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ChinaVoodoo's 2015 grow blog

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ChinaVoodoo

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Very good news for me. My wifes house sitting on an acreage this summer, and they agreed to let me plant tobacco. Sounds like what I'll be doing is breaking sod to enlarge one of their existing gardens, so i believe I will have lots of room. It's 40 minutes away, but it's actually on the way back from a current welding shop I've been inspecting at, so if all goes well, I'll be able to stop in regularly on my way back to the city in the morning.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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jolly

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Nice. Looks very similar to the tracker I've made for myself. Have fun geeking out on yield, cost savings, optimal planting times, most productive sites....
 

ChinaVoodoo

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The anticipation of planting was killing me. I'm working 60 hrs a week, and it's a long weekend, so i decided to plant my seedlings. I realize they will be quite large by planting time, but with the freak snow storm and week of frost in mid September last year, I want to give my plants as much of a chance to mature early as possible. I will be building a greenhouse as soon as some warmer weather his, so when the plants get bigger, I can have them out there with a temperature controller just to be certain they do ok.
A part of the problem is, I'm going to India on vacation at late April, to miss May, and it'll be nice to just leave the alarm on the house and have the plants in the greenhouse for someone to check on.

I simplified the growing list a little. There's enough years in my future to grow many more types. My grow setup has 4-55 jiffy pellet trays, so 220 jiffy pellets.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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Things are off to a good start. Everything has sprouted and turned green except for one little one sucker. I already thinned out the cucumbers and tomatoes. I have two four foot t5 bulbs, and a temperature and humidity controller. The humidifier is pumping mist up into the mini greenhouse made with that shrink plastic (unshrunk) which is draped over the setup.

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Brown Thumb

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Neat setup. I see you got one of Aubers controllers running the show. How's it working out for you?
A little input on your whole setup would be cool. I have not seen one quite like it.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I paid retail for most of this stuff. My justification was that I've wanted a setup like this for a long time and my wife doesn't want a clunky two by four setup in the back room. So, it starts with the 48"t5HO light strips.
I sunblaster-4-feet-T5-combo-with-reflector.jpg

I have two, and they are connected to an adaptor that can hold 7 together. I may expand if necessary. Here is the adaptor.
IMG_20150223_181537.jpg
So, the lights hang from a stand which allows you to easily adjust the height, with a string, like with blinds. Here it is.
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There are four 55 cell jiffy pellet trays lined up on a couple cabinets. I've covered it all in a little plastic sheet tent. I've spread the jiffy trays apart a little between the middle two, where they hang of off the counter a bit. That allows for the steam from the humidifier to shoot up into the tent. The humidity controller sensor is stuffed in there, so the humidifier comes on and off at a rate that is enough to leave a slight mist on the inside of the plastic sheet. The setting is not all that accurate, because the mist from the humidifier almost passes directly by the sensor. There are big swings in humidity according to it, but my visual tells me it's actually pretty steady. I've done that to prevent the seedlings from shriveling up. It's 20%ish in the house.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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You will see a small square block in the middle of the strip closest to the wall. It's a Japanese whet stone. I'm using it as a counter weight because I didn't put the two strips evenly on the adaptor due to the proximity to the wall. I can tilt the whole lights to or awayfrom the wall by moving the block away from our towards the wall, respectively.
 

burge

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I am in Calgary it looks like a nice set up for me i am in a apartment so have no access to grow anything
 

Brown Thumb

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Thanks, You gave me some ideas.
Sweet Setup you got. I'm going on the cheap lets see what I can figure out in the next week.
Thanks,
BT
 

ChinaVoodoo

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Thanks, You gave me some ideas.
Sweet Setup you got. I'm going on the cheap lets see what I can figure out in the next week.
Thanks,
BT

There's a few options for t5 strip lights and high Bay lights at home depot That are much cheaper than what I got. For the same dollar, you could get twice the wawatts. With the strips though, you don't get reflectors, but you could probably glue some mylar reflective material on them. You get that stuff by the yard, real cheap at the ponics store.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I find it very interesting how you can tell early on the seedlings apart by how they sprout. The One Sucker only had a 35%germination rate. The Symbol 4 came up first, but had a few struggle to come up, so i had to transplant some nicer ones. The two cigar varieties, Pergeu Brazil and Criollo 98 are the biggest. Here's a pic. And also a close up of a couple deerstongue plants that were planted in New Years Day. Its a pretty slow grower.
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Mother of Pearl. Those are some fantastic looking seedlings. Yours are head and shoulders above mine, seeded Feb. 20.
 

Brown Thumb

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They look like great. Nice and low to the soil also. I am going to have to look into those bulbs.
 
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