elements. Of course, I'll have an entirely new set of challenges to overcome.

A neighbor helped me double the size of the existing grow box so I can now transplant into 1 gallon containers. I hope I have enough existing LED lights to keep them growing.

 

[brown_thumb]

After buying more supplies and running a couple other errands I feel lousy. I'll finalize the enlarged box (seal it better), mix soil, transplant to gallon containers and rearrange the lights and wiring tomorrow. I fed the plants fully tonight to keep them going.