Glad to meet you!

SDBgrow · Mar 12, 2021

Hi all. Looking forward to getting some advice from more experienced growers that myself. I am in SoCal and have just a little personal grow in my greenhouse. This is my fourth cycle and I’m learning more and more each time. I’m pretty good with nutrients and such but I’m struggling to figure out how to light Dep my 10 x 12 Harbor freight greenhouse. I haven’t found anything online that really provides a solution for me. Hoping somebody here might be able to provide me with some ideas! Here are some pictures of my current crop grown from a seed I found In a bag I got from a friend!

TripsRabbit · Mar 12, 2021

BOLD Light Deprivation Tarp for Greenhouse Systems | Americover

Boost your harvests with BOLD® Light Deprivation Tarp—a durable, string-reinforced blackout cover designed for manual and automated greenhouse systems.

www.americover.com

SDBgrow · Mar 12, 2021

They make great tarps for sure! I know the primary way most growers light dep is by rolling a huge tarp over top of the building. I live in a neighborhood and feel like that may attract more attention than I would really like. I am determined to find a solution that will allow me to black out the inside from the inside if that makes sense. I am thinking a tarp with eyelets along the side strung by cable and slid back and forth at the top of the wall. For the sides I am thinking of rolled up tarp on a pole to pull up and down to meet the top tarp. I am hoping that maybe someone has crossed a similar issue and has found a solution. Also open to any other solutions this farming think tank might be able to offer!

Goblinkiller · Mar 12, 2021

Nice grow. Hope you find a good solution to your greenhouse, tarps on timers might be hard/expensive to pit up, I dont know:)

SDBgrow · Mar 12, 2021

Goblinkiller said:
Nice grow. Hope you find a good solution to your greenhouse, tarps on timers might be hard/expensive to pit up, I dont know:)

Thamks man. Im still learning but I feel like im headed in the right direction!

Anthem · Mar 12, 2021

SDBgrow said:
They make great tarps for sure! I know the primary way most growers light dep is by rolling a huge tarp over top of the building. I live in a neighborhood and feel like that may attract more attention than I would really like. I am determined to find a solution that will allow me to black out the inside from the inside if that makes sense. I am thinking a tarp with eyelets along the side strung by cable and slid back and forth at the top of the wall. For the sides I am thinking of rolled up tarp on a pole to pull up and down to meet the top tarp. I am hoping that maybe someone has crossed a similar issue and has found a solution. Also open to any other solutions this farming think tank might be able to offer!

,
I assume you went with the harbor freight for the cost, the bad ass automatic black out stuff on the inside is going to cost you a fortune. I ran a green house in socal for 4 runs and did light dep with tarps that is about the only economical way to deal with light dep. I would probably just deal with it not being light dep.

SDBgrow · Mar 12, 2021

100% HF GH was a cost decision. As its just in my back yard it didn't make a bunch of sense to spend big coin on the GH. I really dont want to but I will resort to tarping it if I have to. As far as I know light dep is necessary if you want to grow year round. no? This will be my first spring/summer cycle so I want to be prepared as possible. I am certainly going to try the non conventional route and see if I can engineer something that works for my puposes. Ill make sure and take pics if I get something figured out. If that doesnt work, I'll just throw a bag over it and call it a day!

MIGrampaUSA · Mar 12, 2021

SDBgrow said:
100% HF GH was a cost decision. As its just in my back yard it didn't make a bunch of sense to spend big coin on the GH. I really dont want to but I will resort to tarping it if I have to. As far as I know light dep is necessary if you want to grow year round. no? This will be my first spring/summer cycle so I want to be prepared as possible. I am certainly going to try the non conventional route and see if I can engineer something that works for my puposes. Ill make sure and take pics if I get something figured out. If that doesnt work, I'll just throw a bag over it and call it a day!

Auto-flowering plants might make sense for you if you want to get around the black-out tarps with future grows. Personally, I have no experience growing them. I ran photo-period plants in my greenhouse last summer and plan to do so again this summer. I grow inside during the winter months. Costs would be huge to insulate and heat my greenhouse for Michigan winters.

Anthem · Mar 12, 2021

SDBgrow said:
100% HF GH was a cost decision. As its just in my back yard it didn't make a bunch of sense to spend big coin on the GH. I really dont want to but I will resort to tarping it if I have to. As far as I know light dep is necessary if you want to grow year round. no? This will be my first spring/summer cycle so I want to be prepared as possible. I am certainly going to try the non conventional route and see if I can engineer something that works for my puposes. Ill make sure and take pics if I get something figured out. If that doesnt work, I'll just throw a bag over it and call it a day!

I never ran without tarps. This is bring back some fun times. I did my first GH grow from like October thru to January and I had a mentor that I would pick his brain and he basically told me to do light dep from the start. It was a pain, I bought a tarp from HD thinking it would black out the GH but with lights running in the GH it light up the yard. I ended up with a 6 mil plastic tarp and a HD tarp, so it was 2 tarps every morning and evening.
Is this going to be your first run in the GH? I am asking because I am looking at your exhaust and it looked like it might not be enough once things start heating up. I was in a 7' x 15' x 7' hop house style with a 4" exhaust and 6" exhaust and that was not enough come summer time. So keep an eye on that. I also ran a dehumidifier in the GH as well.
Back to the light dep, I would just bite the bullet and figure on some tarps around the outside. I knew one GH grower that punched a reinforced hole in a couple of corners and would use sticks to manipulate the tarps into place. In my experience there was no easy way to get it done and your GH would be even more of a challenge. and removing the tarps and putting back up makes more noise than you think.
I remember on the 4th of July, I had forgot to cover the GH and about 3 o'clock in the morning I woke up like the sun was up. I forgot to cover the GH. I had to shut the lights off, wait a few minutes and cover the GH so I could turn the lights back on and the nieghbors would not get anymore noise than they probably were.

MIGrampaUSA · Mar 12, 2021

Anthem said:
I never ran without tarps. This is bring back some fun times. I did my first GH grow from like October thru to January and I had a mentor that I would pick his brain and he basically told me to do light dep from the start. It was a pain, I bought a tarp from HD thinking it would black out the GH but with lights running in the GH it light up the yard. I ended up with a 6 mil plastic tarp and a HD tarp, so it was 2 tarps every morning and evening.
Is this going to be your first run in the GH? I am asking because I am looking at your exhaust and it looked like it might not be enough once things start heating up. I was in a 7' x 15' x 7' hop house style with a 4" exhaust and 6" exhaust and that was not enough come summer time. So keep an eye on that. I also ran a dehumidifier in the GH as well.
Back to the light dep, I would just bite the bullet and figure on some tarps around the outside. I knew one GH grower that punched a reinforced hole in a couple of corners and would use sticks to manipulate the tarps into place. In my experience there was no easy way to get it done and your GH would be even more of a challenge. and removing the tarps and putting back up makes more noise than you think.
I remember on the 4th of July, I had forgot to cover the GH and about 3 o'clock in the morning I woke up like the sun was up. I forgot to cover the GH. I had to shut the lights off, wait a few minutes and cover the GH so I could turn the lights back on and the nieghbors would not get anymore noise than they probably were.

I'm using a pair of 1650 cfm louvered attic fans to move (filtered) air through my greenhouse. It takes every bit of it to keep things cool enough inside on a hot sunny day. Those fans are on a temperature controller but there are days it doesn't shut off at all during a heat spell. The cooling would become even more important using light blocking tarps I would think.

SDBgrow · Mar 12, 2021

That’s an awesome story thanks for the response! This is not my first cycle but will be my first full summer run. I started my first run in September of last year but it was still 100+ degrees here in San Diego. Translate that to the greenhouse and I saw a thermometer at 130 at one point!They all made it through pretty well but I don’t plan on letting it get that hot this summer. I was reading in another thread about using an evaporator cooler. I might look into that To help out I have 2 8 inch exhaust fans one in the ceiling in one down the canopy level. They worked pretty hard last year. Maybe I’ll upgrade this year. I never really thought about the noise of the tarps! That’s the kind of shit I need to hear right there.

SDBgrow · Mar 12, 2021

MIGrampaUSA said:
I'm using a pair of 1650 cfm louvered attic fans to move (filtered) air through my greenhouse. It takes every bit of it to keep things cool enough inside on a hot sunny day. Those fans are on a temperature controller but there are days it doesn't shut off at all during a heat spell. The cooling would become even more important using light blocking tarps I would think.

How big is your GH?

Anthem · Mar 12, 2021

SDBgrow said:
That’s an awesome story thanks for the response! This is not my first cycle but will be my first full summer run. I started my first run in September of last year but it was still 100+ degrees here in San Diego. Translate that to the greenhouse and I saw a thermometer at 130 at one point!They all made it through pretty well but I don’t plan on letting it get that hot this summer. I was reading in another thread about using an evaporator cooler. I might look into that To help out I have 2 8 inch exhaust fans one in the ceiling in one down the canopy level. They worked pretty hard last year. Maybe I’ll upgrade this year. I never really thought about the noise of the tarps! That’s the kind of shit I need to hear right there.

Shoot for at least 1 air exchange every minute. There are some mister set ups for GH as well. But you got to get the air moving during the summer and even spring

MIGrampaUSA · Mar 12, 2021

SDBgrow said:
How big is your GH?

10' x 20' ... It's a good size hoop house using dual wall polycarb sheets for the "glass."

SDBgrow · Mar 13, 2021

MIGrampaUSA said:
Auto-flowering plants might make sense for you if you want to get around the black-out tarps with future grows. Personally, I have no experience growing them. I ran photo-period plants in my greenhouse last summer and plan to do so again this summer. I grow inside during the winter months. Costs would be huge to insulate and heat my greenhouse for Michigan winters.

I have no experience with the auto flower either. Maybe something to look into! As for now the guy that gives me my clones runs a large commercial operation and I usually get my pick of the 10/12 strains they are growing. the guy happens to be my brother so I get the cuts for free ;) Its a pretty sweet deal! I even had to run a heater in the GH here in socal and it wasn't cheap! I can only imagine if you had to keep it warm in MI

MIGrampaUSA · Mar 13, 2021

SDBgrow said:
I have no experience with the auto flower either. Maybe something to look into! As for now the guy that gives me my clones runs a large commercial operation and I usually get my pick of the 10/12 strains they are growing. the guy happens to be my brother so I get the cuts for free ;) Its a pretty sweet deal! I even had to run a heater in the GH here in socal and it wasn't cheap! I can only imagine if you had to keep it warm in MI

I have a propane heater in there ... but that isn't a year-round solution. When it gets too cold outside, the greenhouse glass collects condensation which in the fall is not good for flowering cannabis ... I've got some early finishing strains for this year's run. The heater will allow me to get an earlier start (with vegetable plants) and prolong the growing season in the fall. I'll start my early flowering cannabis plants inside around the end of April so I can transplant outside after Memorial day ... They get huge as it is so there's not a need for a long veg cycle.

Dan789 · Mar 13, 2021

SDBgrow said:
That’s an awesome story thanks for the response! This is not my first cycle but will be my first full summer run. I started my first run in September of last year but it was still 100+ degrees here in San Diego. Translate that to the greenhouse and I saw a thermometer at 130 at one point!They all made it through pretty well but I don’t plan on letting it get that hot this summer. I was reading in another thread about using an evaporator cooler. I might look into that To help out I have 2 8 inch exhaust fans one in the ceiling in one down the canopy level. They worked pretty hard last year. Maybe I’ll upgrade this year. I never really thought about the noise of the tarps! That’s the kind of shit I need to hear right there.

An evap cooler will give you problems with humidity, and that uncontrolled gives you PM... that is something you don’t want.

SDBgrow · Mar 13, 2021

Noooo mold!... I was wondering about that. Guess I’ll just need to put in a gigantic exhaust fan and hope that helps keep the temps down

Glad to meet you!

Glad to meet you!

SDBgrow

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