Hi folks
I started my first grow last week. Here in South Africa, a court ruled that private use being illegal was against the constitution and in so, it's a technicality that has allowed us 1 plant per household. I, however, have a dickish landlord and will be growing in a 750x550x2200 cupboard - partly because I am holding off on buying a tent and throwing all my cash into leds (and everything else it seems).
Plans have been changed, rechanged, thrown out the window and scrapped. Had been planning on using autopots, but after considering their caveats and how to compensate for them, it's actually going to be cheaper getting setup with a top few DWC. On the negative, I'm really apprehensive about this as I know they can go wrong very quickly. So to compensate for this, I will be using 2x 20L buckets, one serving as a reservoir. I'm planning to make a drip ring to feed he plant as well as running the water to the reservoir through a mister / sprayer to see if I can benefit from atomisation/evaporative cooling. Here's an extremely crude diagram I drew well explaining the idea to my grow partner this side over a drink.
I'd like this grow to be successful, but the truth is that I've germinated bag seed from some really cheap outdoor swazi to try and get some experience before my stuff from Breeder's Boutique arrives. I'm germinating 9 seeds, hoping that I can get a healthy female from the bunch. I'm considering trying to flip it early, as mentioned by Nugbuckets in his mainline article (I assume you can see where else this is going), but I am quite scared it'll cause issues later on when getting them back into veg. A friend popped around we discussed the legislation and offered me some seedlings, as he decided it's too much effort to grow, so I've got a few extra here now, but I'm only planning on keeping a maximum of 3. 1 for myself, one for my parents and one for my growbro.
I put together a grow box, with a CFL video light on top, reflecting heat and light towards the plant. It's raised up 30cm off of the ground as it's pretty chilly here in the mornings, around 16c.
Here's the first little fellar popping his head out, haven't keep an eye on plants (seeds) like this since I went through my bonsai phase circa 2008.
In terms of lighting, I have 4x 1818 4k 80cri and 4x 1818 3k 90cri on the way. My plan is to keep the spectrum less red during veg to keep the height down, while also benefitting from the increased efficiency. I plan to run these on some heatsinks I have picked up locally, with a single ELG240-54A and then build a second fixture for when I attempt to flip them using the 3k cobs, which I will power with 2 of the same power supplies. I picked up the heatsinks today, they're a bit tougher than I though, so cutting them is going to be a minor challenge.
It has been 5 days since I popped the beans into rockwool. I have already learned a bunch, most importantly, don't plant seeds too shallow - and probably try close the seed hole a little (that sounds dirty). I have been keeping them warm and cosy away from our dry winter air in a heated propagator and I'm surprised by how well they've done so far.
On the note of the light tent, I'll be using some aluminium angle sections to build a simple frame with a pair of support screens. I've used the dimensions to try and place the bulbs equally over where I plan to grow the colas to, so everything should hopefully get a nice coverage. I've also got some steel wire and pulleys on the way from Aliexpress for hanging the fixtures.
Most recently, I picked up a reptile light to pop in my light box in an attempt to supplement some UVB and UVA, will be interesting to see if any survive this ordeal! Mounted it on my cardboard box and have added some tinfoil behind it as well as using the one box flap as a shield for my eyes, just in case. My little forest dancing from the fan!
That's all for now folks. Tomorrow those guys are all 1 week old. Will be rewatering them then! Will discuss nute plans, their next steps and what I'll be doing to my cupboard in lieu of a grow tent soon!
I started my first grow last week. Here in South Africa, a court ruled that private use being illegal was against the constitution and in so, it's a technicality that has allowed us 1 plant per household. I, however, have a dickish landlord and will be growing in a 750x550x2200 cupboard - partly because I am holding off on buying a tent and throwing all my cash into leds (and everything else it seems).
Plans have been changed, rechanged, thrown out the window and scrapped. Had been planning on using autopots, but after considering their caveats and how to compensate for them, it's actually going to be cheaper getting setup with a top few DWC. On the negative, I'm really apprehensive about this as I know they can go wrong very quickly. So to compensate for this, I will be using 2x 20L buckets, one serving as a reservoir. I'm planning to make a drip ring to feed he plant as well as running the water to the reservoir through a mister / sprayer to see if I can benefit from atomisation/evaporative cooling. Here's an extremely crude diagram I drew well explaining the idea to my grow partner this side over a drink.
I'd like this grow to be successful, but the truth is that I've germinated bag seed from some really cheap outdoor swazi to try and get some experience before my stuff from Breeder's Boutique arrives. I'm germinating 9 seeds, hoping that I can get a healthy female from the bunch. I'm considering trying to flip it early, as mentioned by Nugbuckets in his mainline article (I assume you can see where else this is going), but I am quite scared it'll cause issues later on when getting them back into veg. A friend popped around we discussed the legislation and offered me some seedlings, as he decided it's too much effort to grow, so I've got a few extra here now, but I'm only planning on keeping a maximum of 3. 1 for myself, one for my parents and one for my growbro.
I put together a grow box, with a CFL video light on top, reflecting heat and light towards the plant. It's raised up 30cm off of the ground as it's pretty chilly here in the mornings, around 16c.
Here's the first little fellar popping his head out, haven't keep an eye on plants (seeds) like this since I went through my bonsai phase circa 2008.
In terms of lighting, I have 4x 1818 4k 80cri and 4x 1818 3k 90cri on the way. My plan is to keep the spectrum less red during veg to keep the height down, while also benefitting from the increased efficiency. I plan to run these on some heatsinks I have picked up locally, with a single ELG240-54A and then build a second fixture for when I attempt to flip them using the 3k cobs, which I will power with 2 of the same power supplies. I picked up the heatsinks today, they're a bit tougher than I though, so cutting them is going to be a minor challenge.
It has been 5 days since I popped the beans into rockwool. I have already learned a bunch, most importantly, don't plant seeds too shallow - and probably try close the seed hole a little (that sounds dirty). I have been keeping them warm and cosy away from our dry winter air in a heated propagator and I'm surprised by how well they've done so far.
On the note of the light tent, I'll be using some aluminium angle sections to build a simple frame with a pair of support screens. I've used the dimensions to try and place the bulbs equally over where I plan to grow the colas to, so everything should hopefully get a nice coverage. I've also got some steel wire and pulleys on the way from Aliexpress for hanging the fixtures.
Most recently, I picked up a reptile light to pop in my light box in an attempt to supplement some UVB and UVA, will be interesting to see if any survive this ordeal! Mounted it on my cardboard box and have added some tinfoil behind it as well as using the one box flap as a shield for my eyes, just in case. My little forest dancing from the fan!
That's all for now folks. Tomorrow those guys are all 1 week old. Will be rewatering them then! Will discuss nute plans, their next steps and what I'll be doing to my cupboard in lieu of a grow tent soon!
Also thought it was a bit strange considering that they're barely visible to the (far sighted) human eye.