Indoor Garden 2018-2019 Revisited - Page 3

SQWIBB · February 4, 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by PlainJane

Wow, I’m completely humbled now looking at my one 48” fixture standing on a Home Depot folding table with just a heat mat underneath out in our garage. Obviously I need more equipment hehe.

Go for it!

SQWIBB · February 4, 2019

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.

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

January 28th, 2019

I sprayed the Jimmy Nardello pepper with my "Aphid X" (1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper - Teaspoon Dish Soap - 1qt. water)

Here is my Robotic Bee!

January 29th, 2019

I really don't get this temp swing, I can't see how it can get to 67°F when I have the temperature controller set to 72°F, anyhow I adjusted the Temperature controller to 75°F. So the low (oil heater) is set for 75°F and the high (vent fan) is set for 80°F

I have three tomato plants with flowers, time to pollinate with my robotic bee! Everything is doing pretty good except my one pot of Jimmy Nardello peppers, the plants seem to be at a standstill.

I found where the Aphids were congregating, seems they love the cilantro. I sprayed the cilantro real good then washed the entire plant under tepid water.

SQWIBB · February 4, 2019

January 31st, 2019

Still enduring an ongoing battle with aphids, mostly on my cilantro.

Yay! I finally got the temperature to settle down a bit, I guess with the temperature being 6°F outside helps with the cooling a bit. I think when the lights kick off and the temp in the tent drops it takes a while for the Oil Heater to come up to operating temperature from a cold start.

The plants are all doing real well, except for my Bunching Onions... I think I over watered them and one pot of Jimmy Nardellos is still a bit stunted. I have a few backups that are doing real well under the led bulbs, they're about 6" tall and already have little flower buds in the center, good, bad? who knows I'm just going to let everything do its thing with as little intervention as possible.

Most of the tomato plant have flowered and are growing extremely bushy with very thick stems, I pollinate with the electric tooth brush every day or every other day.

The tomato plant that I fertilized with the Jobes doesn't seem any different than the rest of the plants, so I will fertilize the rest of the plants this weekend.

The color of these pictures are actually a lot more purple looking than they actually are. I'll have to take some photos with the lights off.

My little tree!

I love when I'm in the tent and get that tomato plant smell, it really is a tease when its 6°F outside!

I really need to stay on top of the watering, the tomato plants are drinking up tons of water.

These Black Beauty Eggplant Plants are doing well. I also have a Listada di Gandia Eggplant Plant in a pot that has my trial potting mix in that is not doing as well, not sure if its the mix or because its a different variety. All the other plants in the Trial potting mix seem to be doing just as good as the original potting mix, no worse, no better.

I may separate the two Black Beauties and abort the Listada di Gandia and replace with one of these.

February 1st - 3rd, 2019

Aphids are out of control on the Cilantra, finally decided to cut down the cilantro and toss the cuttings, I then resprayed the cilantro and will keep an eye on it.

The Aphids are still appearing on the pepper plants but not as bad, haven't seen any on the basil, tomato, eggplants, or parsley yet.

All the tomato plants are loaded with flowers and buds, but no signs of a tomato yet, plants are like small trees, the growth is pretty incredible. Fertilized everything in the tent with some Jobes. I also moved the lights that were over the tomato plants up about 4".

I called it quits on the Greens table for the season, between slow growth and battling a mouse that loves lettuce I decided to clean up the area and bait it, I'll be starting my seedlings in a few weeks anyhow.

My brother stopped over so I gave him a few Abe Lincoln Tomato Plants, some basil, cilantro and split my parsley in half, I was impressed with the roots on this guy.

Salsacharley · February 4, 2019

Wow! You are neck deep in growing activities. How are you going to handle all of your projects when outdoor growing kicks in? How's your grow room treating your electric bill? Have you looked in to protective eye wear for working under the LED's? Sorry, I don't mean this to be critical with the questions, I'm just interested in how you deal with these matters.

ddsack · February 4, 2019

Just got around to reading this thread. Admirable set up for indoor growing, your edibles really look good! I enjoy my respite from gardening, so probably will never go to the lengths that you have, but I have tried to overwinter pepper plants in my south bay window at least three times. Each time, despite through heavy soaping, washing each leaf, drying and then rinsing with a hard hose spray, even removing the top inch of soil -- I always got aphids in the house even if they looked clean for a couple of weeks. And then they would hide out unseen on house plants and wait to infest my pepper seedlings that I would start in the spring. So my rule is -- no more outdoor peppers in the house - ever!

SQWIBB · February 5, 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

How are you going to handle all of your projects when outdoor growing kicks in? .

After the seedlings are started and it's warm enough to plant, the grow room is dismantled, everything boxed up and put away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

How's your grow room treating your electric bill?

Electric bill seemed about $20.00 higher this month but cant be sure next month I'll have a better idea. I usually heat the garage with an oil type radiator heater but with the grow area set up, it hardly ever kicks on so maybe thats why the $$ hasn't been to bad, but like I said well see next month.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

Have you looked in to protective eye wear for working under the LED's?

Post #16 last picture, however the way I have the lights timed, they are off from 10 am - 6pm so I can do most of my work if needed between those hours.

SQWIBB · February 5, 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddsack

Just got around to reading this thread. Admirable set up for indoor growing, your edibles really look good! I enjoy my respite from gardening, so probably will never go to the lengths that you have, but I have tried to overwinter pepper plants in my south bay window at least three times. Each time, despite through heavy soaping, washing each leaf, drying and then rinsing with a hard hose spray, even removing the top inch of soil -- I always got aphids in the house even if they looked clean for a couple of weeks. And then they would hide out unseen on house plants and wait to infest my pepper seedlings that I would start in the spring. So my rule is -- no more outdoor peppers in the house - ever!

Sad but I am leaning towards that theory also, same with my cilantro, we will see what happens

SQWIBB · February 5, 2019

Guys my apologies for the huge pics, I copy/paste from my website and they come out big. I hope folks aren't having troubles loading the pages...

February 4th - 5th, 2019

I wasn't real happy with the growth of the greens under the Roleadro Galaxyhydro led's compared to the Viparspectra led's, so I ordered a Viparspectra 450 and have another on the way. I think the wavelength of the Galaxyhydro were too much of the "Red" side (700 nanometers+). They are great for starting seedlings but "vegetative" growth is much better under the Viparspectras, plus I can control the wavelengths. For my starts I'll drop the red side down to 20% and bump the white and blue to about 80%.

I moved the lettuces to the Fluorescent Led's because of the mice problem, after these perk up a bit, they'll be harvested and I 'll be done with the greens for the season

Hopefully I can get this mice problem under control before I start my seedlings.

I'm pretty sure my parsley will recover from the division the other day, but it looks pathetic.

Topped off my basil, yeah I know, I could have done a better job.

The Black Beauties are doing well. I'm not sure if I'm going to cull one or transplant, I really don't have the room.

My Trial Potting Mix seems to be doing fine.

SQWIBB · February 5, 2019

Chives are doing well, I divided these from my garden and I 'm growing them out for my brother.

The cilantro bounced back after a few day.

These peppers have me a bit puzzled, the peppers on the right have been in the grow room since they sprouted, the ones on the left have been on the grow table with the Galaxyhydro Led's then moved to the fluorescent Led's.
The ones on the right are starting to come back but I am curious as to what happened, could it be the Aphids? Could it be the potting mix? or could it be the lighting, temperature? Who knows but I may replace these with the stockier ones.

Looks like we MAY have a little Jimmy Nardello.

I'm wondering how long I can go before I need to start trimming the tomato plants. I am going to try and time it to when I can start cloning.

I did move the lights up about 4" the other day.

WHAT!! What is that!!?

I watered the plants this morning and used the "Robotic Bee" on all the flowers. The Abe Lincoln Tomato actually had noticeable growth after only 14 hours.
The entire garage was pretty warm this morning, I had to open the door from the garage to the utility room, high temp in the tent was 88°F.

Koala Doug · February 5, 2019

Your pictures help my stay motivated (tomato-wise) during the off-season - keep 'em coming!

oakley · February 5, 2019

Great winter grow diary. Thanks for that.
I also grow all winter and love daily salads.

February 5, 2019

Such a good thread, and it’s so fun to watch your progress. Great pics!

MI Farmer · February 5, 2019

Terrific pictures! It's inspiring me to get my set-up started, too.

SQWIBB · February 6, 2019

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koala Doug

Your pictures help my stay motivated (tomato-wise) during the off-season - keep 'em coming!

That's great to hear, I was hoping some folks would be interested in this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by oakley

Great winter grow diary. Thanks for that.
I also grow all winter and love daily salads.

I would love to see your grow and setup

Quote:

Originally Posted by PlainJane

Such a good thread, and it’s so fun to watch your progress. Great pics!

Thank you. This year is a bit all over the place but next year I should have a better idea on what I'm doing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MI Farmer

Terrific pictures! It's inspiring me to get my set-up started, too.

That's awesome, I am very humbled that folks find my ramblings inspiring!

SQWIBB · February 6, 2019

February 5th, 2019

The weather has been pretty mild or should I say absurdly hot for this time of year, for goodness sakes it's 60°F today and supposed to be 60°F again Friday. I have been trying to keep the temperature below 85°F but it has been hoovering around 88°F and reached 89°F yesterday. I had to come up with a game-plan and quick. I figured venting into the garage was not an option anymore because the garage heats up a good bit, for now I have the basement door open. The basement is a bit cooler than the garage at the moment.

Here is what I decided to try. The ceiling is insulated and the floor joist run horizontal to the house so the hot air is exhausted to the closet in the basement. I pushed up the insulation for a clear path to the other room.

Did it make a difference? Well based on one day I would have to say NO. I checked the temp this morning and it was 88°F inside the tent. I opened up the tent, watered the plants and hand pollinated the tomato plants and the temp dropped 3°F in 5 minutes, so I decided to just leave the door to the tent partially open during this heatwave. As long as it doesn't get any hotter I should be OK.
Next year I can run an intake to the far corner of the garage door where it will definitely pull in more outside air.

Am I being too critical? Maybe.
Am I expecting too much? I don't know, I never done this before.

When I start a project I am willing to invest a lot of time and research and in this case a lot of money, which I really don't have. Since this is my first year, I figured there would be challenges and expense and that next year would be much easier, I am still holding onto that belief, but, and this is a big BUT, I'm at the point where it's a sink or swim situation, I threw everything at this project and have maxed out, I won't be putting any more money into this project so it will have to work.

February 4, 2019	#32
SQWIBB Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Philly 7A Posts: 739	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. 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 January 28th, 2019 I sprayed the Jimmy Nardello pepper with my "Aphid X" (1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper - Teaspoon Dish Soap - 1qt. water) Here is my Robotic Bee! January 29th, 2019 I really don't get this temp swing, I can't see how it can get to 67°F when I have the temperature controller set to 72°F, anyhow I adjusted the Temperature controller to 75°F. So the low (oil heater) is set for 75°F and the high (vent fan) is set for 80°F I have three tomato plants with flowers, time to pollinate with my robotic bee! Everything is doing pretty good except my one pot of Jimmy Nardello peppers, the plants seem to be at a standstill. I found where the Aphids were congregating, seems they love the cilantro. I sprayed the cilantro real good then washed the entire plant under tepid water. Last edited by SQWIBB; February 4, 2019 at 08:30 AM.

February 4, 2019	#35
ddsack Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Northern Minnesota - zone 3 Posts: 3,231	Just got around to reading this thread. Admirable set up for indoor growing, your edibles really look good! I enjoy my respite from gardening, so probably will never go to the lengths that you have, but I have tried to overwinter pepper plants in my south bay window at least three times. Each time, despite through heavy soaping, washing each leaf, drying and then rinsing with a hard hose spray, even removing the top inch of soil -- I always got aphids in the house even if they looked clean for a couple of weeks. And then they would hide out unseen on house plants and wait to infest my pepper seedlings that I would start in the spring. So my rule is -- no more outdoor peppers in the house - ever! __________________ Dee **************

February 4, 2019	#34
Salsacharley Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: New Mexico Posts: 2,052	Wow! You are neck deep in growing activities. How are you going to handle all of your projects when outdoor growing kicks in? How's your grow room treating your electric bill? Have you looked in to protective eye wear for working under the LED's? Sorry, I don't mean this to be critical with the questions, I'm just interested in how you deal with these matters.

February 5, 2019	#38
SQWIBB Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Philly 7A Posts: 739	Guys my apologies for the huge pics, I copy/paste from my website and they come out big. I hope folks aren't having troubles loading the pages... February 4th - 5th, 2019 I wasn't real happy with the growth of the greens under the Roleadro Galaxyhydro led's compared to the Viparspectra led's, so I ordered a Viparspectra 450 and have another on the way. I think the wavelength of the Galaxyhydro were too much of the "Red" side (700 nanometers+). They are great for starting seedlings but "vegetative" growth is much better under the Viparspectras, plus I can control the wavelengths. For my starts I'll drop the red side down to 20% and bump the white and blue to about 80%. I moved the lettuces to the Fluorescent Led's because of the mice problem, after these perk up a bit, they'll be harvested and I 'll be done with the greens for the season Hopefully I can get this mice problem under control before I start my seedlings. I'm pretty sure my parsley will recover from the division the other day, but it looks pathetic. Topped off my basil, yeah I know, I could have done a better job. The Black Beauties are doing well. I'm not sure if I'm going to cull one or transplant, I really don't have the room. My Trial Potting Mix seems to be doing fine.

February 5, 2019	#40
Koala Doug Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: Detroit Posts: 688	Your pictures help my stay motivated (tomato-wise) during the off-season - keep 'em coming!

February 5, 2019	#41
oakley Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: NewYork 5a Posts: 2,303	Great winter grow diary. Thanks for that. I also grow all winter and love daily salads.

February 5, 2019	#42
PlainJane Guest Posts: n/a	Such a good thread, and it’s so fun to watch your progress. Great pics!

February 5, 2019	#43
MI Farmer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Zone 4b/5a Posts: 54	Terrific pictures! It's inspiring me to get my set-up started, too.

February 6, 2019	#45
SQWIBB Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Philly 7A Posts: 739	*February 5th, 2019* The weather has been pretty mild or should I say absurdly hot for this time of year, for goodness sakes it's 60°F today and supposed to be 60°F again Friday. I have been trying to keep the temperature below 85°F but it has been hoovering around 88°F and reached 89°F yesterday. I had to come up with a game-plan and quick. I figured venting into the garage was not an option anymore because the garage heats up a good bit, for now I have the basement door open. The basement is a bit cooler than the garage at the moment. Here is what I decided to try. The ceiling is insulated and the floor joist run horizontal to the house so the hot air is exhausted to the closet in the basement. I pushed up the insulation for a clear path to the other room. Did it make a difference? Well based on one day I would have to say NO. I checked the temp this morning and it was 88°F inside the tent. I opened up the tent, watered the plants and hand pollinated the tomato plants and the temp dropped 3°F in 5 minutes, so I decided to just leave the door to the tent partially open during this heatwave. As long as it doesn't get any hotter I should be OK. Next year I can run an intake to the far corner of the garage door where it will definitely pull in more outside air. Am I being too critical? Maybe. Am I expecting too much? I don't know, I never done this before. When I start a project I am willing to invest a lot of time and research and in this case a lot of money, which I really don't have. Since this is my first year, I figured there would be challenges and expense and that next year would be much easier, I am still holding onto that belief, but, and this is a big BUT, I'm at the point where it's a sink or swim situation, I threw everything at this project and have maxed out, I won't be putting any more money into this project so it will have to work.