[net2-3]

Happy New Year 420ers, it's a great time for new beginnings...

I harvested a Tundra from the garden mid October and have been thoroughly enjoying her smoke. After Christmas fun the stocks are looking a bit diminished so it's definitely time to get going with my indoor loft grow. I'm really looking forward to having some variety in my stocks again too

The Tundra:


Strains: I have to start with an apology to Sweet Seeds and Withnail. I obtained seeds for the Sweet Seeds grow diary competition but then was unable to afford the fan and filter to get set up indoors and join the competition. Hopefully I can do a good job of representing the sweet seeds strains now! I will be planting one each of Cream Caramel, Wild Rose and Flash Back #2. Dealer is not an option and I'm slightly worried about the Tundra lasting till then so I'm adding a feminised Pakistani Valley from World of Seeds and two regular Short Riders from Nirvana to provide an early harvest.

Environemt: Plants will be started in a cupboard in the spare room before moving up to a box in the loft (currently in construction) which I will cover with loft insulation. Intake will be passive and drawn from the chimney (the chimney stack has been removed from loft floor level upwards leaving a nice big hole which should hopefully supply a fairly stable intake air temperature). Extract will be a 125mm Ruck and filter with air exhausted through a metal chimney type vent in the house roof.

Lighting: The plants will be started under a blue 125w CFL before being moved up to sit around a vertically hung unshaded HPS bulb. The HPS is an old light from a friend that has been used for one grow in the past. A desk fan will blow upwards onto the bulb and I will surround it with a cylinder of mesh to train the plants around. The mesh should ensure the plants are kept at about 20cm from the light all the way around the bulb. The filter will then sit above the bulb hopefully creating a good throughput of air over the bulbs surface. The autos will follow the Sweet seeds lighting cycle so will probably have their last few weeks under 12/12, they may stay under a red 125w CFL depending on how the space works out.

Compost and nutrients: The plants will be started in seedling and cutting compost and will then be potted up first into B&Q MP with John Innes no.1, then no.2 and lastly no.3 if they get big enough to need it. I will be adding Rock dust to the compost and using Root Grow at each pot up, Maxicrop Seaweed extract will also be used as a root drench. Nutrients will be BioBizz Fish mix and bloom.

Anyway I'm off to plant some beans

This post has been edited by net2-3: 04 January 2010 - 09:02 PM

[net2-3]

After a couple of days delay the pips are all soaking and about to go into pots with B&Q seedling compost, these will be covered and will go into the airing cupboard until they pop up, hopefully.

This is the terminated chimney stack, the centre of the box will sit over this and air will be drawn up through a 40cm diameter circular hole, I will filter the dust with some tights. I hung a thermometer down the stack and and was pleased to find it was 19 degrees , I imagine this will reduce once I'm drawing air up it but it still looks like it should be a good temp for my intake air. Similarly when it gets hotter in the summer drawing air up from the ground through the centre of the house should keep it relatively cool, fingers crossed!




Extract will run to this 125mm ventilation pipe to the great outdoors. My main concern is that the air coming out of this pipe might be audible to neighbours, I'm hoping acoustic ducting will help.



Look like I better get myself to B&Q

This post has been edited by net2-3: 08 January 2010 - 12:53 PM

[oxo]

Hey net, looking good & great use of the chimney stack! Made me chuckle a bit becuase I use my stack for extraction as my flower room is in the cellar. Out of interest do you have open fireplaces or are they sealed? If they are sealed you really want to make sure you have as large vents possible, otherwise the airflow could well be a little humid, especially if its an outside stack.

Good luck with grow fella, looks like you are planning this all out nicely

[net2-3]

Here they are in the pots ready to go to boiler cupboard, fingers crossed from some little leaves poking up in a few days. Hopefully mighty buds from tiny sweet seeds grow



They were watered in using a seedling rose and 1ml/l seaweed extract.

[net2-3]

oxo, on Jan 8 2010, 02:32 PM, said:

Hey net, looking good & great use of the chimney stack! Made me chuckle a bit becuase I use my stack for extraction as my flower room is in the cellar. Out of interest do you have open fireplaces or are they sealed? If they are sealed you really want to make sure you have as large vents possible, otherwise the airflow could well be a little humid, especially if its an outside stack.

Good luck with grow fella, looks like you are planning this all out nicely

Thanks for dropping in Oxo, It looks like I've been lucky with the chimney stack, especially with this weather; I hope it works out OK. The fireplaces are sealed but the stack is in the centre of the house so I'm hoping the air will be dry enough. Intake works out to 6x extract with a 125mm RUCK, do you think this will be sufficient?

[oxo]

net2-3, on Jan 8 2010, 02:47 PM, said:

oxo, on Jan 8 2010, 02:32 PM, said:

Hey net, looking good & great use of the chimney stack! Made me chuckle a bit becuase I use my stack for extraction as my flower room is in the cellar. Out of interest do you have open fireplaces or are they sealed? If they are sealed you really want to make sure you have as large vents possible, otherwise the airflow could well be a little humid, especially if its an outside stack.

Good luck with grow fella, looks like you are planning this all out nicely

Thanks for dropping in Oxo, It looks like I've been lucky with the chimney stack, especially with this weather; I hope it works out OK. The fireplaces are sealed but the stack is in the centre of the house so I'm hoping the air will be dry enough. Intake works out to 6x extract with a 125mm RUCK, do you think this will be sufficient?

All sounds good mate with ample air exchange IMO

[Burton Red]

Nice choice of plants. Got exactly the same seeds for the sweet seeds comp and have roughly 4 weeks left. Feel free to look at my dairy (and avoid any mistakes that I made) and see what your about to grow .

Burton

[net2-3]

Cheers for the heads up Burton. Had a look through your diary, looks like they made an excellent recovery and are budding up very nicely, judging by the competition diaries I've read I should be in for a treat when these girls get going. I'm especially looking forward to the Cream Caramels after reading a couple of smoke reports.

[net2-3]

Checked in on the seeds, a Cream Caramel and the Flash Back #2 have poked their noses up and have gone under the envirolight! I put in two Cream Caramels in the end as insurance, not sure if I'll grow both out so we'll see how things work out with my space.

Exciting times ahead

[net2-3]

The SS beans have now all broken the soil with one Cream Caramel showing off it's first set of true leaves already. I'm very impressed; I planted the seeds fairly deeply so I'm hoping this is a good early indication of vigour (still only one of three autos are up compared to 4/4 Sweet Seeds).

Just a heads up as well to let anyone interested know that it's likely that my diary will be moved over to the Sweet Seeds diaries section as it turns out I may still be eligible for the competition

[net2-3]

Day 2: 24/0 under 125w Flourescent

All seems to be coming on fine, I did panic a little when I thought I'd scorched the Wild Rose slightly as it had very small brown tips on it true leaves but it's growing on happily and has next to no visible damage now. I'm currently watering with a spray mister to try and avoid compaction of the compost and keep the water well oxygenated.

They're not much to look at the moment but here they are in their temporary home



The four Amigas


I've got Saturday free so will make trip to DIY store to get materials and get building. I have deployed my excellent artistic skills to create this masterpiece

The intake will be a circular hole the same width as the cylinder of mesh, cut directly under the bulb. Let me know if you forsee any problems as this is my first time indoors!


Edited: because I'm a bit special when it come to uploading images

This post has been edited by net2-3: 14 January 2010 - 09:10 PM

[net2-3]

It's been a busy weekend but I managed to spend some time getting down the hardware store to buy some cheap timber and plasterboard panels for a grand total of £23. Wasn't sure about using plasterboard but it's been great so far; it's held up fine and is so easy to cut which is just as well as I've had to cut the boards down to fit them through the loft hatch!

I spent a couple of hours hauling myself up and down from a step ladder and craning myself into awkward positions, Got a few pics of the work in progress.

Floor down with inlet hole cut



Timber frame built



Getting there




All I've got left to do now is finish the box, put mesh over the inlet,, fit the cylindrical screen paint the inside, modify the light so bulb is remote from the ballast, lay some waterproof sheeting on the floor, hang the light, buy and fit the extraction, run power up to the loft More busy times ahead but I can't wait to have it finished and running


As for the plants they're coming on quite happily in their wardrobe with not much to report. Keeping an eye n the Cream Caramels to see if I get two different phenos too.

Edited to add: The Pakistani Valley auto and the short rider never came up, I blame the seed shop for storing them badly, couldn't possibly be my fault

This post has been edited by net2-3: 17 January 2010 - 06:52 PM

[Yamatoka]

Your cc's share their b'day with my one surviving cc - I'll be watchin to see the diff in growth between an enviro and a 250. I think I need to get myself an enviro, look forward to yr updates - gl.

[net2-3]

Day 10: 18/6 125w Flourescent

After finally managing to get power up to the loft I hung the light and then dropped the f**cking ballast and hey presto the freshly hung light no longer works I was about set to buy the extraction and nutirents but finding the cash for a new ballast too is going to be tricky On the plus side 400w ballasts are practically the same price as 250w ones I think I could get away with this if I widen the screen slightly and stick to a 125mm high power ruck. Getting to the back plants will be even more of a fiddle but I think it will be worth it. Now just gotta find the cash

Here's the grow box in progress


In the mean time the Spanish girls have been coming on very nicely and are starting to give off that lovely smell of vegetating cannabis Still just plain water at the moment, will need to pot up at the weekend by the looks of things. The environment in the cupboard isn't ideal, I think a bit too cool and dry for them and the leaf margins don't look perfect, however they're growing well and I guess they should become more tolerant of this with a little maturity. Hopefully when they move upstairs I can improve things too.





Cream Caramels in front, FB#2 top left, WR bottom right



A Cream Caramel on its own

[net2-3]

Yamatoka, on Jan 20 2010, 01:34 PM, said:

Your cc's share their b'day with my one surviving cc - I'll be watchin to see the diff in growth between an enviro and a 250. I think I need to get myself an enviro, look forward to yr updates - gl.

That's cool about the CC's, looking forward to comparing how they get on

Edited for spelling

This post has been edited by net2-3: 22 January 2010 - 03:03 PM