Grow #2

The beans were laid to rest in a pan between two wet paper towels. The small pan is on top of the refrigerator, but these new refrigerators don’t seem to channel much heat to the roof like older ones did. I expect it will just take a day or two longer at room temp.

The beans were laid to rest in a pan between two wet paper towels. The small pan is on top of the refrigerator, but these new refrigerators don’t seem to channel much heat to the roof like older ones did. I expect it will just take a day or two longer at room temp.

No, I wasn’t high. Well, I guess I sort of was. I’ve had flares of incapacitating pain in my hip for years, and I finally had something done about it today, so I wasn’t thinking about taking pics of my seeds with tails. You’ll have to take it from the subject line, my beans germinated in almost exactly 72 hours.

The little foil take-out container I put them in actually had some condensation on the lid. My wife got the idea to set the tin on top of the wireless router. It’s on all the time and it’s warm! When I checked them before the router, they had all popped with a little white butt. After 8 hours on the router, each tap root was at least a cm long.

I finally have broken beans in all of my GG#4 pots. Shew! I was worried they were duds. The Gelato and King Louie seem to be in a hurry. I have high hopes for the GG after buying some. Love that stuff! Time to clean up the tent, get some soil into the big pots and have everything “breathing” ahead of the re-potting.

This is only my second indoor grow, but I definitely realize the advantage to having the whole growing environment living before planting. Temperature, humidity, soil, water, airflow and light should all be adjusted to optimum before planting. Since autos are so sensitive to environmental changes, the more stable you can make it up front, the better.

Looks like a scene from “The Hangover” in here. Well, no chickens, no tigers. But we’re a little droopy and bruised. These tiny teracotta pots have teeny tiny drain holes. I’ve only given them just enough water to wet the top. The slow evaporation, and modest uptake of developing root systems have tricked me into over-watering. I’m dialing back the humidity a bit. Since I’m managing the weather entirely by hand, every adjustment is at least a 3 day process. My basement conditions are nearly opposite from what I have in the tent. I think this is the year I make an investment in gardening technology!

Just trying to manage the conditions to see what makes everyone happy. One of these days, I’m going to invest in some automation. We went away for a weekend and returned to an empty evaporator reservoir, dry soil, and droopy leaves. The pic is from Tuesday after they had a little recouperation.

Zamnesia agreed to replace the GG seed that failed. I got a lot of free, unsolicited advice on germination, which I appreciate. But when 4 of 5 beans pop that are all germinating together by the same method, failure is not a result of technique.

I was planning on transplanting when the tops reached just a little higher. Bad idea. When the leaves all drooped to what I thought was too much water, ended up being not enough. I knew they were stressed and I didn’t want to transplant while they were under stress, but I’m glad I did. The roots were all bunched up, soil was dry, and they had outgrown the little pots. Clay makes it really tough to tell how moist or dry the soil is. I’m not seeding in terracotta anymore!

I was planning on transplanting when the tops reached just a little higher. Bad idea. When the leaves all drooped to what I thought was too much water, ended up being not enough. I knew they were stressed and I didn’t want to transplant while they were under stress, but I’m glad I did. The roots were all bunched up, soil was dry, and they had outgrown the little pots. Clay makes it really tough to tell how moist or dry the soil is. I’m not seeding in terracotta anymore!

Well that didn’t take long! A little room for the roots, a little water and we’re off to the races. I plucked off the yellow fan leaves, and everyone is bouncing back. Time now to kick back and watch. Everything is as stable as I can make it. I’m afraid, (and hope) things won’t get too exciting around here for a while. I’ll post progress pics, but there’s not
much to say until flower. 🤷‍♂️

I may have labeled “vegetative” a little soon. There’s debate over the transition from seedling to veg. These guys are still very vulnerable to everything, which implies a less stable stage of development. Veg is stable and hardy. We’re not there yet!

Clockwise, back to front, 1-4. I’m going to leave them this way for discrimination purposes. 1 & 2 handled re-potting the best. 4 was the leader initially, but it was also the first to outgrow its baby pot. That hurt her slightly. Everyone’s first fan leaves were yellowing, so I pinched them off.

I bought a Vivosun AC22 controller to run the humidifier and exhaust fan. That’s all I need to manage. I’ll be able to set the temp and Rh in the app, and the controller will handle it. I also bought “self-watering” bases for the pots. I don’t put a lot of stock into “self-watering”, but the wicking function will make watering a little easier.

Yay, done! So, I have to open with the confession that I really had everything under control already. I plugged up a Vivosun A22 controller, and went through the process of setting up my target conditions. And nothing happened. I checked a couple times over night. Conditions were still steady, and the controller had never activated devices. I only have the exhaust fan and humidifier connected to it. It has very little to do! Finally, this morning, I saw the exhaust fan running on my app. VPD is hanging steady at .6kPa. I’ll increase the max VPD triggers as soon as each plant is established in veg.

I don’t know what happened, other than the Vivosun A22 just stopped working. I also determined that my babies are a little behind because of some cold nights. I was in the process of setting up heat when the controller died. Back to manual control. It took a while figuring out how to run the humidifier and vent fan on the same timer, and maintain consistent temp and Rh. The replacement controller comes tomorrow, and I’ll have to dial it all back in again. Oh well, nothing else better to do. 🤷‍♂️

Somewhere around a quarter of a billion people in the US have a potentially catastrophic winter storm bearing down on us. For some, it’s not a big deal. For others, this kind of weather is why so many of us live in the south. But where we live isn’t built for this kind of weather, and that’s why it’s such a big deal. As you can see, my basement grow is entirely dependent on Mr. Edison’s inventions. Fingers crossed that the worst of it slides by us!

Everyone got topped today. I may have already said that once before, but evidently, I did it wrong. The top piece I snipped off just grew back like a lizard’s tail. So I snipped the stalk just below the node I wanted. There were a few big leaves making too much shade, so they’re gone. There. Done. I also top-dressed the soil with another couple inches of Happy Frog/Ocean Forest, I call it “Happy Forest”.

I’m pleased to report that topping worked like a champ overnight. I expected some signs of stress, but they all charged right along.

Some of you may notice that the #1 plant looks like it shrank. What had happened was, the large fan leaves were growing close to the stalk and shading the under-growth. All the other plants in the room have their fan leaves on long stems allowing full light to the lower nodes. Well, there’s four on one, two on another and three on the last. The leaves I clipped were in the way.

Still trying to get the Vivosun A22 dialed in. All I can operate remotely is the exhaust fan and the humidifier. There’s plenty of humidity in the house. I shouldn’t need to water until flower! (Jk)

The soil out to the sides of the pots was dry. So, knowing that the roots are expanding, I wanted to make sure the perimeter of the pots was at least moist. Fine. I could hear water trickling from the base pans onto the floor. Great. I ultimately ended up lifting each pot off the pans, rearranged the wicks, checked TDS (1200-1400) and cleaned up the mess. I won’t water again until either the pans are empty, or the leaves tell me.

Meanwhile, that much moisture in the house while trying to get the average temperature up is a little tricky. I have the A22 set to activate the fan and humidifier based on VPD triggers. Maybe that’s too precise for this thing, and I should try to maintain a temp and Rh instead? Either way, the log looks like an EKG! It would be nice (for my OCD) to keep the peaks and valleys closer to the median, rather than spending most of the time in transit from one extreme to the other. Ideas?

Oh yeah! I found seeds in my stash! I bought a lid of Strawberry Haze from my local purveyor about a month ago. I found two white beans and two proper looking seeds, the latter of which are taking a little swim. Being “pro-grow” flower, I reckon these will be photoperiods. Who knows if they’ll be male or female 🤷‍♂️. This is like back in the day when you found seeds in the baggie! 😃

You can call it chicken shit if you want, but there are days when all I need to do is periodically check conditions, sweep the tent once with the camera and call it a day. But today, I am adding my newly found babies to the tent. Crossing my fingers that I have two female Strawberry Haze seeds with tails, and not a couple of dudes. I have a couple seedling pots with moistened soil waiting. One seed’s tap root is extending. The other is exposed, but still folded against the hull. The GG#4 seed I lost germinated the same way. The root started to extend, but was still folded when I planted it. I should have waited for that last seed to fully pop, so that’s what I’m doing this time. I’ll be checking it all day. Once they’re in the community, I’ll include details in this grow, since I’m a cheap-ass and the free version of this app only allows one grow at a time. 🤷‍♂️

I noticed a distinct ring around the soil. It matches the layout of the wick lines under the pots. But there was a lack of moisture in the middle. I will lift them all up again and rearrange the wicks. I gave them all a little dechlorinated tap water at the stem, but not too much. Maybe a liter each. Water was served after some LST that turned into an EMS incident. I should have softened the branch before I attempted to manipulate it. There’s a lot going on in this tent. This is my first grow in the basement and I’ve had to create an entire climate inside the tent. There’s no way the basement can be
conditioned as a lung room. I have to increase Rh by 25-50%, and I have to increase the temp by at least 15-25°, and it all has to be done right inside the tent. I can’t maneuver myself around the heater, and humidifier and junk to tend to the plants in the back without causing injury to myself or the plants. I am moving to a three-tent setup, adding two 2x4’s as a seedling and veg tent. The plan is to move air from the baby tent, where the weather will be created, to the veg tent, then to the flower tent. The goal is to loose no more than 10° and 10%Rh from one tent to the next. That air exchange would create a perfect VPD at each stage. Yea, I’m cheap and a little lazy not to spend the money and effort on creating three separate growing environments. Let’s see if this works first. Boxes arrive Thursday!

We’ve got more training going on here than Rex-kwondo! (IYKYK) W
Even the babies did the big push-up yesterday. Everyone shared a gallon of dechloronated tap water, and went back to posing for the flyby!

I was in the process of building wooden risers to lift these giant pots off the floor, and save some wear on my old knees. Then I saw the sale ad for Harbor Freight. These folding plastic stools were $5.99! Everything is a lot neater and easier to get to. I replaced the 12” pans with some slightly larger 14”. Now I can see runoff.

I had noticed some edge browning on a couple big fan leaves. A little homework led me to nitrogen deficiency. Makes sense. Everyone could do with a LITTLE extra nourishment. I top-dressed with about 1 cup of worm castings and 3 tbs of generic 4-4-4, and then gave them about 1.5L of water that they really didn’t need, but I had to transmit the nutes! I held back on the 4-4-4 because there should still be some early stage nutrients remaining in my “Happy Forrest”
blend.

I’m experimenting with “transporting” environments. I have some proper monitors coming, but they’re not here yet. So, I’m left to guessing. As you can see, I have the high temp/high humidity zone created in the first 2x4. The fan and the humidifier are plugged into the A22. The probe for the A22 is in the second 2x4. Therefor, the desired temp/Rh for tent 2 are set on the app, and it’s up to the program to move that environment from tent 1. I planned for a 10°/10% drop, but it looks more like 5°. I can’t say for sure because the crappy little hygrometers I have are for jars. They lie. I’ll be able to dial it in better when my gear arrives. By then, I’ll have at least two plants moving into the bloom tent. The ambient environment is about 40% and 60°. The duct-work I’ve done is definitely moving vapor and warmth.

Everyone is thriving, including my re-veg creature. She’s not backing off from flower, still pushing up pistles and sporting smooth tri-tips. Ruderalis genetics are not to be trusted 100%. There. I said it. I have feminized photoperiod beans on the way.

Meanwhile, I have 5 more auto seeds. Part of me wants to pop em and be done with autos. Part of me wants to wait on shipping and save the autos for later experiments. 🤷‍♂️
Btw, the last pics are my attempt to reduce light leaks and filter the air slightly. The material is Peavy speaker cabinet grille cloth, (IYKYK). It’s perfect!