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Indoor Garden 2018-2019 Revisited

SQWIB

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Indoor Garden 2018-2019 Revisited


Testing phase


I decide to give indoor gardening another shot this winter, it's a bit late in the year but this will be a trial run for next year, if it is a success I will expand on it next winter 2019-2020.

I will be using my existing grow area to start the seeds and grow some herbs and leafy greens.

I planted some Black seeded Simpson and Parris Island Romaine for my wife, I felt bad for her, she loves romaine but has gotten sick from it twice so she won't ever buy it again, last time she got sick we ended up in the emergency room. I also tossed in some Beets to hopefully get a beet harvest so I can make some pickled red beets, but I'm not holding my breath.


November 24th, 2018

  • Beets - Detroit Dark Red (59 days), Romaine - Parris Island (70 days) and Lettuce - Black Seeded Simpson (45 days).




November 27th, 2018



December 13th, 2018





December 16th 2018
  • Moved lettuces to individual pots.





In addition to the existing (Permanent) grow area, I will be setting up a temporary grow area.


December 17th, 2018



New grow /lights and area setup and trials



I was able to squeeze a bit more out of my Grow Area and will attempt at growing tomatoes and peppers along with my greens, the grow table will be for the herbs and greens and the new grow area will be for fruiting plants there does come a point where you want to up your game.

Since I want to go with fruiting vegetables, I had to make changes.

.... this should be fun.

The hard part was finding a table for the new grow area, I didn't want to make another table, the idea is to be able to break it down and not have a bunch of stuff to find a home for, because I just dont have the room. I looked around the work shop and think I have a solution, but first let me get some more seeds started.


  • Planted some Baby Bok Choy - Suzhou Baby Bok Choy (30 days), Gardeners Delight Cherry Tomato (65 days) and an Abe Lincoln Tomato (87 days). I also ordered some Totem FI seeds (75 days)



December 18th, 2018

I ordered some "BR" bulbs, a UFO Full spectrum Grow light and a few Clamp Light fixtures for this project.



Today I planted cilantro (30 days) and Genovese Basil (66 days) and mixed up some fertilizer this is for my herbs and greens.

Nute Mix per 5 gallons for greens (20-18-38)





December 19th, 2018


I got caught up in all the hype after doing a bit of research and reading reviews and ordered another Led Grow light and some Panda Film.

  • After work today, I cleared a spot for the new table.



  • I will be using this table top I made that covers the Table Saw when not in use.

  • Hung a few lamp holders but I'm not sure if I'm even going to use them.


  • Some tables I had in the downstairs bathroom.



  • Table added and clamped to the garage door with C-clamps. The idea is, if the plants (hopefully) get tall to the point I can't raise the lights anymore, I will drop the table down onto some crates.

  • OK, this isn't pretty but it is functional, I wanted a strong support for the lights and the floor rafters didn't really line up to where I wanted them to to screw in eyebolts. The solution was simpler than I originally figured. I used 3" deck screws and a few washers screwed into the floor joists then wrapped a coat hanger around them. I will have to hit it with some white spray paint.


  • After the table was situated, I planted some Garlic Chives (90 days), Jimmy Nardello Pepper (90 days), Bush Snap Beans (48 days) and a few more Black Seeded Simpson (45 days).


  • So far, so good, it's not real pretty but should work.

 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
December 20th, 2018

After a bit more reading (slow day at work) I decided to cancel the UFO grow light and for $30.00 more ordered another, Roleadro Galaxyhydro Series 1000W LED Grow Light.
I really need to stay off of the computer!


When I got home I mixed some potting mix for the indoor veggies.
  • 1 bucket (2 gallons) peat moss
  • 1 bucket (2 gallons) Perlite
  • 1/2 bucket (1 gallons) Black Kow composted cow manure
  • 1 cup pelleted time-release fertilizer (osmocote)
  • 1/4 cup of Blood Meal
  • ½ cup lime (to counter the acid of peat and keep the pH level near neutral)





  • I had two pepper plants that I pulled at the end of the season from the Aquaponics and raised bed. I had the plants by a window in the basement bathroom, I wanted to see if I could overwinter them. I decided to re-pot them and move them to the grow room. I know one is a Tabasco, but not sure what the other is. I took them out of their terracotta pots and tried to clean off most of the Aphid skeletons lol.

  • Re-potted the pepper plants using the new mix and watered real well. The one root-ball looked pretty dry, so I'm not sure if it will make it, anyhow, I put the neglected pepper plants under a few Led lights for the time being and setup the fan.


  • The Baby Bok Choy is up (3 days) without the use of heat mats.




Ordered some more seeds from Bakers Creek for the indoor (salad) garden
  • Red Welsh Bunching Onion
  • Arugula
  • Rocky Top Lettuce Mix Salad Blend
  • Green Wave Mustard



December 21st, 2018


I had ordered 2 new Led grow lights for the new indoor garden area, but it got me to thinking, and you know what happens when I start thinking $$$.
I was reviewing led grow lights and came across the Viparspectra 700w led that looked perfect for the new grow area but it was just too expensive at $300.00,
I surfed the net all day and best I could find was $285 free ship but was still on the fence with ordering one, until I came across one on e-bay brand new still in box.

It was an auction and was @ $110.00 when I placed a bid, but was outbid in a few hours. The auction still had two days and 9 hours to go. I decided to set my max bid 3 seconds before closing, so I stayed up late Saturday night 12:30 I believe and was watching the seconds count down and submitted my bid 3 seconds before closing and won at $222.50, not bad. So I decided to use the 1,000w lights for the existing table and the new 700w for the new grow area.



December 22nd, 2018
  • I had some work ahead of me to accommodate the Viparspectra led.









  • I also got a bit of indoor gardening done.





 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
December 23rd, 2018







  • For my tomato plants I wanted at least two gallon containers, I didn't want any hard type planters so opted for grow bags for easier storage. I actually ordered 3 gallon grow bags for the tomatoes and eggplants and will use the 2 gallon pots for the Peppers.




  • Sunday mid day I got a wonderful surprise.

  • First I installed the new BR bulbs then sadly removed the existing Led tube grow light.












I will store my led tube grow light until I am sure that these will work with seedlings, then I'll probably disassemble and store the parts.

One thing I really like about the Led's, even the semi-cheapos, is how far you can keep them from the canopy with awesome results. This makes managing everything much easier. I'm still trying to wrap my head around a lot of this LED stuff, veg, bloom and all the other crap.

For the average person doing seedlings and indoor greens using a few fluorescent tubes has you covered.

  • What a difference.

  • 2017





One nice thing about the old lights over the Led's is you can monitor the plants better from a visual standpoint (true color), but I'm working on that.

Every Led array and setup is unique to the way it is setup, I dont have any way to test light output or whatever they do but did find one tip that I have been using.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
December 24th, 2018

A few more toys came in.




  • Now I can coordinate both grow areas.





  • Planted some Eggplant, Peppers and Tomatoes..




December 25th, 2018


I'm pretty new to using Led's for an indoor grow and not sure about the height requirements for the lights so I test the leaves with an IR thermometer and if they are at the same temp and /or lower than the ambient temp, I should be at the right height, well that's what I read anyhow.
I also have a fan that is on the entire time the lights are on.



Thermal energy exchange includes convection (air temperature), conduction (substrate temperature), absorption of radiation (light intensity), and evaporative cooling (transpiration).
















December 26th, 2018







 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
December 27th, 2018

Today after work I tried getting the humidity up in the room a bit by adding a pan of water on top of the heater.
I reset the Hygrometer and Thermometer the next morning to see if the pan of water I added makes a difference in the humidity in the room. By the end of this week I'll know if I need to make more adjustments to the heat and humidity.








  • Parsley is doing real well and the chives have greened up a bit. Planted some Arugula, Bunching Onions, Lettuce mix and mustard greens.





December 28th - 30th, 2018

I played around in the garden a little this weekend, transplanted some Bok Choy, mixed some potting soil, setup my grow bags, cut some drip trays from 5 gallon buckets, filled my two gallon and three gallon grow bags and battled some aphids. My new Viparspectra 700 is due to come in Wednesday so I can get that hung and move the beets to the lower table to make room for my greens on the upper table.

I also got a bit carried away again this weekend, I saw a used Viparspectra 700 on e-Bay and decided to bid on it. There were a decent amount of bidders and watchers so I placed a high bid at 3 seconds and won the bid at $180.00, a bit more than I had hoped for but it's better than paying $300.00.














 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 1st-2nd, 2019

Two new toys came in today, a Viparspectra 700 and a 6 liter ultrasonic humidifier. I setup the humidifier on the lowest setting to turn on with the lights and fan. Hopefully I can keep at least a 40% relative humidity in the grow area while the lights are running. The water pan on the heater has helped a good bit keeping the humidity up slightly in the garage but hopefully the Ultrasonic Humidifier will help even more.

I unboxed the Viparspectra and this thing is a tank, all metal and about 14 pounds. I was a bit nervous hanging this from my makeshift ceiling cable. After the Viparspectra was installed I unplugged the two BR Led bulbs.











  • The grow room is coming along nicely.
 
M

Mr_Yan

Guest
Now that it's been a few weeks how are the greens responding to the red/pink skewing of the light?

I have grow light panels that are heavy in the red/pink range and I find the lettuce and bok choy grow better under the "daylight" LED bulbs. I read somewhere that vegitative growth is more peaked under the blue end of the spectrum where fruiting and flowering is peaked more under the red end of the spectrum. I think I will have to experiment some.

I've also built a box around my grow shelf using the foil backed rigid foam insulation. I think it makes it more efficient as the light keeps reflecting around the plants rather than flooding my basement. Probably also keeps the neighbor's interest in the basement lighting down.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
Now that it's been a few weeks how are the greens responding to the red/pink skewing of the light?

I have grow light panels that are heavy in the red/pink range and I find the lettuce and bok choy grow better under the "daylight" LED bulbs. I read somewhere that vegitative growth is more peaked under the blue end of the spectrum where fruiting and flowering is peaked more under the red end of the spectrum. I think I will have to experiment some.

I've also built a box around my grow shelf using the foil backed rigid foam insulation. I think it makes it more efficient as the light keeps reflecting around the plants rather than flooding my basement. Probably also keeps the neighbor's interest in the basement lighting down.

The lights are fine for seedlings and greens but they do grow much better under my Viparspectra lights, I'll post my updates.
 

SQWIB

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Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 3rd, 2019

The garage was like a sauna when I walked in this evening, so it's obvious the humidifier is working out nicely on the lowest setting. I just hope I can get at least 3-4 days out of a fill.




  • The Black Seeded Simpson has another 5 days and the Romaine has 30 more days to maturity
h, 2019






  • The beets have another 19 days, I really dont think I'm going to get beets but I can at least harvest the Beet Greens.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 4th -6th, 2019

There are going to be quite a few changes to the grow room by the end of this week but first let me recap this weekend. I made some observations and changes to the grow room. The garage was near 50% humidity during the day and I got a little shy of three days with one fill of the humidifier, I have the humidifier on a the same timer as the lights 16 hours a day, I may put the humidifier on a separate timer and run 10 hours a day instead of the 16. The plants are now drinking a lot of water and need to be checked every day, mainly the lettuces. I removed the filing cabinet and placed it in the outside playhouse, then removed the existing table and placed a new table that is 12" longer. This gives me a bit of room to get around the table and more grow room for the plants.
I also noticed something pretty interesting in the Grow Lights, more on that later.




Time to revamp the existing area

but first a beer.




The pots are for extra plants that have germinated.

Moving that filing cabinet was a chore, another beer is in order


all the plants are on the table, yep you guessed it...
 

SQWIB

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Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
I'm also working on different lighting for my greens/seedling table, more on that later.

Lets have a look at some growth.



















I felt bad for these guys, somehow they ended up under a Parris Island Romaine and got a tad leggy.



Now here is where it gets a bit interesting.




All 4 plants were potted and watered exactly the same but two were moved off of the greens table and onto the lower table with the Viparspectra lights barely 5 days ago, coincidence??



I dont think so.

Anyhow, I decide that I was going to jump in this hard and hopefully reduce the chance of failure. My thought is, if I do this half @ssed in the beginning and fail, I may not want to try this again, so I made the $$ decision to add another Viparspectra 700 to the greens table and lower and butt up the two Galaxy Hydro led's.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
Oh, almost forgot, I also got a cool pair of grow room shades, lol. I keep these hanging by the entry door.


Another one of the Viparspectra 700's came in, this was a used item from eBay, one fan of the three doesn't work and it runs slightly hotter than the New Viparspectra, I need to replace the fan. I hooked the humidifier up to a separate timer and it will cycle about 8 hours a day.




I started transplanting the tomatoes, I had to move the Beets out of the way to make room, the beets won't get as much light here but I really needed to start making room on the Greens table and wanted to get the tomatoes under the Viparspectra lights.


Morning check before the lights come on.







January 8th, 2019

Not much going on in the grow room, just a bit of tweaking. I sacrificed some plants to make room for the grow bags. I usually check the grow room 5:45 am in the morning under normal lights. Then when I get home from work 4pm or so, I'll water and tweak some stuff.

I need to thin out the greens table a bit more.

I promised my wife a "Grilled Chicken Caesar salad" for Fridays dinner, I just hope the romaine is ready by then.


I can't believe the growth on this Jetstar after 24 hours.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 11th, 2019


Dinner

Black Seeded Simpson, Romaine Caesar Salad.




I decide to drop the table a bit lower to allow more growing space.




I have a feeling this table is going to get a bit tight when the plants start maturing a bit.


I can't wait to be done with these beets.


I dont think I'm going to get any actual beets.



January 12th, 2019


My new potting mix hasn't killed anything yet.




I had my 3rd Viparspectra 700 come in today, I swapped out the used VS700 and put in the new light. I took the older one apart and it was a nightmare. The secondary optical lenses are held in place by a glass panel and when that was removed, they all came off and went everywhere. 140 little lenses, and they had to be put back and do not fit snugly, they are balanced on the led's. If I bumped one and it fell it knocked over a few more and they are so slippery and being round are impossible to grab, even with tools.
Several times they would get knocked over and the only recourse was to start over from one corner. This took me over an hour and I was so angry that I just put it back together and said screw the fan.

Picture trying setting up dominoes with winter gloves on.
I'll revisit this when I have less on my To Do List.






January 13th, 2019

The Romaine and Black Seeded Simpson that was harvested for the Caesar salad Friday had some of that feared milky white substance on the heavier parts of the plant like the stalks and was a bit bitter, I was a bit miffed by this. I'm guessing that 75°F - 80°F may be a bit too much for growing the lettuce, the only other variables would be duration of light or nutrients. Watering could not be an issue as the soil was always moist.

Sunday I pulled a romaine that still had another week to go and there was still the milky substance but barely noticeable, a quick rinse after slicing and it was perfectly fine.

So from what I could find out, it is called Lactucarium. I have had this problem before when growing outside. Researching this I found it to be a form of "Natural" Latex and my daughter is allergic to "synthetic" latex, she didn't seem to be bothered by it.

I'm going to try and grow the lettuce on the concrete floor, here it will be a bit cooler and receive less light. I also ordered a few more lettuces to try that are supposedly more heat tolerant.

Since the arugula and mustard greens are in the Brassica family this may not be a problem.

I was going to regrow the heads but I have so much Romaine that I decided to toss the cut heads that showed lactucarium and only regrow ones that weren't as milky.


I was happier with the immature head of Romaine. The white specs on the lettuce is water droplets and a crappy camera pic, not Lactucarium.


Moved some of the older Romaine to the cooler floor, not sure if it's too late for these guys are not.

.
January 15th, 2019
Not a whole lot going on in the grow room, just watering every day, tweaking the temperature and shuffling plants around. I'm trying to get the temps to stay between 66°F and 76°F. This is proving to be a bit difficult heating a garage with one of those oil type radiator heaters with a dial control.

It has been nice eating lettuce the last few days, the romaine seems to be fine uncovered in the fridge for about 4 days.

The new potting mix seems to be fine so far.





 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 16th, 2019


I have been happy with the latest Romaine, I think it likes the floor a little better.




I have been trying to tweak the temps between 66°F and 76°F but I am having a hell of a time, seems when I lower the temperature setting on the heater, the swing in temp between high and low increases. It could be drafting issues as well.



I decided to change up a few things in the grow room, well actually, REDESIGN the entire thing. First off, I'm going to run the grow lights at night and have them off during the day.

They will run 6:00pm - 10:00am. They're currently running 6:00am - 10:00pm. Hopefully this will reduce the temp swing a bit as the day times are usually warmer.

Secondly I also ordered a grow tent and of course had to get an exhaust fan, I'm just hoping that hooking up the exhaust fan to one port will be enough to have a negative pressure in the tent. I am not too worried about intake and exhaust because I mainly wanted to get a tent for the reflective material, my original plan was to hang Panda Film but figured that the cost of the Panda film would be near as much as a grow tent and be a hassle trying to figure out how to hang it, heck, who am I kidding, cost never entered my mind.
So if ventilation and/or humidity become a problem and the exhaust fan doesn't work adequately, I'll leave the front of the tent completely open. The tent will at the least reduce drafting and increase the led lights effectiveness.

Third, since I ordered the tent I also ordered a mini Oil Heater for the tent, I'm hoping by using the oil heater, I can place a pan of water on top of the heater and ditch the humidifier, that is of course if I seal the tent entirely.

So my project this weekend is to clear some room for the tent and it is going to be freak'n tight!!.

January 17th, 2019


Parsley filled out a bit

Potting mix seems OK, hasn't killed anything yet

The lights seem adequate for now, I have them 24" above the canopy.

Romaine from yesterday, very pleased.




I was pretty psyched after work today, I made a quick Roast Beef wrap and headed down to the grow room. I cleaned up a bit and starting throwing out stuff to make room for the tent. I'm going to have to make a few sacrifices and modifications to get this to work and it will be real tight, especially accessing the greens table and when I start my seedlings in February, however, I am optimistic. I have a couple ideas on how to access and setup the greens/seedling table with the tent in front of it.

I watered the plants and set the light timers and fan to run at night, I also tweaked the humidifier for 6 hours when the lights are on
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 18th -21st, 2019


I made some modifications when I got home after work today to accommodate the grow tent that is arriving this week.


I had to find another spot for the seedling fan. Once the grow tent is in place, it will completely block off this table.


My new toy came in



Here is some romaine that I am regrowing from harvested heads. When you're not watching it like you would your first child ready to take their first step, then the stuff seems to grow pretty quick!




The new potting mix seems to be working out OK. My goal for the potting mix is not to have better growth up front but to be able to sustain the plant for as long as possible with minimal input as the plant starts to grow/fruit... that is if I ever make it that far.

Everything seems to be growing fairly well under the lights, nothing seems leggy or is getting bleached.




 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 21st, 2019


Woohooo! UPS was here.

Crazy eyed Psycho!


Time to clean up the grow area, first thing up, get rid of the beets.









I consider this a fail!! Good riddance!!



Cleaned out the area for the third time!
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A



Packaged very nicely



OK, I'm going to try and be organized about this, so first I numbered all of the poles.



Then labeled their position


 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
This is going to be tight







Put in the tub floor and hooked up the lighting.


The tent went up fairly easy and I don't foresee this being a problem setting up or breaking down in the future.

Hooked up the Cloudline vent fan and controller. This thing is actually pretty cool.

Moved the plants into their new home... again!

Added the humidifier.

Played with the cloudline vent fan settings. With all 3 lights on and the vent fan set to 78°F, the heat in the tent hovers around 80°F - 82°F. I will need to play around a bit with the Garage temperature and how to draw the air in for cooling. I closed off the top vents and opened the bottom vents to pull in some of the cooler air that is drafting from the garage door. I'll need about a week to find the sweet spot.



I have to access the seedling/greens table with the side door. I just need to make sure I leave a clearing in the tent to access the table.

The extension cord was getting a bit too hot for my comfort, so I turned the lamps down to 50% until I can get a heavy duty appliance extension cord installed.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 22nd, 2019

I switched out the extension cord for a heavy duty appliance extension cord and installed one of the fans, the fan runs the entire time the lights are on.



Added the mini oil heater to the tent. I am tweaking the heat in the garage and in the tent so it will take time to dial it in properly, I may get a digital thermostat for the heater in the tent but hopefully I can tweak it without more electronics. The tent stays at 79°-80° degrees with all three grow lights on and the cloudline set to 78°F. Pulling air in from the bottom back of the tent has helped keep the tent a few degrees cooler.

My goal is to have the garage between 65°F - 70°F and the tent between 72°F - 80°F.

Organized my herbs on a tray in 1 gallon pots, Parsley, Chives, Cilantro and Basil.



I planted some more lettuce varieties.



There is definitely a learning curve to the AC Infinity duct fan, when I got home the temp in the tent was 59°F, ooops! I started playing with the settings and realized that I had the fan set to go on when the temp dropped to a lower temperature, anyhow, I scrolled to the low humidity and set that to "off" then I scrolled to the low temperature and set that to "off".

A quick note about the AC Infinity Cloudline T4 Duct fan, well actually a quick note about the company. I ordered this through Amazon at $119.00, yeah I know, its a bit pricey, anyhow I saw it on Amazon the next day for $99.00...really.
I immediately wrote to the seller AC Infinity asking for a refund of the difference, but not expecting a refund, I got an e-mail approving the refund for the difference...including tax!
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 23rd, 2019


After work today I checked the temperature gauge and the tent maintained 78°F - 81°F in a 24 hour period, I'm going to start working on the humidity next.

And another little surprise I had was my Jimmy Nardello peppers were infested with white flies or something on the top leaves, the bottom of the leaves were loaded with aphids, so I hand washed each leaf and will continue to monitor the plants closely.
I'm liking this Rocky Top Blend a lot, days to mature is 45-50, I'm guessing this can be harvested @30-35 days.

I received my new pot trays and they are a tad too big, they take up too much room in the tent, I may use a couple but to be honest the 5 gallon home made saucers work better with a few caveats, first, it's hard to see the water level in the tray with the three gallon bags and second, sometimes when you add water the water runs out of the bag onto the floor missing the saucer.

However, next year I am limiting the tent to 9 plants.




January 24th, 2019


When I got home I headed right to the grow room and checked the plants, I removed all the Romaine and BSS Lettuce from the grow table and Grow tent and took them upstairs.




I also noticed something chewing on my Bok Choy and some droppings in my Romaine.
I hope it was from this guy, sorry buddy!




It was round 2 with the aphids, they were worse today after the purge yesterday. I removed everything from the grow tent and placed them on the table. I topped off all the pots with some potting mix, inspected every plant and trimmed some leaves and branches from the tomato plants.
I hand washed every leaf on the Jimmy Nardello peppers and some leaves on the tomatoes and eggplants with warm water, massaging the leaves between my fingers, for some reason the aphids are loving the pepper plants. I don't want to use insecticidal soap or anything just yet, as I am afraid to damage the plants.

I am really impressed with the growth of the tomato plants, the stems are very thick and stout.



This Abe Lincoln even has a few flowers already, I dont know if that is a good thing or a bad thing?

Everything is placed back in the tent.


I ordered these pot saucers which are very nice but take up too much floor space so they were sent back.

I installed my Monkey fan but plan on keeping both fans in the tent.


My original goal of having the garage between 65°F - 70°F and the tent between 72°F - 82°F, is going to be a lot harder than I thought.
I am having a hell of a time controlling the temperature in the tent and the garage, it's not so bad when it is cold outside but the temp swing outside is just unbelievable, it was 9°F a few days ago then today it was 61°F


I have a digital temperature controller that I made a few years ago for my Sous Vide machine, I'm going to give that a shot, but to be honest I don't think it will help when the outside temps are warmer.

With all the Grow Lights running at 100% it gets pretty hot in the tent. The only other thing I can think of is pulling in more air from outside which should work just as long as it stays cool (below 35°F) outside.
I also turned the "Red" settings on the grow lights to 50%. I'll bump them back up to 100% when I start getting flowers.
 

SQWIB

Active Member
Messages
57
Planting Zone
7A
January 25th, 2019

When I got home I installed the temperature controller.



I'm still battling the aphids, I'm going to hand clean each plant a few more days before I start spraying. The pics below are 24 hours after the last cleaning.








They aren't damaging the plant yet but its getting harder to get these nasty guys out of the new leaves.




They're easy to maintain when they are under the leaves.





I turned the lights up to 100% and I'm also still battling the heat in the tent, 87°F seems about the highest it will get. If it gets any higher I need to figure out a better exhaust and intake.

Two of my tomato plants have put on flower buds, the Jet Star and the Abe Lincoln.





Decided to harvest most of the Bok Choy for dinner.





January 27th, 2019

Once the tomato plant flowered, I fertilized the Jet Star with a Jobes 2-7-4 and will see how that does before fertilizing the Abe Lincoln which has also flowered. I hit the flower with an electric toothbrush.


Here is a quick Grow Room Tour

 
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