Ok so the grow has officially begun. This is the second journal post. Since the last one I have been setting up the tents and tweaking them, along with tweaking my space and all that fun stuff. I actually do enjoy the setup part.
This journal is dedicated to all the experienced growers on here who have helped me to this point. In particular I wanna give a shout out to Emilya, who has helped me more than she knows! I would encourage anyone interested in growing to read her stuff.
NOTE: This particular post is kind of aimed at hopefully helping newbie growers like me. I have no illusion that any of my setup posting will change the lives of any experienced growers. Lol. But the small percentage of new growers on here may find it helpful.
One thing I have adopted from Emilya is this: GARDEN LIKE A BOSS. I take that to mean, either do it RIGHT, and do it ALL THE WAY, or don't do it at all. That's my approach anyway. For me, Garden Like A Boss begins with the setup. Here's the thing about the setup: in a tent grow, this is your plants WHOLE WORLD. For their entire life. You want, therefore, the environment to be as close to perfect as you can make it with the means at your disposal. That means taking TIME to set up right. Tweaking. Being patient. Making as sure as you can that you can affect temperature and humidity. Making sure your power outlets can support the amperage you're drawing. Testing to see how a hot day affects the ambient air temperature in the room your tents are in and what that does to the temperatures inside the tent. Etc, etc, etc...
The point is, I make sure to take the time before I think about a plant to make sure the infrastructure is solid. Cuz without that you have nothing.
As this is my second grow, I highly doubt I have any brilliant revelations for most of the people on here. However, I have found as a new grower that I can learn a ton just from checking out other people's stuff on every level. As such, I am going to go through my setup and tweaks, with pics, in this post. For any newbie growers, I have spent countless hours thinking about how to do this or that, researched a ton, asked a ton of questions, and now on my second grow these pics are what I have come up with. I hope including the setup part of a grow is appropriate for a grow journal. Haven't seen a whole lot of folks doing it, so if it's inappropriate I assume I will get an email from one of our lovely moderators, lol.
SO....
My basic setup situation and concept is this:
I have a standard sized, one car garage with no windows, just a garage door and a door on the inside into the house. Into that space I had to fit both my 5x5's, with AC units for each tent, along with something to hold all my nutes and tools and all that fun stuff, and a table to mix nutes on, trim on, etc. AND I had to have access to all doors of the tents from my wheelchair. (I'm a crip-grower....Crip Growers UNITE!)
So dividing the space effectively was a bit of a challenge.
Here are a few things I permanently adopted following my first grow in terms of MUST DO's that I include in the tweaking too, ie;
- As little as possible on the floor of the tent. Maximize the space inside the tent where the plants grow.
- ALL cords tucked away for both efficiency, and so you don't ever have to deal with them later. NOT hanging all over the place looking like a dumpster fire. Is that OCD? Maybe a little. But neatness counts! Trust me you'll be happier later the neater you begin your grow.
-All controls you need to get to and cords/power strips you need to access should be accessible. Duh. Sounds dumb to even mention, right? Lol. You'll see, when you have to unplug and replug cords over and over cuz you didn't think it through enough at the beginning. My goal is to eliminate all variables except the plants.
- CLEAN your tent before each grow. There may well be some crap leftover you need to get rid of, ie mold, dirt, or anything that can negatively affect the next grow. I thought I cleaned mine before packing it up between first grow and now, and when I unpacked the tent I found I had not done an adequate job. Cleanliness counts more than neatness!!!!! Any number of molds and pests and crap can mess up your grow, so be clean. It's common sense.
- I like to try to bring some sense of style and visual fun to the setup. I figure during the grow I am going to spend more time in that room than any other room in the house, so I may as well be as comfortable as possible in that space.
- DO NOT SMOKE CIGARETTES ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR GROW ROOM. Pot plants hate cigarette smoke. I am a smoker. Don't mix tobacco and grow space.
- TEST TEST TEST. I just did five days of testing. Hot days. Rainy days. What happens to temperature and humidity on those days? How will the fans need to be adjusted given various conditions to maintain a consistent environment? The weather outside affects your tent grow inside the tent unless you have some crazy high end space and way more money than me. Most of us are subject to some extent on having to compensate for the outside weather. Be aware of that. Test.
Ok, pictures: So I will begin at the garage door with the table and go panoramically around to the right. If you scroll top to bottom the pics take you around the whole garage. That's my setup. The AC unit that enters the one tent from above instead of at the base like the other I did for a couple reasons: first, so it's not in the way of my wheelchair. Second, the blurples I use in that tent (till I upgrade them) get HOT. I used them on my first grow and they are manageable. But this time I thought "what if the cold air intake flowed down onto the lights? Wouldn't that help cool them and cool the tent more evenly at the same time than having it come in at one corner?" This setup is an attempt to answer that question. i didn't have the option with the other tent but it worked out nicely on this one.
Setup complete. I am short my exhaust fan in the one tent which goes in Tuesday when I grab it from the storage unit. All I have to do is connect it to the filter and duct which is already in place. Ten seconds. At that point I will begin the autoflower grow in that tent. The seeds for the photoperiod grow in the Gorilla tent are between wet paper towels right now.
The photoperiod grow strain selection got tweaked just a little. I'm doing:
2 Humboldt Pineapple Upside Down Cake
2 Humboldt Jelly Rancher
1 Humboldt Blueberry Muffin
All those five will be in five gallon pots. I guess my next post will be the seeds sprouted and I will outline my beginning methodology for seedlings and veg until transplant, as well as pics of the final setup with the missing fan added and a final decision on what autoflowers to grow in that tent.
Thank you for taking the time to check out my journal.
