mjdiamond83's 2012 Grow Log

TheAmatureGreenThumb · Mar 6, 2012

I feel your pain with the gnats... I just knock there numbers down a bit with some mos. dunks in my watering.

rabid48 · Mar 6, 2012

mjdiamond83 said:
...This weather we're supposed to get tomorrow and over the next week is going to have me wishing May would get here a lot sooner.

I know! I hope this doesn't continue into record heat in the summer! I was happy with last summer after I moved from NC!

stc3248 said:
I have a few that are growing fine and are among some of my biggest plants...but their color is still looks off. Doesn't seem to be hurting them. The entire plant is a lighter shade of green than my others??? I'm not too worried, as long as they keep growing and start putting out buds along side the others I'll be happy!

You know, my larger Caribbean Reds are a fairly lighter shade of green than everything else, too. Maybe it's just the way they are. I'll have to put some pictures up in my grow log tonight.

mjdiamond83 · Mar 6, 2012

Sethsquatch said:
Hey Matt. I'm sure those yellow leaves will bounce back in no time now that you have the drainage dialed in.

Ok. So, I am looking at putting a "grow box" in my cold garage this next season since my wife is going to want her closet back. I was looking at some of your pictures and your box looks pretty good. Few questions:

Is it a DIY build?
Can you point me to or walk me through the build up?
What are you using for heat and ventilation?

Thanks!

Hey Seth. The box was DIY. I imagine Stephen Hawking is more handy than me, so I had my dad help me with it. We bought 4 pieces of luan plywood and had them cut into 6' x 3' pieces. We used 2 full ones for the sides and top and cut the 4th piece in half and used it for the ends so the dimensions came to 6'x3'x3'. We lined the inside of the sides with 1" (i think it was 1" anyways) stakes. I think they came in 8' pieces; we just cut them down to the right size for the box. Before we hammered the thing together I lined the inside with mylar blankets for reflection (I bought a 10 pack on amazon and only used like 2 of them. Let me know if you want a few and I'll send them to you. Aside from saving a few for next year, I have no use for them.). The only other things we did were cut a door out of the front, attached some hinges on one side and a magnet lock on the other end ($1 at home depot), and cut a small circular hole on the top to feed the light fixture through. I took the dome off of a 'reptile lamp'. The clamp keeps the fixture from falling through the hole. I just used a bulb splitter (about $3) so I could use multiple bulbs and attached the lights. The biggest pain in the ass was getting the lights in the socket from the inside of the box. If I could make a change, I'd make a bigger door, since its kind of awkward getting into the back corners without losing balance and smashing plants (especially if you're smashed yourself). Let me know if you want me to take some more pictures so you can see how the setup is. I think the whole thing cost about $60 (excluding the $25 for the 2 105W CFL bulbs) and seems sturdy enough to last many years.
I'm not using any additional heating. Between the 2 cfl bulbs and 1 incandescent it puts out enough heat to keep it warm but not hot. The plants seem to like it! For ventilation I just crack the door and put a small fan on the plants for an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two at night. I hadn't done that for the first few weeks and some plants were having some issues with small spots on the leaves and discoloration from the stagnant air. Since I've been giving them air twice a day it's been corrected for the most part.

stc3248 said:
I have a few that are growing fine and are among some of my biggest plants...but their color is still looks off. Doesn't seem to be hurting them. The entire plant is a lighter shade of green than my others??? I'm not too worried, as long as they keep growing and start putting out buds along side the others I'll be happy!

I think now that I got the soil loosened up they should start to grow again. I'm with you on that, I'm not worried if they're a little yellow as long as they grow and produce pods. I'll just try and correct whatever problems I can fix.

TheAmatureGreenThumb said:
I feel your pain with the gnats... I just knock there numbers down a bit with some mos. dunks in my watering.

I'm actually headed to the store to get some mosquito dunks in a few minutes. I've been putting it off for way too long and getting fly paper stuck to me every time I water my plants is beyond annoying! Do you just put a small reservoir with a dunk in it in your grow area and let them congregate to it or do you try to dissolve some and add it to your watering solution (or both)?

rabid48 said:
I know! I hope this doesn't continue into record heat in the summer! I was happy with last summer after I moved from NC!

My girlfriend's parents moved down to the beach in NC about 5 years ago. We go down quite a bit, so I'm familiar with how those summers are. A seabreeze doesn't even begin to make a humid 95 feel more comfortable!

BigCedar · Mar 6, 2012

Lookin good MJ! That yellow scorp is beautiful! I saw some questions on the mosquito dunks n thought I'd try to help. I've been using them for about 10 days now and have seen results in the numbers dropping. They're not gone by any means but the numbers are managable. Instead of seeing 30-40 everytime I check I'm seeing like 4-5.

How I'm using them, (Silman actually gave me this advice) I took one of the dunks, put it in my 2 gallon watering can, let it sit in the 2 gallons of water for 5-10 minutes or so, stir, then I'd top or bottom water (either works fine) just make sure you soak the crap out of the soil. Do this once a week for 3 weeks. (the length of a gnats life cycle) I also would just take dunk out That should take you pretty close to plant out and than nature will take out the rest of em :cool:

Hope that helps a bit.

Brandon

Sethsquatch · Mar 6, 2012

Matt. Thanks so much for that awesome overview. Stephen Hawking would be proud. :rofl:

Yeah, if you would take some more pics of the setup that would be great. I'm definitely gonna build one like that next year. Maybe even larger since I have this tool room (in the unfinished part of the basement) with all this space, the only problem is the temps. I'll have to figure out your light setup too since I'm just running ghettoish T12s at the moment. So as not to take up any more of your thread, you can just PM me.

Thanks for the info my friend! Very cool.

mjdiamond83 · Mar 6, 2012

BigCedar said:
Lookin good MJ! That yellow scorp is beautiful! I saw some questions on the mosquito dunks n thought I'd try to help. I've been using them for about 10 days now and have seen results in the numbers dropping. They're not gone by any means but the numbers are managable. Instead of seeing 30-40 everytime I check I'm seeing like 4-5.

How I'm using them, (Silman actually gave me this advice) I took one of the dunks, put it in my 2 gallon watering can, let it sit in the 2 gallons of water for 5-10 minutes or so, stir, then I'd top or bottom water (either works fine) just make sure you soak the crap out of the soil. Do this once a week for 3 weeks. (the length of a gnats life cycle) I also would just take dunk out That should take you pretty close to plant out and than nature will take out the rest of em

Hope that helps a bit.

Brandon

Thanks for the advice Brandon! I bought a package of dunks and am going to head up and water all the plants in a bit. I wish I wasn't lazy and got around to this a few weeks ago, but the population should at least be under control by the time I sow my tomatoes in a couple weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if there were somewhere in the vicinity of 500 of them in the grow chamber right now. I just took out the fly paper 2 or 3 days ago and they've probably multiplied tenfold by then. They're definitely the rabbits of the insect world.

TheAmatureGreenThumb · Mar 6, 2012

I do both. Just to kill as many of those little buggers as I can. I also have fly paper too. I hate these little bastards...

stc3248 · Mar 6, 2012

Ughhh...Seems like the more peat in my soil the less attracted they are to it. I had thousands of the little bastards, and they destroyed some of the beans my son started. Completely obliterated 4 of the beans while they were trying to germ...Don't underestimate what the larvae are capable of in the soil. I got some mosquito dunks, but I haven't had to use them since I changed soil. I should post some photos of the few beans that actually made it...Cotys looked like they had been hit by chainsaws! When I dug them up those damn worms were everywhere! I'm not a sadistic man...but I hope that those larvae/gnats can feel pain, and that the dunks cause much of it!

Good luck!
Shane

mjdiamond83 · Mar 8, 2012

stc3248 said:
Ughhh...Seems like the more peat in my soil the less attracted they are to it. I had thousands of the little bastards, and they destroyed some of the beans my son started. Completely obliterated 4 of the beans while they were trying to germ...Don't underestimate what the larvae are capable of in the soil. I got some mosquito dunks, but I haven't had to use them since I changed soil. I should post some photos of the few beans that actually made it...Cotys looked like they had been hit by chainsaws! When I dug them up those damn worms were everywhere! I'm not a sadistic man...but I hope that those larvae/gnats can feel pain, and that the dunks cause much of it!

Good luck!
Shane

I had quite a few seedlings get mauled by fungus gnat larvae too, it's not pretty. The worst was a TS Moruga, it just had a nub on one side and 1/3 of a cotyledon on the other side, but its managed to grow into a nice plant. They're real resilient!

I thought I'd post a few pics. It's been about 2 weeks since I 'boosted' the soil with mycorrhizae, so I decided I'd take a couple plants out of their containers to see what their root systems looked like. Not bad:

stc3248 · Mar 8, 2012

Good looking root balls you got going! That stuff must really work! Those little plants are really going to take off when you pot them up.

Shane

mjdiamond83 · Mar 8, 2012

stc3248 said:
Good looking root balls you got going! That stuff must really work! Those little plants are really going to take off when you pot them up.

Shane

They were definitely worth the 75 cents a packet! I'm a little hesitant to pot them up yet since I still have about 8 weeks at the very least until they can go outside and I'm already almost out of room. The criolla de cocina went into a 1/2 gallon pot today though, since it is loaded with buds and was getting to be way too big for the 16oz cup. I'm going to try and get that one to produce fruit as quick as possible as it grew so fast I'd be able to start some more in May and still get a decent harvest. It only took about 4 1/2 weeks from germination to set buds.

Sethsquatch · Mar 8, 2012

Beautiful roots Matt! I'm jealous! I tore the hell out of my roots on transplant last night but only did the less important ones. Baby steps. It's good to practice on the expendables...

Pulpiteer · Mar 8, 2012

nice roots! Did you soak them per the instructions on the packet, or something different? I'm thinking of using mine when I make the move outside, and I'm thinking of using the watering can to do a bit of a soak in the midst of the transplant process. So I'm curious to know what you did. Thanks for sharing your results - they look great!

mjdiamond83 · Mar 8, 2012

Sethsquatch said:
Beautiful roots Matt! I'm jealous! I tore the hell out of my roots on transplant last night but only did the less important ones. Baby steps. It's good to practice on the expendables...

Thanks Seth! I beat up the roots pretty bad on some of mine when I transplanted them, unless they're all the yellow stunted ones (which would make sense), they rebounded quickly. That's the good thing about annuums growing so fast, if you planted them the same time as your chinenses you can abuse the crap out of them and if they get destroyed you can always pick up another 50+ seeds for $1 at Lowe's or Home Depot.

Pulpiteer said:
nice roots! Did you soak them per the instructions on the packet, or something different? I'm thinking of using mine when I make the move outside, and I'm thinking of using the watering can to do a bit of a soak in the midst of the transplant process. So I'm curious to know what you did. Thanks for sharing your results - they look great!

Thanks! I just emptied one packet each of myco blast and soil blast into a ziplock and have been adding a little bit to my watering jug (1/2 gallon gatorade bottle) at each watering. Those packets were for 2-12 gallons of water each, so it goes a long ways!

PaulG · Mar 9, 2012

mjdiamond83 said:
They were definitely worth the 75 cents a packet! I'm a little hesitant to pot them up yet since I still have about 8 weeks at the very least until they can go outside and I'm already almost out of room. The criolla de cocina went into a 1/2 gallon pot today though, since it is loaded with buds and was getting to be way too big for the 16oz cup. I'm going to try and get that one to produce fruit as quick as possible as it grew so fast I'd be able to start some more in May and still get a decent harvest. It only took about 4 1/2 weeks from germination to set buds.

It looks like that stuff really works - I'm going to have to try that out, for sure!
Those root balls are very robust! The criolla looks great - nice and healthy!
Good luck going forward, Matt!

mjdiamond83 · Mar 11, 2012

Quick Update. I potted up 3 plants into ~2 qt pots; Choc Bhut x Cajamarca, Bhut Jolokia Indian Carbon, and Bhut x Douglah. The roots on one of the plants were real fuzzy and looks like a good example of the effects of mycorrhizae. There's a pic of the 3 plants all potted up and a pic of the yellow 7 pot that I moved into a hydro setup. It looks like it's responding well and is going to make a comeback!

jsschrstrcks · Mar 11, 2012

looking great!

I went looking for mycorhizzae today, and had no luck... Struck out at home depot... I'll check lowes tomorrow maybe.

Looks like it would be a worth while investment.

mjdiamond83 · Mar 11, 2012

Here's some pics of my scotch bonnet plants, Shane. The last picture is of my scotch bonnet plant from last year, right before I had to cut it back (it didn't survive the winter). I bought the seeds in May and just grew one for fun, it was just starting to flower when I had to bring it inside, but with weak indoor light, I only got 2 pods off of it before I had to chop it back.

jsschrstrcks said:
looking great!

I went looking for mycorhizzae today, and had no luck... Struck out at home depot... I'll check lowes tomorrow maybe.

Looks like it would be a worth while investment.

I'm not sure where the best place is to find some myco offline. I bought mine online from supreme growers when they were having a special; .75 per packet with free shipping. I checked today and they are going for 3.95 for a 2 pack with free shipping, but it looked like they were all out right now (probably from a bunch of THPers scarfing them up a few weeks ago).

stc3248 · Mar 11, 2012

Yeah, that's not what mine look like....damn!

mjdiamond83 · Mar 11, 2012

stc3248 said:
Yeah, that's not what mine look like....damn!

Maybe it will turn out to be something real cool! I have a few isolated scotch bonnet seeds left if it isn't too late, and you want to grow some still.