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Virgil's Small Scale Glog

Finally, after getting the greenhouse built, I'm able to start one of these :P I have been dying to get things growing but wanted all my ducks in a row. Anyway, in the ensuing pages you will find details on my plants and what I did to get them to where they are going to be (either awesome or dead, we will see!).
 
This is my first true attempt at growing anything. My girlfriend had flowers, herbs, squash and a bell pepper plant on the deck. One day months back I was curious to see if I had a green thumb or if I was a plant killer, so I started trying to take care of things. There was much suffering. After research, trial and error, I was able to get things to grow a bit but the bugs (aphids and whiteflies) thwarted me. I'm not dealing with that BS for my peppers so I bought all new unused stuff, built this enclosure and the plants on the deck will never see the indoors so as to avoid those stupid bugs coming with them.
 
Greenhouse: A lot of work making it perfect but a lot of fun, too.
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Timer: I have the lights come on at 7AM and turn off at 8PM. Also have the fan doing the same thing so there is a reprieve. I may change the fans to be continuous, though.
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Baby plants!!!!!
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All the seeds I planted germinated. From left to right: Peruvian white hab, Pequin peppers, Brown Moruga. For some reason, two of the pequin seeds are taking a lot longer to sprout. They have the white tendrils sticking out but haven't come as far as the others. Maybe they won't make it. You also may have noticed that there is a 4th cup above but only 3 in this pic. Well, the other was supposed to be Serrano, but they never sprouted or anything. So I went to the grocery store and found the nicest serranos I could find, harvested their seeds and planted like 15 of them. Being from a grocery store, I'm not hopeful on germination rate. But we will see!
 
Couple things- I used the clear cups because I wanted to be able to see when they were really rootbound. I cut 4 slits in the bottom of each cup and a hole in the middle bottom of each cup for drainage. Second, the dirt is just miraclegro seed starting potting mix. I bought good stuff for the transplanting :)
 
 
Feel free to comment or give tips. I'm a n00b at growing things and fully believe in learning from others' input. Similarly, it is my hope that other n00bs will see this and find it useful in their little grow!
 
Nice set up! What kind of light is that. Im no expert by any means but Im wondering if the clear cups were a good idea. Is light passing through the cup gonna affect root growth? Hopefully somebody can answer that. Also what are you gonna do for ventalation assuming that is important.
 
Thanks! The light is a 3ft Sunblaster T5 6400k, I'll likely need 2 more to get to the lumen level I want but for now this is good. I am really thinking of instead adding LEDs as some have suggested here. You can make your own and it is super easy, albiet tedious, to do. I have plenty of solder and an iron, though :D
 
I am hoping someone can answer the clear cup question. At the very worst, I'll wrap em in painters tape. I wouldn't think it would be an issue with the light but I could be completely wrong!
 
Ventilation is important. In the two bottom corners there are fans blowing air in. There is a gap around the door and I am thinking of making a small slit at the top but judging from the breeze coming from around the door it doesn't seem needed. I do want to make sure I hold in some humidity. Maybe someone can chime in on this as well.
 
Roots, don't like light. I would tape the cups like you said. I suggest getting a terrarium thermometer and hygrometer, 10 bucks or less for both non-digital at the pet store. Knowing your temp and humidity in a grow box is fairly important. Imo you may need a small exhaust fan at the top to control temps with more lighting.
 
BTW that's one of the nicest grow box's I've seen. I watched your build. Great work and good luck to ya.
 
Oh yea, and were the store serrano's still green that you got the seeds from?
 
Thanks for the input, hogleg! I'll tape em up. I live right by a petstore so I'll grab both those things too.
 
I do have an extra PC fan and plug as I was planning on adding the exhaust fan at the top but it doesn't seem needed just yet....you're probably right though when additional lights get added. I'll assuredly need those lights too as the solitary sunblaster won't cut it after a bit. That is the beauty of this plastic board stuff- easy to cut and add to.
 
I appreciate your opinion on the box! It was a really fun project and an interesting learning experience as I had never cut angles like that for a project before.
 
The serranos were still green. After reading some more, I guess the seeds from unripe pods won't grow or have way less of a chance of germination? Sad :( I'll give it a couple more days to sprout. Since my hope on this is dwindling, I just planted some aji pineapple seeds :)
 
Looking good thus far. With T5 HO I have found that I need about 4 bulbs to get my Desired growth level. I'm using envirogrow/hydrofarm FLT24's for my seedling starts. Even at 12-16" away from the tops of the plants I get good growth. If you see any signs of early stretching at all - you need more light ASAP. Your plants may have a tough time bearing the fruit load if you don't keep the stalk/stem strong from the start.

Your day is approximately 13 hours right now. 16-18 hours of light will provide optimal growth.

I also would wrap the cups or enclose the bottom portion in a box so you can still take them out to see root growth.

Top vent is definately reccomended by myself as well - air circulation can prevent problems other than heat as well.
 
Can't speak to lighting and venting but the roots definitely need darkness. Easiest fix is to drop them in another solid color cup (red solo cup is my preference) so you can continue to check root growth whenever you want to.
 
Been a while since I updated this! For that, I apologize. Everything is growing along merrily. I had a small mishap and gave the plants too much fertilizer, ended up getting some leaf burn. I have been keeping the light low and close to the plants, resulting in them being fairly short and the leaves being close together. Pictures coming very soon.

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Left to right: Scorpion, Aji Pineapple, bullet hab, Peruvian White hab, Pequin.
Front: Parsley and a bhut from one of those magic can things. I have a Sus Biberi growing in an aerogarden as well!
 
The light got moved up today so I could stick the oregano on top. It has been struggling so I figured I'd move it up. I never have good luck with oregano.
 
They are 3 gallon! 

For my dirt I did
5 parts soil
1 part earthworm castings
1 part perlite
1 part sphagnum moss
1 tablespoon dolomite lime per gallon
 
I did 16 gallons of mixture. 12 gallons total for the larger pots and a single gallon for the other. I have enough left over to do another pot. I got some of those really large rubbermaid containers with the covers and mixed the dirt in there. Nothing has been exposed to the outdoors so no risk of bugs :D
 
Been a bit of time since I had a chance to post, been pretty darn busy. Plants are growing along nicely, though! Several people said the interior of the greenhouse would get cramped as the plants grow. They were 100% right! Not to mention, I left the bullet hab in the middle (above) in the greenhouse. I was planning on taking it to work but never got around to it, plus my coworkers would hate the leds I bought for lighting. Speaking of lighting, I bought a couple of LED blue/red spectrum lights off amazon (they were cheap and I had a gift-card). I was skeptical about them making a big impact, but my fears were misplaced; the plants got new growth all over and started flowering within a couple days. In conjunction with the t5 sunblaster, I am super happy with the results. Could use one more of these for the middle. Anyway, picture update! I know I need to trim these back but it looks really neat. Left to right: Aji Pineapple, Moruga Scorpion, Bullet Habenero, Peruvian white hab, and pequin. Also a small ghost pepper in there in the can. Can't really see it.
 
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Nothing yet, but methinks close! Those LED lights made a huge difference; the plants were just growing foliage under the T5 and sunlight, but within a week of having the LEDs they started exploding with buds and flowers. I'm hoping they'll start setting in a couple weeks. We shall see!

on another note, I bought 14 different types of lettuce seeds and just bought all the stuff I need to do a hydroponic lettuce setup. I am super excited to get that going in the next couple weeks!
 
And we have peppers! The Aji Pineapple started first, followed by the brown moruga scorpion and then the pequins. Waiting on the white habs to fruit, though they're getting flowers on them. The bullet hab plant isn't doing anything yet other than small flowers, I bet in another month or so it'll start to set. Anyway, here are a few pics:
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Ok, plants are doing phenomenally well! The aji pineapple has easily 10 bigger peppers on it and the scorpion and pequin are starting to get more and more, about 4-6 on each. The peruvian white hab is really close to getting fruits on it, bunch of flowers but nothing quite yet. 
 
The one major problem is the fact that the aji pineapple and the pequin have outgrown the greenhouse; they're literally bursting at the seams. They're overcoming everything and require crazy pruning! We screened our porch in today and I'm thinking i'm going to take those two outside as soon as it warms up, about 2 weeks or so until I'm comfortable with the temperature. I already took out the bullet habs and put the bush near a sunny window, that'll be hitting the deck soon, too. I'm either going to do just the scorpion and the peruvian white hab in the greenhouse or start a third pepper plant and do a max of three in there, 4 is wayyyyy too much. I think maybe serrano or sus biberi will be next. Or pimente de neyde. Or devil's tongue. Decisions, decisions....
 
Does anyone know how long aji pineapples take to ripen? I have a BUNCH of green ones hanging out and they've been hanging out for a while. I just want to eat them! The pequins and scorpions are ripening already.
 
Thanks! Adding the LEDs seriously helped. I just put a third LED light in the middle so I'm hoping for more flowers and fruiting soon.
 
Moved the bullet hab plant outside yesterday, seems to be quite happy, especially since it has been in the high 70s. On a side note, I built a 3 tiered planter box for the deck and we planted a whole ton of other things.
 
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For the bottom boxes, I planted 21 lettuce plants, all loose leaf variety. I started them indoors about a week or so ago and they were just itching to get into the dirt. Also planted cilantro, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, parsley, tarragon, scallions and catnip, as well as a mandevilla on the other side of the deck.
 
Last year we had a hell of a bad time. We had squash and zucchini growing in pots but they got swarmed with white flies, which ended up covering pretty much everything else. On top of this, aphids destroyed my other plants (had a bell pepper plant or two and some pepper plant my girlfriend bought at the store, really think the aphids came from that). Kind of why I built the greenhouse. Anyway, we screened in the deck the other day with some loose white mosquito netting. I'm really hoping this will help keep many pests away and I'll definitely not be buying any plants and potentially contaminating my space.
 
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