Arizona - Shed + Tent & Outdoor Growing Journal

[MacroLogos]

Location: Casa Grande, Arizona
Elevation: 1500'
Medium: Soil/Pots

We are growing both outdoors and in an uninsulated, well ventilated, 20' × 10' × 17' shop.

Inside the shop we have:
- 2' × 4' × 7' veg tent
-- Lights: 1 generic 20w LED & 1 180w fluorescent light.
-- HVAC: 1 T6 AC Inf. Inline Fan + the exhaust from the tent.
- AC Infinity 4' × 4' × 7' Cloudline flowering tent (pro grow tents are sooo worth the $$)
-- Light: 1 480w Mars Hydro
-- HVAC: 2x AC Inf. T6 inline fans (intake& exhaust), and the VPD capable controler.

(Still editing)

 

[MacroLogos]

HVAC Continued...

In addition to the 3 fans, there's also 2x 6" inline evaporative coolers (note: if you're duplicating my setup, you can replace my patented [pending] coolers with "5 gal bucket coolers"), 1 cooling each tent.

These types of coolers work really well in Arizona (and any dry hot climates). They are super cheap to run 24/7, they can get +30° temperature drops, and they can be used to drive up the humidity to ideal conditions.

 

[MacroLogos]

Grow Medium

We use a fresh 50/50 mix of Foxfarm's premixs for each grow - these 2 bags fill x12 1 gal pots just right.

 

[MacroLogos]

Fall Prep

It's about 3 weeks until August 1st (which is the day I like to put vegging clones outdoors for Fall crop flowering).... and I am about 1 week behind. No biggie, we'll just harvest a week later.

Just got the cuttings rooted, put in small 4"×4" starter cups, and into the 4x4 tent to veg for a few weeks.

In about 2 weeks, we'll upgrade to larger pots, "top" them, and veg for another 2 weeks or so.

With the exception of a few cuttings taking about 12 days to root (a few had root in 3 days!), things are looking good so far...

 

[MacroLogos]

The Strains

So, we don't have confidence that we have a Grand Daddy Purple and a Platinum OG, but they are both supper fruity.

Here is a picture of a bit of the cured summer harvest:

 

[MacroLogos]

Welcome to Arizona... where the Sun wipes its ass. :-D

Hit 115° in Casa Grande today...

But things were all good in the tent where we're veggin.

 

[MacroLogos]

Everyone in the tent is looking good 2 days after transplant to the baby pots & the move to new lighting in the 4x4 tent (florescent > 480w Mars @ 50% power, 10" distance). Note: We use 24/7 lighting for veg.

In about 2 weeks, we'll move them to bigger pots and give them another 2 weeks of vegetarian indoctrination. About a week into that, they'll get lollied and topped.

 

[Newbelinginaz]

Your DIY Swamp Cooler is very interesting. It looks like you have it inline with a charcoal filter. Do you find much odor reduction with it?

 

[MacroLogos]

Your DIY Swamp Cooler is very interesting. It looks like you have it inline with a charcoal filter. Do you find much odor reduction with it?

That is a heavily modified casing from a 6" filter, but all the charcoal is removed and replaced with evap. cooler pads. That *is* the evap. cooler.

That cooler works better than the "5 gal bucket coolers" by about 5° due to my patented [pending] design. It looks better too! :-D

Regarding odor control with charcoal filters, they work... but high humidity seems to clog them up so we don't use them.

 

[Newbelinginaz]

Interesting. I was thinking of making a lamp out of an old charcoal filter canister but a swamp cooler would be more fun. Thanks

 

[MacroLogos]

Interesting. I was thinking of making a lamp out of an old charcoal filter canister but a swamp cooler would be more fun. Thanks

More useful too. Good luck.

 

[MacroLogos]

These clones were cut on June 21st. Less than a month ago.


We now have new growth starting and even sever shock damage is healing. This is much quicker than growing from seed.

Even tho it's healing, we trim those extra yellow leaves because we want the energy & nutrients freed up for new growth... and they are going to be trimmed anyways because how low they are on the main branch.

A bit of yellow is all good and we keep em to give a guage on healing & root growth... when that one leaf is green (and leaves like it), it will be near time for the next transplant.

Nutrient Note: Other than CloneX, we haven't given them any fertilizer because we're using a good soil mix.... so, just RO water.

Average VPD -- 1.33 -- it's running a tad to the 'dry side' of the range (0.9-1.1 is ideal for veg).

 

[MacroLogos]

Been a few days now, and we have *nice* root growth!

There is also some mycelium (it grows mushrooms), that is working it's way through the substrate too.. bonus!

Time to move them from the baby cups to 1 gal pots. We find that anything bigger is a waste of expensive soil -- $50 for both bags -- because we start with new soil each grow and we do not veg for a long time.

It's worth mentioning that due to a smaller pot, about half way into flowering, they will absolutly need nutrients added to keep flowering strong. However, it's cheaper than doubling soil costs. 2 bags fills 12 1 gal pots with no problem. But if you fill 3 gal pots 2/3 full, that's $100 in soil each crop... we use about $5-$10 in Gen. Hydro products to amend the soil as the plants present symptoms of deficiency.

We're eventually going to move a few of these outside and leave 9 in the tent to flower, but for now we are just going to veg them for a couple more weeks.

 

[MacroLogos]

There was very little shock from the transplant to the final 1gal pots, and so everyone got topped, and also a bit of lite lollypopping on the ones that are going to stay in the tent.

Newb note: "topping" is a technique used to cause "bushy" growth by cutting the top node of the main branch/stalk off. "lolly popping" is a technique used on indoor grows, and the bottom growth (leaves & branches) on the main branch are removed to free energy & nutrients for the remaining upper branches.

When I "top", I cut right after the second node with a branch forming.

After everyone got topped, the LED lights get run a 50% power @ 8"-9" away (yeah, it's a bit close... MARS recomends ~18"+ @ 100% during flower). BUT, this helps keep the new node growth "tighter" on the branches and if light stress occures, we'll turn the power down before moving the light.

During the vegatative phase, light strength is not as key as proximity. My brother loves to veg under a 180w florescent light about 1"-2" away.

 

[MacroLogos]

That mycelium is starting to fruit some mushrooms...! :-D

It got me thinking about putting down a 1" layer of hardwood substrat on the top of each pot for the mushrooms to grow in. I want to see if I can get a flush of mushrooms going in each pot for a bit of a CO2 boost.

I'm not expecting a huge increase in yeild like bottled CO2 would give, but I think there'd be a noticeable increase in bud density and quality with an increase in ambient co2.

 

[MacroLogos]

Decided to get soil for the outdoor plants prepped.

We're using old soil from previous grows (spring & summer), that was dried out.

After getting it remoisturised, it still had a decent smell and is far from spent... but "dead" none the less.

To reintroduce any microorganisms that have died off, I took some of the fresh Foxfarm mix I had left from this grow, blended it in, and covered it to keep humidity high so the soil will get recolonised -- postmortem rehab.

The cover is just a trashbag, and I made sure to leave a gap for some air flow.

I haven't added any fert yet. I'll do that pot by pot so I am sure it is distributed evenly. Gonna use a Gaia Green general feed product (4-4-4). They recommend 1 tbs/gal of soil... I'm going to use about half that.

In about a week, I'll repot the plants going outside in those square green 5 gal pots, give them a few more days inside... and then move them outside to a shady spot for another week.

They need bigger pots for 2 main reasons: helps keep the roots from cooking, and the sun will make the plants outgrow 1 gal pots long before they finish flowering.

If all is well after repotting & transitioning, then they make a final move to a spot with full sun... and this should be near the end of August so temperatures should start staying under 100°f during the day!

August 1st is a loose target day for putting plants out to flower in Fall. This is the day the sun cycle is: 13h day/11h night.. and the nights are getting longer. This is the natural lighting environment all indoor growing is mimicking to trick plants into flowering.

 

[11Hick11]

Following along. Always wanting to see how they do in this heat. Are you going to flip them first Prior to putting them outside?

 

[MacroLogos]

Are you going to flip them first Prior to putting them outside?

No. To mitigate shock, I am going to move them from the 4x4 tent (~85°|70%) to the shop (~95°|45%) for a few days, then to outside shade.

I am hoping we'll be holding below 100° by then. The 1st may be a bit early for that, and I may stall for a week longer depending on temperatures.

Ideally, I'd love to be moving them into a greenhouse with a big 2k CFM evaporative cooler. Not that I need the area for herb (12 plant limit), but you can cool long runs of those half-tube metal ribbed plastic covered 'tent' greenhouses very cheap and they work great here. As soon as I can drop about $2k on it, I'm getting one setup.

 

[11Hick11]

Nice, Ya me too on the heat, hope it stays that way and we get some more needed rain. That Tent greenhouse thing sounds pretty cool, I cant picture it though but for 2k it must be nice.

 

[MacroLogos]

The greenhouse is not 2k... it and all the equipment will be. This one is only a couple hundred bucks.