Indoor First Indoor - CFLs - Mephisto's - SCROG / LST

[KapScot]

The 55th Parallel North – Mephisto's in a SCROG box.

First Indoor Grow – 4th year experimenting with Auto's outdoors.

I've been growing outdoors for the last few years, but having had two pretty poor summers with dull, wet and windy weather I've decided to revise my growing plan(s) for this year and think outside (or should that be inside) the box.

This year I plan to start all my girls earlier indoors under artificial lighting. Plants will be started in batches with the first going outdoors end of May. The plan is they will stay for about the first 4 weeks under lights before being acclimatised to the outdoors in a sunny covered cold frame. From there they will be transplanted to their final sites.

After that there should be a relatively empty growbox that is all kitted out with the exception of odour free extraction. So once the outdoor girls have fled the coup so to speak I will install some more serious ducting for the growbox and continue a small two plant indoor grow – but the wife has yet to agree to this so we'll start with the premise that the indoor growbox will stop seedlings and young plants littering the windowsills and therefore be less conspicuous ! (well that's my excuse anyway… if you can think of a better one do let me know).

(Edit I'm definitely going for the Mephisto's Indoors hence this log).

If I stray from the path... or you can suggest anything to help I'd appreciate the advice. As for my background I am an experienced gardner/allotmenteer and have also worked in commercial greenhouses (supplemental lighting) - but not with weed, which remains stubbornly illegal here, unlike the opiates that my doctor seems to prescribe freely on-demand. Obviously scaling down to a two plant micro-climate is a very different prospect. So any help welcome.

 

[KapScot]

The Growbox (55cm W x 100cm L x 110cm H)

The design of this was entirely dictated by it's final location, which is on top of a wardrobe utilising the space upwards that normally goes to waste in in an old property with high ceilings. So I had to build my own wooden frame with screw'd n glued plywood panels.

 

[KapScot]

Fitting Out

2 x 125W CFLs with reflectors – these are currently fitted with the warm spectrum bulbs but cool veg'ing bulbs are on order and should arrive this week. There are also 4 x 30W cool CFLs that will act as infill lights later on.

Venting at the moment is a via a light baffled open (passive) base vent, with a single ultra quiet 12V PC fan at the top of the cabinet for heat extraction. Later this top exhaust vent will either be used in combination with a new filter/fan assembly into the room or preferably vented directly outside (in summer at least) without the filter.

It currently has a second 120mm 12v fan circulating air inside but I can see this won't be strong enough for circulation later in the grow so it might get re-purposed to suck air in thru my passive air intake. After a dry run over 48 hours with all the lights on it seems to max out at 28-29degC with a drop to 20C when lights are off (this swing should even out once pots of soil (a solid mass) are factored in as a heat store. So should be perfect for growing.

I hope to SCROG or LST two plants in here.



It's difficult to get a full on pic of the setup as I have to be up a stepladder to get access - tricky.

 

[KapScot]

First batch in the Hatchery

I've picked some of the varieties I'd like to see go to completion outdoors without getting bud rot later in the season,

• Mephistos (Tooth Decay and Sour Hound) << these are the two I'll be keeping for my first indoor grow, and for outside site in the first batch I also have :
• 1 Duurty Magic - Dragon Meds Team
• 1 Dark Devil - Sweet Seeds
• 1 Jock Horror - Nirvana
• 1 Super Stinky - Short Stuff
• 1Himalya Blue Diesel - Short Stuff
• 1 Quick One - Royal Queen Seeds

I normally just plant straight into Jiffy Plugs – it just means less seed handling and I haven’t noticed any difference in germination rates – at least nothing significant.



Beans went in late night 11th - so 12th technically

 

[KapScot]

The 'eager' girl

While some seeds swell up while thinking about cracking and then leisurely meander to the surface there always seems an eager little beaver which bolts up. This years the award falls to Mephisto's Tooth Decay which was out of the soil in 3 days and showing it's first leaflets about 6 hours later. Time to think about potting.

 

[KapScot]

Potting Time

Pots for the indoor grow are 11L in Capacity – that's 2.3 Imperial Gallons or 2.9 American Gallons if you happen live over that side of the world. The pots are perhaps a bit small but I haven't yet found a larger pot that wasn't also taller. We'll just have to see how it goes/grows. Any smaller pots you see will be for the plants that are going to be transplanted outdoors.

Soil Mix

As an outdoor grower I would normally make up my own potting mix using garden compost and added nutrients mixed with ground soil, but I'd be concerned about introducing pests into an indoor environment given the 'organic' nature of the compost I use. Adding a pre-mix compost to an online order for lighting tipped me into the free shipping bracket, effectively giving me the compost for free, so in a departure from what I normally do I'm trying a pre-made soil mix. Plagron Bat-Mix, with the only additive being some Volcanic Rock Dust (for no other reason than I have a whole sack to use up and that it can't do any harm!).



The Tooth Decay seems happy enough anyway

 

[Dion]

Nice build!
Good luck with this

Batmix is great stuff

 

[SueveRico]

Watching this project. Sending posting vibes brother!

 

[KapScot]

Not Quite as Planned - Now going to be an LED grow (not CFL as per title which I can't edit).

The Cabinet when filled up hasn't quite performed as expected. The main problem was temperature which with the pots in it soared to 34C - eek.

I ran all the lights and fans after building it and it topped out at 29C, I can only guess that the compost was absorbing the light more than the empty cabinet even though my rudimentary physics would have suggested that all those photons would get converted to heat at some point within the cabinet anyway – and that any evaporation from the soil would have reduced temps as evaporation occurred and there's a lot of that going on as I have small trays with capillary matting which are just acting as evaporators trying to keep up the relative humidity.

So I had to switch off one of the 125W CFLs to keep the temps down to a more comfortable 28-29C. This cut the available illuminated space in half. So the cabinet was running 1x125W and 3x30W cool spectrum bulbs which have two Mephisto's under them. The rest of the seedlings (which are destined to be transplanted outside anyway) had to wing it on the windowsill for a few days.

Fortunately someone I know here was upgrading his own grow so I managed to get hold of two Mars Hydro 300's (the new ones with the 5W LEDs). A great result, tho I did have to take a rather long road trip to pick them up - damn it's been snowing here - a reminder as to why I want to try an indoor grow as well this year. After a day of re-rigging everything it's now going to be an LED grow and not a CFL as per the title. Between the LEDs and a new circulation fan the cabinet is now running at a more comfortable 27-28C and is back to being fully lit.



The Toof Decay is growing well and it looks like her Sour Hound cousin will be playing catch-up for a while yet (they were put into germination pots at the same time).




Germination Failures

The only germination failure I've had was the first of the Duurty Magic's from Dragon Meds Team. It cracked and produced a 1mm shoot but didn't break out of the Jiffy Plug – It's either really really slow or has perished. I cracked another but it too seems to either be very slow to to have failed as well – I was thinking of this as plant No.3 for the cabinet. These freebie beans were very small so I may have to just purchase (if finances allow) some to get a Dragon.

Duurty Magic compared to some regular beans.

 

[KapScot]

There be Dragons

Well one Dragon – but I believe she had good parents

The 2nd Duurty Magic (Duurty Dragon x Magic Dragon) seed finally poked her head above ground to breath yesterday. I must admit I'm impressed, she was ½ the size of a regular bean (so that's about ¼ of the volume within the seed). It's taken her 11 days to get from soaked-n-cracked to get her head up – and she was given a very shallow planting in her Jiffy Plug. Now I don't normally name my plants but I'm gong to call her Little Puff – after Puff the Magic Dragon of course (which I saw as a kid – the animated version) – jeez I feel old lol.

I had intended to put the Duurty Magic in my outside grow but I'm feeling sorry for her so she's now going to get a space in my cabinet grow, tho it might get a bit cramped in there with the two Mephisto's but she'll be in good company.



I investigated the first seed again and as I suspected it perished in the Jiffy Plug without any further growth from it's cracked state.

Oh stuff it let's just name em all… Toofy, Hound, and Little Puff.