Kowalski's Log #1 - The story of a plant.

Apologies for the crappy pictures, I just picked up a digital camera which is damn near antique (a whopping one-megapixel!) and it appears I'll need a tripod and a good side light to get some better shots as this log progresses. Oh well, $5.00 camera so I can't complain too much, I guess.

None-the less, here she is - this is my Bagseed Beauty, a fourth generation clone from the original that I started a little over a year ago. I have no clue of her pedigree or genetics, she was the best of 30+ plants all grown from seeds saved from any unusually good bags that my friends and I picked up over the course of a year or so before my first grow.

She has been wire trained and fimmed (primarily just wire trained) rather drastically as you can see, in order to make best use of my tiny grow space.

All of the main tops were fimmed last night for the last time. She has just been re-potted - the soil is a mix of manure compost, mushroom compost, peat, pearlite, Espoma Flower-Tone, bone meal, and a bit of blood meal. She will be replacing the next plant in bloom which is to be cut down in about 10 days. She has begun to be fed Blackstrap Molasses at about 1 tsp / gal which will continue throughout bloom.

This will be the first time since my very first grow that I'll have decent lighting for bloom, so it will also be my first grow log. Up until now, I've been blooming under four 42 watt CFL bulbs. Now I have a 400 watt HPS in place along with the CFL bulbs - Unfortunately, it's a scary (caseless and rusty) magnetic ballast and a hardware store bulb, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Oh, before anyone points out that I'm wasting lumens with all that black plastic lining my veg space.... yea, I know. My grow space is slowly evolving as time goes on. Mylar is on the list somewhere down the line as time and dollars allow.

everything is looking good kowalski! just use flat white paint. it's got a very high reflective index and is way better than black. even if you just do it until you get mylar. other than that, very nice!

-shake

I'm not too worried about it yet. Like I said, this is a steadily evolving space - there's a lot more construction that I need to worry about (primarily revamping the ventilation system to handle the extra heat from the 400 watt HPS - not a problem at the moment since it is below freezing outside) before I'll get around to replacing the plastic.

The plastic is temporary - at the moment it serves as my light baffle allowing air to pass from veg to bloom without causing a light leak, it keeps dust from ancient damaged and crumbly plaster off my plants, and it protects the floor and walls from water.

Redesigning the exterior of the space also will have higher priority - at the moment, I have an ugly green blanket tacked to the wall covering the whole thing. It's interesting that no one has ever given it a second glance, but I'd rather like to replace this with something a little less out of place. I've already planned how I'm going to go about making my new door/cover, but once again it is a matter of time and money - well actually just money.

Here is another shot of the main character for this log, along with a couple shots of my bloom area.

The big one to the left is the mother plant getting ready to make room for her daughter in, probably, about 10 days. Unfortunately, she was bloomed under 4x42watt CFL only and is now nearly finished. The 400 Watt was added two nights ago.

To the right, we have a second time contestant in the rear. This is a bagseed Afghoo plant, AG #1 - it was revegged, I've taken 5 clones off of it, and since it did such a nice job recovering after its first bloom, it gets to go for a second ride.

In front of AG #1, is its sister, AG#2 to the far right in the white pot. This plant wasn't nearly as impressive for either yield or potency as its sister, #1. I decided to cross it with a mystery Sativa male rather than letting a perfectly good clone go to waste. To its credit, #2's mother had a very nice short bloom time - at 54 days.

The other little plant in front - the tiny thing whose pot is not visible in the pictures - is another clone of the mystery B.S.B plant. This too, has been pollinated with the mystery Sativa.

Howdy "IAK",

In the short time you've been here I've found your posts and threads to be entertaining and informative...Our political views are very similar as well...
Real cool that you've got a grow log going also...I'm sure every thing your lookin to do will come together even if it's piece by piece...When you get that couple of extra bucks go with SunLeaves Ultreflect instead of mylar if possible...Much easier to work with and it can be wiped clean...
Good luck man,:smokin: SUBSCRIBED

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DTRave420

Howdy "IAK",

In the short time you've been here I've found your posts and threads to be entertaining and informative...Our political views are very similar as well...
Real cool that you've got a grow log going also...I'm sure every thing your lookin to do will come together even if it's piece by piece...When you get that couple of extra bucks go with SunLeaves Ultreflect instead of mylar if possible...Much easier to work with and it can be wiped clean...
Good luck man,:smokin: SUBSCRIBED

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DTRave420: Thanks for the tip - I'll check out the Ultreflect.


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So here's an update on the lighting situation:

Up until now, I've been running 4x42 watt cfl bulbs for bloom. For veg, I've been using 2x32 watt 5,500k, and a 19 watt and a 23 watt unknown spectrum (but blue side) bulbs.

This has changed a bit :)

New setup:

Bloom: 1x400 watt HPS, 4x42 watt 2,700K CFL = 568 watt total.
Veg: 2x32 watt 5,500k + 2x42 watt 2,700k = 148 watt total.

The closet is only 3.75 square feet total (about 1.5' x 2.5'), so bloom = 151.46 watts per square foot (can we say overkill?), while veg is at 39.46 watt per square foot.

Ventilation isn't a problem yet 'cause it's pretty damn cold here in the winter. I'm looking at 25F outdoors, 60F outside of the closet, 70F in bloom with the closet wide open, 80F with the closet closed up. 20 degrees above ambient temperature is pretty scary, but I've got plenty of time to replace the current ventilation system (currently a single 4" inline duct fan in the back wall of the closet) with something that can handle the load by then... In the mean time, I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how low the bloom temp is with all that's currently running :)

I'll be upgrading the ventilation system before spring and I might have to nix the CFL bulbs in bloom come summer..... but in the mean time, I'm loving this cold weather.

Yep,I hear ya man...It's much easier to keep good temps in the winter...If it wasn't for my 25,000BTU AC,I wouldn't be able to grow anything worthwhile in the spring and summer...:stoned:

add fresh, cool air...as often as possible...:thumbsup:

This is ridiculous, 21 degrees outside, 56 inside.

I've added a second space heater in my living room. It was cheap, $19.00 and has now doubled my total apartment heat..... 3,000 watts of electric space heater power.

Now, my first heater is a quality little unit - very well constructed, rather like the i-pod of space heaters.

The one I purchased today.... not so much. In fact, it didn't even work when I bought it. The thermostat was too touchy, causing it to shut down after less than a minute and have to cool down for several minutes before it would run.... huh uh... not going to cut it. So I dig and find a screwdriver and pull the cheap piece of $#!+ apart. My final solution is just leaving the control panel pulled away from the unit a couple of inches. Presto - we have heat. Or something like it.

Not that I've taken my jacket off in quite a while, but we're getting closer to livable human and plant conditions now.

My slick and pretty space heater is currently sitting right outside my grow closet, working furiously to keep my veg chamber up to around 60 degrees and heat the hallway.

I have added more bulbs to veg as well, three 14 watt 5,500 k bulbs. This brings me up to 2x42 watt 2,700k 2x32 watt 5,500k and 3x14watt 5,500k total: 190 watt. This actually brings me up to a fairly respectable 50.6 watt per square foot - and ironically, I'm battling to keep temperatures up high enough for my plants to be happy rather than upgrading my cabinet exhaust.

This is absolutely nuts. I hate winter.

[Warning, Stoned ramblings of a shivering man to follow]

Some quick temperature statistics for the closet:

Hallway temperature: 56F
Veg Temperature: 58F
Bloom Temperature: 72F

Well, at least I'm not having any problem dealing what that 568 watts of total stupidity bloom lighting for the next few months.

Tomorrow's mission: Off to get plastic and masking tape and start sealing off every window and unnecessary door in the place and hopefully I can keep the veg space above 60 degrees, as well as the bloom during the day when the lights are off.....

Hmmm... I DO have a second timer, come to think of it.... and air from my veg space DOES pass through bloom.... maybe I could put a very small heater in the veg area on a timer opposite the light timer for bloom. That way the veg area could be raised to 75F during the bloom area's dark period and then drop to 60F at night during the bloom's day period.... This might work.

I think we have an answer!