MC`s Forest Adventure

[markscastle]

I was able to do the tying up plants but it took me longer than I thought. Good thing the garden didn`t need watered yet. Made meatloaf and it turned out good. We got a little sun but it didn`t last long, now it`s sprinkling. Also turned very cold all of a sudden! storms should be over tomorrow, bet we got 3 inches of rain.

 

[Ned Kelly]

hey mark on the light issue those artic greenhouses , how do they go . with legalisation possibly coming in next 2 yrs im looking at all greenhouse options and thats wear threads like yours are invaluable . thanks

 

[markscastle]

The greenhouses are made with the most direct light angles available . The sun hits the containers in the day, warming the water inside and it slowly gives off the warmth at night. the back side should face away from the sun and the depth of the soil stabilizes the temps, in the summer it`s cooler and in winter it warmer than it would be in an all above ground GH. only thing you need really is a solar powered fan system for circulation and venting. You can add CO2 or extra lighting as an extra and you can use an awning from one or more RV`s with black out fabric if you want. It`s simple and cheep to run and takes little to repair. It doesn`t stick up and catch th wind . if done in rows between solar panels it doesn`t show up very well fro the air. This kind of greenhouse works well at high altitudes as well as lowlands. it works well in extreme temps ether hot or cold. Make sure you make the greenhouse extra tall for those big ones! Oh you can do hydro, pots or planters, floors should be brick lined with drainage for cleaning up. just pack the lose brick in sand so water can drain without your feet getting muddy.

 

[markscastle]

Oh make the windows for double pane glass or polycarbonate to hold in heat and have them hinged on the back so you can open them to let out moist warm are. Natural convection can do the rest most of the time.

 

[Ned Kelly]

thanks Mark they look very inviting and quite stealthy . Hmmm back on the excavator lol.

 

[markscastle]

I couldn`t build anything like that where I`m at now, solid rock. But This is how I plan on doing the permanent greenhouses on my property.

 

[markscastle]

Thinking hard about wintering at my buddies house and using his grow rooms. I could do some faster work on my seed projects , make clones for my next outdoor grow next year and sell any extra ones. What would 4 foot elite clones go for now days I wonder? Enough to cover the rent payments and maybe some of the power for the grow rooms? I could probably do may 6-700 of them. Thinking I could take orders once they are near done and rent a box truck and bring them down south in early spring. By next summer I could list a few packs of limited seeds here at the farm . I`d also be out of the way to have work done on the property ,road improvements, pad , well, septic, fence, out buildings and maybe a cover for the motorhome. Then I could move back on the property in better shape. I wouldn`t be able to do a winter grow in the greenhouses but running out of time to do that anyway. I`d be set up so much better and without any grows going on on the property I could get everything permitted and legal. I`d need a use permit for the RV cover or could work on the office trailer to place it on a foundation and convert it to a modular home/cabin. Everything depends on getting my present crop in and doing well this year. I need heaters and at least fuel to run the generator for fans. Can`t close em up until I have that much and it`s getting colder every day! Got to get the temps up to 76 degrees and have the fans running 24/7 in order to close them up or I`m just asking for problems! The cold is also starting to slow bud growth !!!

 

[markscastle]

Dam just stopped by and my buddy is now thinking of just taking shorter trips and won`t be renting the house out. Could have used the grow rooms. It`s down to 39 degrees tonight and about that for the next few nights. No heaters yet, plants are not liking it much. Thinking maybe just going with some kerosene heaters and running the generator all night for the fans until I can get something else set up. I should work on dropping the sides right away but until I have fans set up I don`t think I`ll put up the ends. Won`t be long though. I really need both at the same time. Kerosene heaters will be cheaper to get but will be costly for the fuel. they also don`t have thermostats but they can be adjusted. They may help me get this crop finished but before I attempt a winter grow I`ll need something better. Wonder if I could just rent his grow room to veg until I have this crop all cut and drying? Have to talk to him about it later. He does owe me a couple hundred bucks so we need to work that off somehow anyway.

 

[markscastle]

I should have the money for heaters and fans buy Friday. Thing is I can`t decide which ones to get. I could buy kerosene heaters and run my generator until I get fans set up or I can order battery powered forced air heaters that are chargeable on 115 volt power. They would be able to run while charging and also take kerosene. There are also forced air fans that take kerosene and diesel but would require power to run. I`ve heard you can run forced air heaters on 50% Kerosene and 50% red diesel. Red diesel is much cheaper than kerosene. I can also get it bulk ant a cheaper rate and my Lister and light tower generators both run on diesel. I wish the Mr. Heater Hero that runs on batteries(12v) was available local and didn`t need to be ordered! I`m thinking it wouldn`t be all that hard to set up a charge system with solar for them, also wish they came in diesel instead of kerosene. I could order them priority shipping and have them in just a few more days. The Mr. Hero heaters are my best choice but do I have time to have them delivered? I could try to run them on straight diesel fuel and see if they operate good. I don`t think it would mess them up if it doesn`t work. The good thing about them is they would run off generator power while charging so when they are charged I could shut off the generator and they would be good for 7 more hours on battery. Later I could wire the batteries to charge off of solar during the day. I also wish I could hook them up to 55 gal drums of fuel through a fuel line. Then all I`d need to do is keep enough fuel for them and turn them on when it gets cold. if it stayed cold They could just stay on. They are on sale at Northern tool and that off sets the shipping costs. The hairs on the outside plants are turning pink from the cold so I just don`t know how much they can take of this cold air at night. Every thing has to be such a gamble! But I also don`t want to put money into something and end up buying something else down the road. I don`t make that much as it is after all the costs and my labor. I`ll still need to buy a plug and play power system and that will need to be ordered also,but I can run the generator until then , I need the heaters first and foremost.

 

[wobbly goblin]

hey mark
i have a hydronic heat system in my green house
it uses tubes in the beds below the pots and keeps the roots above 65*
air temp don't seem to matter so much if the roots are warm

here is a vid to give you the idea

also.....i use a propane home water heater as the boiler because they carry them at blowes
in a nutshell... 2" styrofoam-warm water tubes-plants/containers-styrofoam so the roots have a warm environment
fwiw

 

[markscastle]

Dam just saw the battery powered heater is Propane. That won`t do! I might just get the Kerosene/diesel forced air heaters at the local place. I can run the generator for now and order a plug and play solar/electric system with 115v charge. This should work and I can start using it as soon as I get it. I might just order extra solar panel and add a bigger battery bank to the plug and play system. Wish they just made everything I need, to much work adapting stuff all the time!

Yes I like the idea of heated beds but I didn`t plan this GH out , it was more of a work in progress. Not what I`d build now. But a good learning lesson. I have a wood fired hot water heater so the next build will be more like what you have for heating. I was also thinking they make heaters for 55 gal drums. Once hot they could warm a greenhouse during the night. That is the time it starts getting cold ,when the sun goes down.

 

[markscastle]

What I really want is a wood fired furnace and thermostats for the fans in the heating system along with wood water heated beds and or 55 gal steal drums heated with wood fire inside the greenhouses. I have tons of wood around! I was even thinking of heating water lines under my RV`s in winter. skirting and heated floors! Once I get set up on a pad anyway!

 

[markscastle]

Dam the people next to me got raided a few days ago and everyone but me knows about it. I didn`t hear anything. I got a call from one of the property owners to check on things and went to both properties and found nothing but a mess. Everything pot related was gone and everything else was left out to get ruined in the rain. He called back and they are in jail. He`s tiring to find out about bail for them. How could this happen right next to me and me not see anything or know about it for days? also I remember the choppers and when they came over they weren`t much interested in me but went low right over them. That happened a few days before the raid I guess I just thought they were checking to see if they complied with code enforcement as they had been tagged.

 

[wobbly goblin]

i used to have a outdoor wood fired boiler years ago....what a pain in the ass keeping on top of it to keep water hot and fuel in it...and it always smoked like a bitch because heating the water took out too much of the combustion heat. also the epa is all over them now days as the smoke hangs at ground level when it is low pressure/stormy out
you may not have a problem though with them where you live
any how... just some thoughts from someone that has used one
i bought a 1000 gal propane tank...new, it was about $2k with a wet leg so i could fill bottles off of it
1000 gal tank hold 850 gallons max and if you buy it in the off season (june-aug) it's cheaper
think it was $1.29 a gallon this time delivered
no more fucking around with firewood was a game changer for me

years ago in the mother earth news rag, there were plans for a hasha.
it was a cement block building,wood fired out door water boiler that had something like 20 tons of sand poured in around the firebox and water tubes in the sand so you could build a fast hot fire to burn somewhat clean and the sand would act as a heat sink

on another note...regarding 12 volt stuff...fuck all that noise
get yourself a good inverter (i like outback) and a battery bank and run it all off 120v
everything is cheaper..easier to find..easier to control..easier to fix...easier to get to work with each other as a system

many ways to skin a cat
just some thoughts
fwiw

 

[markscastle]

I`m thinking of using several systems , with backup for everything.

I just found a trimmer , a lady in the woods caught in a tree for two days and hurt a little. She`s been there for a few days , every since the bust. Got her out and took care of some of her needs and got here a ride home in Shasta Co. Also got a call from the land owner to check on the people next to me. He`s throwing there bail now so they should be out in the hour. What`s with all this drama ? Sounds more like being in the city than way out here in the sticks ! This is the kind of stuff I came out here to get away from! Dam redneck LEO messing with people everywhere anymore! And leaving everyone around in a mess . Dam, poor lady stuck in a tree for two days in the forest! She was my daughters age! This is pissing me off!

 

[markscastle]

Good news ! The Secretary of State cleared CCHI for the running , now we need to start collecting voters signatures to get it on the 2016 ballot! Here we go! Maybe the beginning of the end for cannabis to be illegal in California and an end to the insanity of it being a part of the drug war! So California goes the Nation!

 

[markscastle]

I was thinking of using the wood hot water heater to pre- heat the watering to 75 degrees before each watering, thinking is warmer water would stimulate growth , but the warmer bed temperatures would also serve to keep vegetation warmer at night, even a few degrees makes a world of difference in transpiration and growth. Cold is more likely to slow growth than kill the plant until more extreme conditions happen. But they will be happening so I need to be ready.

 

[grayarea]

needs to be 40+ to get smokable nugs. those greenhouses look hard to time a full season grow in. looks like if you planted in august from 3-5gals they would fill up about perfect.

 

[markscastle]

Needs to stay around 76 degrees and no more than 50% humidity. Then plants would stay healthy and grow good. At 40 degrees they stop growing and if it stays that way for any time they start to mature before they get big and hard. GH`s are a bit small for mature plants and could use to be bigger. I try to have them filled up around the first of June. This year I was late so I put lights on them to keep them in veg longer, makes my season run into cold weather. I`ll need those heaters to finish this crop off. If I had the Greenhouses all set up I could have done a smaller winter grow but it`s a little to late to get much of a crop in now and have it finish up before the days start to get long. At that point the plants would just start to go back into veg without light depriving them . That would involve just to much money and work with little to show for it at this point. Now if I had some nice teen sized plants and it was all ready to go soon as I pulled this crop that would have been different. I think when I get this crop done I`ll have enough to do with trimming. Not in a big hurry to get that done, I have all winter now to finish the trimming, cure and stuff. Don`t want to put anything into having trimming worked on , I`ll do it mostly myself over the winter. May have some family help me to pay me back on some small loans. Mostly plan on doing it myself. I used to do 300 lbs. of trimming a season when I was younger. Don`t even have the energy to grow that much anymore.

 

[cocoJoe]

I used to do 300 lbs. of trimming a season when I was younger. Don`t even have the energy to grow that much anymore.

I feel your years,, I have been 280-5 Lbs. and am past half way to 70 years old.. The golden years sure slow you down..

May god bless,,
cocoJoe