It's both. It's the LED lights combined with a bit of over watering. When I'm dealing with these cardboard pots before they go into their final location I'm dancing a fine line between too dry and too wet. So I leave a quarter inch on the bottom of the tray for the roots to get to. In some cases it's too little and in some cases it's too much. I'll stick with the plants that do well in that style of care unless there's a particular plant that I really want and then I'll pay closer attention. I'd rather have the attitude that any of them can die and I'll have plenty left to work with then care too much about an individual plant or individual type of plant.
Compact indoor gardening advice please
- Thread starter testtime
- Start date
It's both. It's the LED lights combined with a bit of over watering. When I'm dealing with these cardboard pots before they go into their final location I'm dancing a fine line between too dry and too wet. So I leave a quarter inch on the bottom of the tray for the roots to get to. In some cases it's too little and in some cases it's too much. I'll stick with the plants that do well in that style of care unless there's a particular plant that I really want and then I'll pay closer attention. I'd rather have the attitude that any of them can die and I'll have plenty left to work with then care too much about an individual plant or individual type of plant.
12 hours on the 28 w shelf and they perked right up. On the very edge of that that shelf as well, so they don't need it all but they needed a bit more.
And here it is with pots and pans and cookie sheets raising to the appropriate level, or so I think. If this works then I can double the amount of shelves in there.
I just thinned out a whole bunch of plants. I've never tasted fresh sage before. That was incredible.
But of course I could do better. Reorganized to match height as best I could and then raise them again.
This should be the final layout for the next week. I have a whole bunch of matching
plants in the tent at a much higher wattage light and I will see the difference in a week or so. I suspect I'm going to pack a lot of lettuce and swiss chard into one of these.Well I wanted to know the absolute bare minimum wattage that lettuce would grow under. I figured it out. At least I figured it out while shielded.
I put lettuce under two light bars spaced 6 in apart. That's 14 watts. I put it as close to the bar as I could, the bar runs barely warm. I positioned the lettuce directly under one bar. That was just enough light to allow it to grow vertically. It's spread out along the line of the bar but not to the other sides. It took about a a quarter of the bar to start and then grew a couple inches.
Everything in the front and the back started to die off.
Okay, too little light.
Then I examined the bars and realize there was a plastic shield in front of them. Blocking a tremendous amount of light.
So I yank the lights, pull the plastic, consolidate into two shelves with four bars per shelf and we'll see what happens in a week.
I can fit three fully grown plants in this shelf area. I think it will take three bars, IE: 21 w to fully grow the three heads therefore it's 7 watts per head.
The Swiss chard seems to be doing just as well as the ones under the 180 watt lights so I have to go find some midget Swiss chard to fit in here.
I opened up and picked out a bunch of packed tobacco starts along with a few others and populated a 2 dozen cubes individually. They perked right up. So now I know what to do with my bunched starts, at least the ones I really care about and want to propagate.
I put lettuce under two light bars spaced 6 in apart. That's 14 watts. I put it as close to the bar as I could, the bar runs barely warm. I positioned the lettuce directly under one bar. That was just enough light to allow it to grow vertically. It's spread out along the line of the bar but not to the other sides. It took about a a quarter of the bar to start and then grew a couple inches.
Everything in the front and the back started to die off.
Okay, too little light.
Then I examined the bars and realize there was a plastic shield in front of them. Blocking a tremendous amount of light.
So I yank the lights, pull the plastic, consolidate into two shelves with four bars per shelf and we'll see what happens in a week.
I can fit three fully grown plants in this shelf area. I think it will take three bars, IE: 21 w to fully grow the three heads therefore it's 7 watts per head.
The Swiss chard seems to be doing just as well as the ones under the 180 watt lights so I have to go find some midget Swiss chard to fit in here.
I opened up and picked out a bunch of packed tobacco starts along with a few others and populated a 2 dozen cubes individually. They perked right up. So now I know what to do with my bunched starts, at least the ones I really care about and want to propagate.
Attachments
Adventures in light,heat and airflow.
I put what I thought was a hot LED light laid on the ceiling top rack. It has two settings, 90 and 180 watts. 180 watts would burn cannabis set at anything less than 18 in. So I only have it on half strength. I wanted to see if I would burn at half strength simply sitting on that rack and if it would overheat the area.
It hovered at 74° in my 68° room with 58° on the floor.
I drop the mylar door and velcro seal the sides, not total seal but four patch points.
Temperature increases to 78° as expected.
I do a total shields down drop of four layers of mylar weighted down with dowels on the bottom and velcroed around.
The temperature drops a degree and stabilizes.
Full Shields down / up, depending on your point of view, sealed off the various side airflow openings and forced the air to come from the floor, giving me the best cooling possibility.
I thought I was going to roast in there. I was wrong. I like being wrong in this manner.
The fan in the center of the LEDs is sucking air straight up as well as swirling it around the LEDs to cool them off. It gives constant perfect airflow from the floor.
I put what I thought was a hot LED light laid on the ceiling top rack. It has two settings, 90 and 180 watts. 180 watts would burn cannabis set at anything less than 18 in. So I only have it on half strength. I wanted to see if I would burn at half strength simply sitting on that rack and if it would overheat the area.
It hovered at 74° in my 68° room with 58° on the floor.
I drop the mylar door and velcro seal the sides, not total seal but four patch points.
Temperature increases to 78° as expected.
I do a total shields down drop of four layers of mylar weighted down with dowels on the bottom and velcroed around.
The temperature drops a degree and stabilizes.
Full Shields down / up, depending on your point of view, sealed off the various side airflow openings and forced the air to come from the floor, giving me the best cooling possibility.
I thought I was going to roast in there. I was wrong. I like being wrong in this manner.
The fan in the center of the LEDs is sucking air straight up as well as swirling it around the LEDs to cool them off. It gives constant perfect airflow from the floor.
And now I can eat out of it.
The lights for the bottom are on order. It's kind of cold in there though so I think I'm going to add a couple of heating mats. The dill forest makes ass kicking creamy sauce. The lettuce is a decent salad base, a bit bitter. That tells me I'm getting nutrients but I don't particularly like it unless it's got dressing added. I'm going to have to raise some chickens to be the basis of mayonnaise for the eggs along with something that gives some oil.
My neighbors would be very unhappy if I had some roosters, I am not going to do that. I don't want chickens. Like I need the next bird flu to drop on me. That's not going to happen. I'll figure out the blue cheese though.
Okay, I accept that I'll buy eggs.
The fresh greens are coming along.
The lights for the bottom are on order. It's kind of cold in there though so I think I'm going to add a couple of heating mats. The dill forest makes ass kicking creamy sauce. The lettuce is a decent salad base, a bit bitter. That tells me I'm getting nutrients but I don't particularly like it unless it's got dressing added. I'm going to have to raise some chickens to be the basis of mayonnaise for the eggs along with something that gives some oil.
My neighbors would be very unhappy if I had some roosters, I am not going to do that. I don't want chickens. Like I need the next bird flu to drop on me. That's not going to happen. I'll figure out the blue cheese though.
Okay, I accept that I'll buy eggs.
The fresh greens are coming along.
drsaltzman
Well-Known Member
Talk about DYI. Everything looks good!
I’m ready to quit on the eggplant.
I’m ready to quit on the eggplant.
What's the matter with your eggplant?
I have several squashes but I'm not sure how well they're doing. The zucchini starts with nice green leaves but fades out and goes to yellow. I'm not sure if I'm root bound at the moment though, and merely transplanting into something larger could fix this. But I'm not sure, and I don't want to transplant things that are doing poorly. Learning process.
All the peppers are nice bright green except for the ghost peppers. Those seem a bit faded. According to my reading they want high temperature and high humidity. I don't have high humidity in there. Either I'll put them in a dome container or I'll kill them because I don't need to be paying attention to s*** that won't grow in my default environment.
Horselover fat
Well-Known Member
Lettuce needs 16 dli to grow well. That's 222 umol/s/sqm. Using proper leds you would need about 80-100w per square meter
Nice growing. My kitchen garden is just starting.
Lettuce needs 16 dli to grow well. That's 222 umol/s/sqm. Using proper leds you would need about 80-100w per square meter
Nice growing. My kitchen garden is just starting.
At this point I have them growing on three different shelves that I rotate through. When it is high light, 90 watts at 10 in, it grows really tight and crinkly. It has plenty of light and it has no need to stretch the slightest bit. This lettuce tastes strong. Great with dressing but I can't eat it directly.
When it is grown under four bars for a cumulative of 28 watts, it grows well but opens up and stretches out. It is not as green. It does not taste as bitter. The nutrients are being spread out.
I now have a 37.5 watt bar on the bottom. 2 ft wide. I'll put some down there and see if it gets a middle ground. My wife wants it tight and crinkly and I would like it to be a little less concentrated in flavor.
I found you can just clip a head of lettuce leaving an inch and it's supposed to grow back in 2 weeks. I'm a week into the growth and it's doing well so that means a 6 heads of lettuce can rotate indefinitely (how many times can I do this?) and then I'll replace as needed.
I dislocated my hip and could not make it downstairs to the tent for 2 days. All the carrots flopped over. I think everything else will survive. Doesn't matter. I had already brought upstairs everything I wanted to pay attention to such as the best growing peppers and tomatoes so I have plenty to fill that tent on these shelves right now. I'll just be sad to lose some of those plants.
And here's the current pics. Someone said find the stuff you love to grow and grow only that because everything else will be too much. I think I found them.
I have the following starts that look healthy enough to transplant and dedicate some serious space to them.
The climbers are:
San marzano tomato, zucchini, cayenne pepper, cucumbers, Marconi red pepper, California Wonder pepper, ghost pepper (If I want to plastic out a humidity area for it).
I have a few other tomatoes and peppers but I have to pick.
Assume two to three feet of wall space for these which means I need about 20 ft of wall space. I have four by eight by four. That's 16 ft so I'll have to interleave a bit or set up extra trellises not on the wall.
Then I have the variety of shelf or floor space items. Lettuce can grow anywhere so I will keep it on carts and shelves. I can eat it continuously. Same thing for the dill.
I'm still screwing around with the chard to figure out the best environment for them.
The current carrot greens need intense watering. They will flop over and die if I miss 2 days. I think I'll put them on a cart as well since they don't mind the cold and want the light.
I will set up a separate tobacco only environment. Not that it's difficult to grow, just I don't want my cat chewing on the leaves and dying.
All the various herbs such as basil will stay on shelves or be put on to rolling carts and spread throughout the house. I'll mix the various woody herbs with that as well.
I'll hang the 37 watt lights over the carts.
I have the following starts that look healthy enough to transplant and dedicate some serious space to them.
The climbers are:
San marzano tomato, zucchini, cayenne pepper, cucumbers, Marconi red pepper, California Wonder pepper, ghost pepper (If I want to plastic out a humidity area for it).
I have a few other tomatoes and peppers but I have to pick.
Assume two to three feet of wall space for these which means I need about 20 ft of wall space. I have four by eight by four. That's 16 ft so I'll have to interleave a bit or set up extra trellises not on the wall.
Then I have the variety of shelf or floor space items. Lettuce can grow anywhere so I will keep it on carts and shelves. I can eat it continuously. Same thing for the dill.
I'm still screwing around with the chard to figure out the best environment for them.
The current carrot greens need intense watering. They will flop over and die if I miss 2 days. I think I'll put them on a cart as well since they don't mind the cold and want the light.
I will set up a separate tobacco only environment. Not that it's difficult to grow, just I don't want my cat chewing on the leaves and dying.
All the various herbs such as basil will stay on shelves or be put on to rolling carts and spread throughout the house. I'll mix the various woody herbs with that as well.
I'll hang the 37 watt lights over the carts.
Attachments
drsaltzman
Well-Known Member
Eggplant is in a 3 gallon pot that is flowering and fruiting nicely but the fruits are staying small due to the environment.
I’m getting ready to harvest what I have.
Cutting down the chili plant and hanging it to ripen the rest of the fruit.
I’ll grow two more chilis in the 2x4 and get back to cannabis in the 4x4.
My experiment kind of reinforced what is the common perception out there: chilis and cucumbers are great for tent gardening. Many other things are a crap shoot. Either that or they’re not efficient for the production.
In my case the project just got a bit bigger. I want to lay out those tobacco plants in a large area so I can transplant them outside come spring.
I've allocated a room for 3 months. The lights will show up in a day or so. I think I'll have about 40 or 50 of these things going when I'm ready to move them outside. Pictures to come.
My cucumbers are doing great but my zucchinis are falling off. They either don't get enough nitrogen or they are root bound and I'm about to do my transplants. So I will move them along and see if they do any better. Or maybe they have too much light for where they are. Maybe they are bleaching. It seems that in the general grow tent with the real lights they fade away quicker but with bigger leaves then in the shelves with 37 watts 4 in away. Smaller leaves but they are greener. I've eaten all the flowers that come over either set of plants. Maybe they need less light as baby plants.
Okay, that's why I'm doing this. I love to experiment and I have time.
Either way I have to allocate wall space for the climbers which include cucumbers and zucchini. Can they share space and can I interleave them? Or will they fight to the death and not give me any production?
drsaltzman
Well-Known Member
Cukes are definitely worth the space.
Not sure zucchini are.
Both have very large leaves.
But you get a better return on cukes imo.
They can grow more vertical and less wide which is conducive to the tent.
Zucchini is gonna crowd shit out.
Not sure zucchini are.
Both have very large leaves.
But you get a better return on cukes imo.
They can grow more vertical and less wide which is conducive to the tent.
Zucchini is gonna crowd shit out.
I got space. I got more space as of today. Set up two additional sets of shelves, surrounded with mylar, with open space in between that will allow me to drop a ceiling light. Currently there's 7x38 watt lights in there.
Basically anything that's not a climber will be pulled
that out of the tent and put into this new space. And I can double the height of the new space with two more sets of shelves and a couple of lights.
Horselover fat
Well-Known Member
Not so compact gardening anymore 
Not so compact gardening anymore
Yep. I have that room for 3 months before I've committed to abandoning it. My wife wants something else in there then.
So I'll find out whatever I can eat off of it indoors and whatever I have to prep for outdoors. I expect all open space to be filled with tobacco plants and then move them outside.
Similar threads
