my camper closet grow

[catbuds]

Got all three of the soils. Pro-mix (standard) for seed starter. Its milled spaghnum & perlite, no nutes. Pro-mix organic, great soilless mix with compost & other great organics. & Fox Farms ocean forest, GREAT mix, excellent organics, but a lityle strong for seedlings. So you see they'll be transplanted twice, each potting medium a little richer. Everybody should agree this is all great stuff
---- Ok, now this is the part where we will all butt heads........ LIGHTING... nothing but fluorescents. Yeah, you read right, pure fluorescent! But keep in mind, CAMPER CLOSET...entire camper ran on several extention cords. Remember, I've had fire before. Plants can't finish any taller than 2 1/2'. Fluorescents are great plant lights, but can't penetrate foliage or distance. That's fine in my case. Let me describe my set up. For veg (& 1st 2wks of flowering) 4' double tube shop light fixture, cool whites, total 5800 lumens, 6-8" from plant tops. I have 4 lamps I made, adjustable from 8"- 2 1/2' tall that will house CFL's @ 1200 lumens each. I also have a bunch of 900 lumens & can make more lamps as I need to increase light. At the ends of the 4' fixture will be a 2' under cabinet grow lux, forgot the lumens. These are all cool white for veg, but will go into flowering for two wks before switching over to warm whites & adding RED CFL PARTY LIGHTS. Cool (blue spectrum) doesn't make plants stretch like warm (red) does, so this little two wk thing makes a lot of difference in the finish height. Two days before harvest, I'll cut the lights back to only 10 hrs & cover the warm whites with red plastic. This forces rapid ripening. I know what to expect & I know with more intense lighting I would have bigger, tighter buds & more harvest weight, but under the circumstances, it is what it is. I'll also be doing root restriction by keeping them just slightly pot bound. I wanted to share my penny pinching technique to show when in a pinch, it doesn't have to be expensive. Just tide me overs till the outdoor crop.

[catbuds]

Oh Geez!!!! Found my bag seed in the leaky house (hurricane Sandy FUCKED my roof). In plastic baggie inside prescription bottle, & not air tight like I thought! Full of water & rotted! Not a crybaby, but I sat down & cried. Seems like the powers that be are fighting me tooth & nail on this. Just another damned setback. Guess I should be used to that by now. Dutch Pimp, send me those 5 Aurora Indica seeds you said you weren't going to plant. Yeah, send them in an email! LOL! ( either I find something to laugh at or start crying again!) ~~~ PEACE! ~~~

[Shovelhandle]

go to Mr Nice Seeds forum

[catbuds]

Been having a problem with my post not POSTING. 'Posted' this a couple days ago & somehow lost it, so here it is again. My bff ordered me a 6 tube T5 grow light, complete with tubes. She'd planned to leave it with another friend of ours who lives just up the road from me & have her deliver it xmas day, but when she heard I spent my grocery money on grow supplies, she nixed the suprise idea, told me about it & will be bringing it to me the second weekend of Dec. She spoils me. Think its her way of making up for moving so far away!
---- Anyway, BIG improvement on lighting & will be building a cabinet (gotta keep the kitties out). It definitely won't fit in the closet! I will still be side lighting & underlighting with the fluorescent that was to be the main overhead light in the closet. Probably use the closet for about 2 wks before cabinet is complete.
----Some of you probably wonder why I started this thread before I started the grow. Figured it would be easier to log my technique first, as I have a lot of little tidbits I've picked up along the way that are uniquely mine. They're not wives tails, all have been tried & true. Wanted to stress a few things about organic that went beyond just nutes, but also the hormone thing that can be found naturally occuring in various organics if you only know where to look. Now thats out of the way, I can concentrate on logging the construction & grow in real time. Hopefully someone can instruct me on how to get pics posted to this thread from this damned cell phone. Its a Samsung Galaxy S3 if anyone would be familiar with the bells & whistles on this thing!
---- I've yet to mention the friend who's giving me the beans to start up so I won't be waiting months to order, so I have to again say THANK YOU to him! SOON!

[jsengbusch88]

My posts haven't been going through either...I tried to respond to one of your compliments about my grow CAB but it never showed.

I've been hoping to build more, including a PC box and Pantry for flowering. My hopes in the long run are to sell them online or locally.

Stoked to see what you come up with because all the grow boxes on here are unique.

Happy Growing :thumbsup:

[catbuds]

I'm pretty crafty. I keep changing it around in my mind, you know, the visualization process. Trying to use as little lumber ad possible because I'm stealing it from the lumber that's to fix my roof. I keep robbing Peter to pay Paul. I still have a few wks to work it out in my mind before the lights get here. One of the problems is someone stole my brand new tools, never out of the box. Reciprocating saw, jig saw, palm sander, all my wrenches, screw drivers, pliers, channel locks. All of it. I'd just bought them to replace the ones that had been STOLEN! I'd shoot them, but SOMEONE STOLE MY RIFLE! Its so beautiful here, rolling hills, woods, ponds, abundant wild life..... but we're over run with thieves & vandals. My soil's rich & I have a spring. I should be able to enjoy being here, but I can't.....
---- But anyway, do you have pics posted? Something else that might interest you would be a drying cabinet. Even if you choose not to use one (& some people don't), it might be a profitable item. I've checked out the 'room mate' the 'producer' & the rest of the line, definitely over priced. Needs more height for one thing, & I think the ventilation needs improving. Its only advantage is the co2 injection system, but still way over priced. Something they don't mention.... the exhust should shut off while the co2 is being injected. That's very important & they make no mention of it at all. Hightimes has a free news letter & they have a video ad for it. Check it out, study it well, read other peoples opinions of this product. You can find opinions on most of the forums. Put that all together, & with a little imagination & engenuity, I bet you can come up with a much superior product. Price it to sell & who knows how far you can go with it. I think you have a good idea you should stick with. I like seeing people succeed. My dad was an inventor/craftsman. He invented a little perpetual motion device that could have made him a wealthy man, but he died before he could pattent & market it. So good luck with that. Keep me posted!

[jsengbusch88]

Wow that's really inspirational! I have looked into a lot of the stealth grow cabs out there and I agree that they are completely over priced! It cost me less to make my cabinet then it did to buy just a grow tent...So I'll keep plugging away with my designs. The one I have now is awesome, I would just make sure the paint, parts and all that were brand new of course if I were to sell them.

One cabinet I saw was AMAZING. This thing had a touch screen on the side to adjust temps, CO2, Nutrients the whole shabang...3000 dollars. Who the hell is going to buy that ya know? I want mine to help those noobs and experienced alike. Maybe I could make a dvd that comes with your new cab to show its functions or something similar.

Sky is the limit, I'm excited to see what comes of all this.

Happy Growing Cat! :thumbsup:

[tlranger]

Ok cat, know your crafty, but perpetual motion.

They call them thieves in New Orleans, but I thought out east they are scavengers. Think people is your common denominator problem. Think that's why a like the backcountry.

Closet and cabinet good call, cabinet lots of air flow (since this veg it can leak light- except security I quess)

[catbuds]

You know, I've found the first one I make of something is usually the most costly one. As I make amendments on each consecutive one, not only am I making improvments, but finding more cost efficient ways to do so. Once you get this thing rolling, another thought would be a lot of potential customers would be disabled folk needing your cabinet for medical grow. Keeping your cabinets reasonably price would be a great boon for them, but even then, on fixed incomes, may still be out of reach. You could devise a payment plan through credit/debit cards, doing the 3 installment payment thing. This is usually how I do my big purchases. Dont know how you'd set it up, but any business person who uses this practice could advise you on the 'how to's'. This could greatly increase your clientele (&therefore profits), & you would be a great humanitarian by helping mmj patients who are usually on fixed incomes. For talented people with a little vision, there's thousands of creative ways to be self-sufficient & help others in the process. The more you help, the more you succeed. Its a win win situation!
---- Ah..... just some thoughts for you to toss around!

[catbuds]

I would call them compost, but we all know meat products ruin you pile! Haha. Actually Ranger, Ill be switching out the 6800K's for 30000K's for flowering, switching the cool fluorescent side & underlighting to warm & throwing in some cfl red party lights. I'll be raising lumens a little & adding as many red cfl's as it takes to get that warm light spectrum all over my girls. When I first install them, I'll turn off all the other lights & arrange the red ones till I get an even red glow on them all before I turn the rest of the lights back on. Since fluorescents don't penetrate as well as HID's, I'll be taking care of that little problem by keeping them small. Maybe a tad bigger than sog, & doing a perpetual harvest. Will use the 'tank method' for veg. Once I get my strains established & choose my best male, I'll be going with clones indoors, seeding a few lower buds, & keeping the handsome boy in the bathroom, then the seed plants will be for my outdoor grow.
---- Can't wait to get rolling, growing my babies & handling a few 'scavengers' vigilante style!