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Hello thread. I grew some plants! The last few years I have been growing from a DWC in my windowsill.  But last august I decided that only being able to grow for 4 months of the year was just not cutting it (  )So I went ahead and invested in some better gear.  Same bucket, different place. Bought a 90cm high growtent and a single T5. Not seen in picture is a small wall mounted fan on a timer. Planted a bunch of seeds.  Still not enough so I hooked up another DWC and bought two more lights. Peppers in the left bucket, herbs and salad in the right one.  40 days into the project and my herbs are loving it. Pruned back my peppers to create wider growth  First harvest!  57 days and the peppers are coming back from being pruned.  Designed my own herb labels, for future christmas gifts.  71 days. Beginning to become overgrown. Constantly moving the lights up for optimal coverage.  Huge basil.   85 days. Flowerporn  99 days. What happened.   134 days. First mature chili's and taste testing.  147 days. Overgrown and beginning to loose control  Yesterday. 196 days. Pruned back everything to regain control and get ready for the warm season, might try to move some things outside. Found a big bell pepper growing inside all the vegetation and dont have the heart to cut that branch yet, even though I probably should. Picked about 10 chili's of various sizes and made my first batch of dried chili flakes. Lessons learned so far: - T5's worked better than I expected. Wanted to try the cheapest option before investing in serious lights - Even though I have been very flimsy with controlling the PH things are still growing really good. - Changing water every 3 weeks is optimal, but they can survive for 5 without much refill (I might have been a bit careless the last months) - Fresh herbs are awesome - Peppers plants take up a lot of space - There is never enough space for all the things I want to grow - Dont plant mint So yeah, thats my life story. Also, really enjoying the updates Stretch Marx! Nblue fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 15:59
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:55 |
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Thats really cool. I would kill for an opportunity like that. What kind of size farm are you looking to start? Full scale pepper production or something smaller perhaps? Over here my peppers are slowly coming back from being pruned. Never cut them back so much, and its really terrifying, even though I have seen enough videos to know it will be fine. Also I started some salad and spinach seeds. Going to experiment with some small scale windowsill kratky pots now I am getting more than 0 hours of sun in my appartement. edit: I went a little crazy on aliexpress and bought all the things you listed Ante. Have been wanting to hook up some sensors for a while now, so I figured id just do it. Already looking forward to tearing out my hair trying to figure out how to set it up Nblue fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 10:21
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DreadLlama posted:I would like to add that I too am surprised at the amount of plants you're able to cultivate off a single T5 bulb. How many Watts does it draw? I actually use three T5's for the setup, these are the ones I am using. 24w http://www.propagateplants.com/?q=node/2834 I figured I would try them and if they didn't actually produce anything I would buy some more beefy lights and use these for seedlings or something. But they are working like a charm! Stretch Marx posted:Tomorrow I'm meeting with an individual who is part of the Self-Employment Business program that apparently will pay for my living expenses for a year and I get to keep my profits. I'll tell you more once I know. Really exciting, best of luck! Peppers, tomatoes and greens sound like a safe bet. There should probably be a marked for selling herbs and stuff to local restaurants that want something a little more beefy than grocery store herb plants.
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Mar 15, 2016 10:23
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Stretch Marx posted:As such, I let the job counselor for the people with disabilities and they might be able to get me on at a nursery in the area to work with the plants. Working at a nursery sounds good! Probably lots of opportunities to get experience and experiment. Thats some nice looking peppers you have there! Sucks about the root rot, any idea about what might have caused it?  Im getting ready for spring and went shopping for plants this weekend. Picked up a strawberry seedling to see how it works out in the tent. Washed off the soil and transplanted it into a rockwool cube. Its been sitting in there for 3 days now and it looks like its managing the transition fine. Also amazed on how much new growth I have gotten in such a short time from trimming the peppers way down. New branches and leaves are popping out all the time. Experimenting with cloning some basil as well. The one I have now has grown really thick and is starting to get bark on it. I fear it might go into flower as soon as it grows out, so best to start some new ones as I dont have the patience to wait for them to grow from seed.
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Mar 22, 2016 15:12
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Thats really cool! Now you can watch 90% of the hydroponic videos out there without having to guess if the technique's they use actually work for vegetables, and not just for growing the dankest weed known to man  Over here I have been picking all the buds of my peppers to give them more energy to grow foliage before I allow them to bear fruit. Doubt I manage to contain it for long, cause it is popping them out like crazy. Nblue fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 12:58
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Good to know that the peppers can ripen off the vine. Did you just keep them in bags in the refrigerator?
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Apr 20, 2016 15:58
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Stretch Marx posted:It tasted like a green pepper. This was my reaction when I had my first home grown pepper. You think that after months of babying the plant it would taste exceptional or something, but it just tastes like a pepper. Which is a good thing. I had my first real casualty yesterday. My parsley plant has been going strong for 9 months now, but after my last nutrient change it had been acting funny and looking really sad. Yesterday it looked extra sad, so I decided to poke around a bit and the whole stem thing was really soggy. I ended up giving it a small tug and the entire plant just came out. I think I topped up the bucket a bit too high so the bottom of the plant got soggy and developed rot.  But it did its job, and now I have space for something else in the tent. Luckily I just got some seeds from aliexpress for a carnivorous plant, so I will experiment with that. Mostly because I want to do this with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGDymzZyWbY
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Apr 26, 2016 11:07
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That chocolate pudding fruit looks really interesting never seen it before. Gonna be hard to keep in a small container, but if what I read on wikipedia is right you have 1-2 years before that becomes an issue. Also it might be just the right time to start growing vanilla Nblue fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 17:45
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I should probably do that, but I think my bucket is too dark for that to work. What happened was that I was too smart for my own good and decided to fill the reservoir up more than normal so the short roots of my lettuce could reach it. From now on ill stick to topfeeding the babies every now and then.
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May 4, 2016 12:11
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Thats awesome Stretch! Congrats on the job!
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May 23, 2016 13:23
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Really exciting to hear about the farm Stretch! Is it mainly lettuce your going to be focusing on? Back here my little project is starting up again. I was away for most of the summer and figured I could test and see how long the plants can go without a fresh reservoir of water/nutrients. Looks like ~4 weeks in the heat was pushing it a bit too much and most of my plants had to be put out of their misery. I expect some of this was due to me overdoing the pre-summer trimming of branches and roots. Well well... at least I learned something. Started some new plants in the fall, but a massive amount of stress at work made me neglect the plants and when I got an invasion of mites that I couldn't fight off I gave up. I disinfected the whole tent, all the equipment and sowed some new seeds on January 1st. Decided to skip on planting peppers this time as it took too much room and what I really enjoyed the most was cooking with fresh herbs and drying them to give away to people  Pic from last october, a few weeks before pulling the plug  Pic from last week when I put the new plants in the system, this time I am going with basil, parsley, oregano and catnip (recently became foster home for a cat and figured this is the closest I can come to legally growing a drug)  Pic of my parsley plant today, 25 days after sowing 
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Jan 25, 2017 10:55
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:55 |
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86 days into this grow and everything is going good. Catnip, parsley and oregano are growing super fast. The basil is a bit slow, but I think its because I've been trimming it too hard.   I have harvested 3 rounds of parsley so far, and its really shooting up again fast. It takes about two weeks to get a good bunch from my two plants. Theres so much that I already filled one spice jar with dried herbs. @Stretch I would recommend growing some parsley, it grows fast when it gets going and gets big and good looking leafs.  Oregano might be a tad bit crowded, but I like having a small bush that I can trim. I lost one of my oregano plants early due to it drying out, but I managed to clone a few stems from this plant. All in all I'm happy with the progress so far and with skipping out on peppers this time around. For such a small setup they take too much space and make everything harder to manage.
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Mar 27, 2017 13:09
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