The Misadventures of Bombodil's RDWC SOG Unknown Bagseed Brickweed

[Tom Bombodil]

My very first post on 420mag! I hope readers will be patient, for the time being all posts are from my smartphone. This will be my second grow, the first having been 8 years ago. The results of that first were successful beyond hope, despite having to harvestharvest early due to circumstances. I'm still setting up the crux of the grow, but my mothers have been begat.

Germinated: 12 mothers from two varieties of seed. All brick weed, cheap stuff. I had a hell of a time getting ANYTHING to germ. I seriously tried over 100 beans from several old bags saved over the years. Tempted to give up, but figured maybe I was paying my cosmic dues for getting back to the craft. The last time I grew it was like Midas' touch, but shortly after a personal tragedy resulted in years before any attempt at gardening of any sort. The growing had nothing to do with it, but in some ways became a metaphor for that lost time, the unattainable past. Back in the present, imagine my excitement at finding sprouts on 11/16 after 4 days of germ! Woohoo!

Lighting: so far just 2 x 55w CFLs in a re-purposed DIY shop light. That project was fun
, learned about the diff between self-ballasted CFLs versus unballasted, but thats a good topic for a separate thread. I have a 400w HPS and 2 x 1000w switchable HPS/MH magnetic ballasts along with 2 x SuperSun I reflectors. Still building the flower chamber, but those are tbe tools at my disposal here at the beginning of bombodil's bumbling fumble in the jungle.

The 12 sprouts will all be mommies. Plan to take 2 clones from each, flower & sex, cull any manyales along with any associated daddies, and evaluate the plan forward based upon the number and characteristics of the remaining moms.

Proposed RDWC: 2 or 3 18gal totes, 3 in net pots + hydroton, totes with 1" thru-hull connections and a automatic float valve with each tote having its on 1/2" overfill protection going straight to drain. For the recirculation, I havent decided whether to run a pump from the master rez to 1/4" feeder lines, perhaps using on or more of those 6-port manifolds, or whether to fabricate a piped system with pressurized sprinkler heads in each tote. Will keep posted, comments welcome. Thats all for now, extensive typing on a smartphone sucks.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Reading through I must seem to be a real moron. Typos everywhere and even a misspelling in the title! I promise I'm trying to keep it legible, i can hardly correct typos on this damn phone because p placement of the cursor is freakin impossible! Mr or Mrs Admin, can you fix the title? Our can I? Turning out to be a pain in the ass on my very first post, great sign huh?

 

[Tom Bombodil]

I see that a moderator was kind enough to fix the title. This bowls for u mods!

Working on the flower chamber. It is a 34"x60" corner of a spare bedroom. It is on the other side of a shower wall from the guest bath (i.e., "my bathroom" in spousal linguistics). I hope to capitalize on this fortuitous proximity by running water to the space. Ive found that a refridgerator icemaker kit fits the bill, containing a saddle valve and some 10ft length of pressurized 1/4" tubing... Perfect for hooking to an automatic float valve. Furthermore, for those of you not familiar with a saddle valve for copper water line, the valve contains an automatic piercing unit that drives and seats a connection to the existing water line. After the hole is pierced and sealed, backing off the valve opens the flow while the new connection remains. For those of you unfamiliar with plumbing options, this is a great size water connection that is supereasy to set up.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

GrosAnd now that the easy part is described, the more pressing dilemma: the DRAIN!

Its always been ironic to me that devising a method to get water TO the garden is much easier than devising a secure and reliable method of draining water AWAY from the garden. I had initially planned a real, up-to-code drain hooking into the DrainWasteVent (that's DWV not DWC, lest you ever get excitex that your plumber is into hydro gardening too). But i was hesitant to set ump a drain vented and draining on the same drain/vent as the nearby bathtub without having done it before. Then, crawling under my house during a reconnaissance mission, i found a big ass tree root that has grown through the foundation right where the main water line enters. While it makes no difference to the drain, i took this as an omen to think more seriously about another option: running the waste nutes and rinse water to a rain barrel, which then can gravity feed to the legit outdoor garden a few feet bellw and away. This plan involves a 1.5" PVC drain with trap, same as a real drain, only rather than zig left towards the DWV pipes it will zag right towards an auto-opening fpundation vent. The rain barrel would sit directly in front of the vent, hiding the pipe, and as luck would have it that's exactly where a rain barrel needs to sit becauss the corned downspout terminates at nearly the same spot. The barrel won't be directly under the downspout, but rather a few inches to the side-perfsct for one of those downspout diverter kits you see rain barrels hooked up to, sitting beside rather than under the spout. I am more attracted to this idea because 1) no modification of existing, permitted DWV system; 2) conservation of expensive hydroponic nutes by using to grow legit herbs and veggies; 3) avoidinv unecessary discharge into the septic tank and field lines; and finally 4) avoidinv introducing additional NUTRIENTS to my house's pipe system, as finding the tree root made me think.

 

[ajagunle]

Had to sub when I saw your name!

ATB, sounds promising

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Thanks for the well-wishes ajagunle! Having lurked for years i thought it was time to come out of the grow closet, so to speak. The only thing that's holding me up is no "real" internet connection... 4G is fine, but I'm quickly coming to hate the smartphone thing... Finding it hard to express myself without a keyboard and control of the cursor. I'm also hesitant to post photos, even if i turn off the geotag feature im fearful of snapping photos from my device for all the world to see. Ill try to figure out a way.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

All 12 seedlings have their 3rd set of true leaves, and a few are working on set #4 with one plant, Veteran who is the oldest (planted on Veteran's Day) has #5 appearing already.

Until 5 days ago i was just pouring enough water around the seedling each day to keep the soil moist. Then 5 days aago i gave them a good soaking (straight up tap water, works fine for me) and have left them alone since. Now the soil is mostly dry down to 4 inches or so, I will probably let them go another day or two before giving more water. One exception... The 3rd largest/oldest who I call Old Glory was showing some down-curling on the 1st/lowest set od true leaves. I gave 1/4 nutes to her, just as an experiment. I am not at all knowledgeable about diagnosing deficiencies. Reading people's blogs, posts and journals it strikes me that some folks are REAL quick to diagnose 'deficiencies' where I just see normal plant growth and natural inter-plant variations. I will not go so far as to question their judgement, obviously I am just a neophite sitting at the feet of the master(s). But honestly, when you see some guy on his firat grow call every tiny curl, every little color variation a 'nitrogen deficiency' and want to start addingadding 'product', I cant help but think to myself 'Dude, she's 6 days old, let her grow up to be the woman SHE wants/needs to be! '

So, today I moved all 12 under the 400w HPS. Since these are intended to be moms, a 1000w metal halide seems serious overkill... Besides, i dont have my air cooling scheme operational yet, and that 1kMH is a serious heater! For mothering purposes, what Id like to do is get a 400w Ceramic Metal Halide to go into the magnetic 400w ballast. But that will have to wait for now. So i plan to 'veg' the moms for maybe a week or so and start thinkimg about making a trip to Cloneville USA sometime after that.

I think this is a good week to start adding mild nutes, what do you guys think? Like mentioned they are all at least on leaf set #3, and i expect within a week under the 400wHPS they will be double that soon. But, they have NOT started alternating nodes yet, so Im interested to hear your thoughts and the matter.

 

[northener]

Yo I'm in fo sho!

 

[northener]

Your grow is sounding like its off to a good start. You might find the bag seeds are more trouble than their worth in most cases. As for up loading pics I use my phone all the time, never thought it was dangerous to security. For the nute situation, test your drain off for ppm and pH that will give you a good indication of where to go next.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Thanks for the advice northerner, I suspect that the phone thing is as safe as any, maybe I'm just looking for assurances, definitely makes me more confident to hear from others in the same situation. Wonder if everyone feels this paranoid their first time posting, or if im special in that regard?

Bagseed: sound like you speak from experience. Honestly, I'm paranoid to order seeds. I've almost got it worked our to send to a trusted address, and now is the perfect time of year to order packages, so maybe with a little ribbing and calojing old tom will grow a pair and order those puppies. The mystery of not knowing what you're going to get with bagseed is also fun, but it sounds like you've been down that road before.

I don't have a PPM meter, or a ph meter I'm ashamed to admit. Though this is my second grow, this is my first time in soil. I'm a hydro-devotee all the way, but for mothers soil seems natural and easier to maintain between clones. If and when i do get a PPM, i will check it out and report the values here for your evalutation.

Peace!

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Yesterday evening I moved all twelve under the 400w HPS. Also gave them their first sip of nutes, about 1/6 strength (3/4 tsp in 1 gallon tap water). All have well formed 3rd leaf sets, most havs 4 and the oldest Veteran has 5.

I neglected to mention in previous posts my soil mix: 1/3 perlite + 1/3 vermiculite + 1/3 Happy Frog potting soil.

The 400w HPS is one of those single units with the ballast attachex to the reflector. Bought it for $180 back in college, my only major outlay for that long lost grow. Its fine for whag i use it for, ive had the aircool flanges all these years but never had a chance to use the
Progress of the flower chamber: i cut a ~3ft x 5ft section of carpet and padding out to expose the subfloor. This will have some sort of pvc or other water proof heavy duty material installed, through which the drain will be mounted. I have no plans of ever dumping water on the floor, all drainage will occur through tubes affixed to the drain, but i would like such a drain in place should i return home one day to find an unanticipated deluge of biblical proportions.

 

[northener]

The best offense is a good defense! The drain is a often over looked and often regretted part of a large hydro system. And yes I have destroyed more than 1 floor.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Sounds like a great story behind that north!

 

[northener]

Love the Sig. man. Right out of the book.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Glad to be amongst kindred spirits who tolkien too! Anxiously awaiting the new movie, the purist in me will find something to criticize but at the end of the day I'm like a kid in a candy shop everytime a new one hits the big screen. And if get weird looks from the teenager at the counter because I'm the only grown ass man dressed up like Frodo then, so be it! J/k I don't dress up, but I do get pretty freakin stoked, as my "Goldberry" would confirm.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Recently I was able to locate the glass and air cooling flanges for the 2 reflectors I was given. I think earlier I said they were Super Sun, that is incorrect they are Sunlight Supply SUN SYSTEM I reflectors. Discontinued these days but luckily still able to get parts and whatnot. I really like these reflectors the only improvement I can see with the newer reflectors is that these days they mostly have 6" or larger air cooling flanges while the ones in the SuperSunI have just 4" flanges. There are also little aluminum tabs over each port on the interior side of the reflector, I have read advice suggesting to cut them off to improve airflow. But I am hesitant to make such permanent and irreversible mods to them until I've at least hooked up a fan and tried them out.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

All the girls have 4 sets of leaves, many have 5 and the eldest sister Veteran has 6. When do the nodes normally begin alternating?

I haven't mentioned the names of all the girls. I haven't properly christened them all, but many of them do have names. In my notebook they are identified by a dewey decimal-like system like Q4 with Q denoting the seed batch and 4 to signify being the 4th sprout. I will likely add a lower case alpha to keep track of the clones, so Q.4.b would be the second clone from Q4. Numbers seem really impersonal though for one's own flock, so many of them have received names. Still use the number for notation though, names could get prohibitively long if you began breeding, like Old Norse names or biblical lineages: "And Simeon the Dank begat Daphne the Kind and a younger sister Julie the Giant, who begat three sons who god demanded to be sacrified."

But, in case anyone's interested, here are the named girls. You may detect a Thanksgiving or Veteran's Day themes because that was the week all the begatting happened... For you Canadians, those are the holidays we Americans make ourselves feel better for wiping out an entire race of people to steal their land and for sending our bravest citizens overseas to die and be maimed for geopolitical purposes, but I digress:
Veteran
Armistice
Old Glory (love this one, it was Goldberry's idea)
Remembrance
Pilgrim
Squanto
Runtling

 

[northener]

We were involved in all that jazz up north here man but we gathered the natives up and pay them to get high and drunk all day and live off my tax. I also had relatives that fought and died in ww2. I know you didn't mean any disrespect or anything just making a point.

 

[Tom Bombodil]

Certainly no disrespect meant northerner! The wwii generation truly was the greatest I believe. And I love the irony that now the natives rob US blind at their casinos lol!

 

[Tom Bombodil]

It has been 5 days since I watered, pots were pretty dry down to as far as i could feel, so this morning i gave them all a good soak with 1/2 strength nutes. Ive been using Ionic grow so far, this gall of nutes is about 4 years old, i can hear a little bit of precipitate in the bottom when i shake it, but damned if im gonna toss out a $30 gall of nutes... And the girls seem to like it.

In northerners grow journal he is using corrugated plastic for tray lids, after he told me this i checked out the HD site and lo and behold they DO carry those, in sizes ranging from 1.5x2ft all the way to 4x8ft. Im thinking of using that material as a water-resistant base for the floor. Its only 4mm thick ideally i would use something thicker, but this is the best material ive seen so far.

Let me run an idea by you guys: since my flower chamber is only 3x5, there is no way to avoid fans, ducts, etc from hanging outside the chamber... If i tried to hide them inside the chamber it would take up all the space. So ive been thinking, i may design the flower chamber that is inside this spare bedroom as a "display" where i could use a transparent plexiglass front for legal indoor hydroponic crops, show it off like a reptile or an aquarium (assuming the legit planta didnt require pristine dark period). Then, for 3 months out of the year when im flowering ganj, i us a non-transparent front for privacy and to maintain the photo period. The 9 months of the year im NOT flowering i have a home hydroponic veggie producing system that LOOKS good, with trim and everything just like those in-wall aquariums some people have. There is another place in my house where i have dreamed of installing a legit hydro system, in the cathedral ceiling of the living room there is a beam going from one side to the other about 8ft overhead. I want to install some LED lighting on the ceiling about 4ft over the beam, and install narrow long ebb and flow trays inside the beam (i keep calling it a beam, its a 'structure' made of several 2"x6"$ and covered in drywall, about 20" deep by 18" high in cross section). I can put the reservoir and pump/timer in the bottom of the linen closet in the adjoining wall, and boom! Beautifully grown hydroponic plants cascading down over the living space, with no need to drag out the tall stepladder just to keep the planta watered. What do you guys think, do any of you use hydroponics for legit plants in your regular non-hidden living space?