Hey guys, I've been neglecting to post this for a while, just never got around to it. My greenhouse is 6'x8' and about 9 ft tall. I built it out of PVC, and then attached solexx to that, and so far it's great. Before this, I had never grown from seed, - instead I was always given clones that were already a couple weeks in the process (I have a card and go to the NORML meetings). I started some seeds with a 2 tube CFL (the kind you would hang in your garage), even though i had them quite close, it was still too far and the plants stretched towards the light. Then, I stupidly forgot to transplant them (maybe i was smoking too much ) and the roots expanded out of the jiffy cubes, exposing them to the light and further stunting them. Needless to say I think I learned my lesson, because after 4 weeks in the greenhouse, my seedlings are still quite wimpy. In that time, I have managed to acquire a few clones and those are doing well. However, I have been fighting one pest since the beginning - I think its because when i first brought in the plants the greenhouse was not fully sealed (the door had a gap or two). The population of fungus gnats exploded due to a couple weak pepper plants, however, after purchasing a product called Go Gnats, I have managed to get them under control (for the most part). That may also be a contributor to a few weak plants but the infestation did not fully spread. I've been keeping my temperature in the upper 70-s, to low 80s. Sometimes it fluctuates if it rains or whatever and i forget to turn up the heater but, for the most part it stays consistent. Humidity is always in the upper 50's to low 60's, so that is good. But some these plants are still lookin wimpy. I gave them 5-5-5 organic fert. when i first transplanted them about 4 weeks ago. In the meantime, my other plants have exploded with this fertilizer, so I will still get a somewhat decent yield.
more space in there, then from what it looks like in the outside. good DIY greenhouse, no need to buy that pre-made shit.
Update It's been getting pretty hot here in Oregon (every other day) and I have been struggling to keep my greenhouse out of the 100+ zone. If anyone can give some tips on how to keep the temperature down that would be much appreciated. I've been keeping my exhaust fan on all throughout the afternoon pumping out the hot air, but is there anything else I can do? The humidity is another issue in the hot weather. I create humidity in my greenhouse by spraying water on the gravel , and then letting it dry up. However, now when i go in the greenhouse its in the lower 20-30's because it dries up so fast. I guess I have to check up on it a lot more often the hotter it is. I'm still fighting gnats, however, I've managed to keep their numbers at an all time low, now I just have to hope they keep going after my hardy plants and not the seedlings (so far so good). My seedling have gotten a lot better. I have been giving them r/o mixed with some miraclegro quickstart. I also started a few outdoor plants about a week ago.
That's pretty sweet yaya. I admire your architecural skills. Curious why you went with such a heavy filtered diffuse panel. The obvious answer, "security"? Otherwise I really like the frame work, inside build, etc. Nice job mate and I hope you have a bountiful harvest!
I'm not quite sure what you mean by filtered, Possuum. Maybe your talking about the UV inhibitor it is coated with? All this does is just extend the life of the plastic. I got solexx because its basically the best greenhouse material around at the moment with the highest insulation rate (r factor) and the lowest loss of heat (U value). I didn't get it so much for the security - I mean yes, you can't see into the greenhouse that's a good thing but it was mostly just for the quality of the material - its really good stuff and will last you a long time! Solexx is made here in Oregon so when we got it we went right down to the place they make it at and the guys there told us that they have had a greenhouse with solexx on it for about 20 years - all you have to do is wipe it down every couple years and clean it! Also, the light diffusion on this material is quite high (higher than all the rest that is) at about 70-77%. As far as security goes, I'm planning on stepping it up, maybe getting a trip wire and an alarm that goes off in my room? Security is my only concern with this greenhouse, even though I'm a medical patient I do believe a few people are aware of this.
I got ya. IDK anything about greenhouse fabric/material. It just looks really opaque but as you indicated that doesn't really mean much I reckon. With a 77%+ light penetration that sounds pretty good. Anyway, I like it and I hope you have really good results with it. Good vibes! Cheers!
UPDATE For the most part my plants are doing well, but some, not so much. The weather has cooled down alot so now the greenhouse is almost always in the 75-80 zone with a minimum of 40% humidity. I was doing a little bit of research on the UV treatment solexx has and I discovered that by blocking UV i am both increasing growth/yield but also risking it by allowing mold/ other deficiencies due to vitamins not being produced. Maybe this is a factor in my problems… My bagseed Sativa plant is growing a bit stretched. I didn't realise that MG organic had time release ferts in it but, its too late for that now... The most problems i'm having at the moment is with my hashbomb plants, (indica). At the moment their leaves are very skinny, and drooped, but not becausits lacking water or anything. Some are better than others but for the most part, the leaves remain "hooked" and twisted. On some plants the leaves are rusted. My three largest clones (at about 2 months+ now) are discolored and having some rusting on the sides. The only fertilizer i've given to any of these plants are sprinkles of a 5-5-5 organic fertilizer about 4 weeks ago. My largest plant is also suffering from something. The tips are yellow to black then back to dark green. Some have light green spots, as seen in the pic, and then there are some leaves that are rusting. For the most part I was just going to keep giving them R/O water. About 2-3 weeks ago i started giving them a little bit of MG starter, to try to get those roots going and that seemed to be successful. But I have still been dealing with the gnats, they are definitely in for the stay, im just going to buy more traps and keep spraying those that are still infested (which atm is the stretched sativa, the four clones and the biggest plant) - ive noticed a couple gnats in others that have led to periodic sprays - this usually kills them on the spot though. If anyone has anyone has any info on some of my problems that would be much appreciated, until then, i will continue to read and try to work it out myself. Thanks
that topped plant looks sick!!! all of the clones look indica, im not sure about the hashbomb since the pictures werent labeled but for the most part first post's plants look sativa imo
im pretty new to growing marijuana but is it possibly because your containers are quite small? could you not have planted in the ground in the greenhouse? this is my first year growing weed and after i transplanted them into the ground with a bag of organic horse manure they went mad growing. they are in a greenhouse and easily 6ft with multiple branches. to further back this up your own plants which are outside in the ground are doing much better.
For the gnats get rid of the MG. I used it and once I changed no more gnats. Another grower told me this without me even saying I used MG when I told him I had a gnat problem. Sounds kinda silly but worked for me.
UPDATE The plants doing well, still fighting gnats. After looking all around town for these yellow sticky traps, im s.o.l., so I ordered some off the internet, should be here in a couple days. My sativa plant is the one with the MG soil and, its having the same gnat problem as the rest so, i'm not positive its completely because of MG soil. All i'm really dealing with right now is deficiencies. My largest plant has black to yellow tips, with some specs on the leaves, also you can see some vein-age, so i'm going with an mg deficiency. I can't believe I haven't clarified this until now, but, the plants to the right, (roland) are a bagseed that I named. The HB are hashbomb. Then, the clones are oregon sugar and a diesel variant, a strain called pappaya (the one with the green stake), then i have one strain called permafrost x skunk which i also got from bagseed, but this time from a dispensary . I'm getting pretty low on money, (SOIL IS EXPENSIVE) and just realized a major fault of mine because of it. Because i have to wait to get payed, (which has happened numerous times already) I often have to put the transplants on hold, which means of course, some root bound issues. Lesson for my next grow - start the seeds in 5 gallon buckets, so I don't have to deal with this. My pappaya isn't lookin to shabby, i'm hoping that a transplant will help this girl. When I did transplant the ph was at 6.5. I mixed some garden lime in the soil, so I hope that helps with the purple stem and the yellowing problems - time will tell! I also gave a tiny little sprinkle to all the seedlings. My permafrost has only one strange leaf that is dotted with white/brownish circles and now it seems to be browning on the edges. Is this just a diseased leaf? Should i pluck it or is it an early sign of a deficiency? I have put three plants (HB, roland and my permafrostskunk) under a 1000 watt HPS, sunmaster veg - so I hope they get nice and fat just like the biggest one in my greenhouse did. I was thinking about doing two cycles at once in the greenhouse but after alot of thought and attempted planning (moving lights into the gh) i discovered its going to be such a pain in the ass and it really isn't worth that much trouble if i can just do it in the garage. I'm planning on vegging these for a month or two inside there and then bring them back out to the greenhouse during mid-late september - (i will probably set up the 250watt flowering light inside just to experiment in an attempt to get the buds fatter). My outdoor crop is doing fantastic. They are all bushing out and i expect a nice harvest this year (if it doesn't rain too much). As far as the soil thing goes, yes you can do a greenhouse that is just all on the ground but, I don't plan to JUST grow weed in my greenhouse, I have a big list of other thinks i want to try out - this will probably be next season though. I think why my plants are so stunted, needless to say, are my countless screw ups. Being cheap by using the wrong light to start my seedlings (one of those shoplight CFL's instead of a real grow light t5) - resulting in stretching, even when the cfl was very close to the plants. Then failure to transplant at the right time, some roots were exposed to light. I caught the gnat problem at the right time before it totally infested everything 10 fold but that is also a contributor. And right now like i said, there are still some things that need to be transplanted (root bound) but im low on cash. If you catch them at the right time, when you transplant, a couple days after they will completely flourish and grow like crazy, but I don't think it's completely isolated to that of growing it on the ground, i just did it this way to give myself more room to grow a lot of different plants and also, to provide a more high-tech greenhouse (the original plan was cement floor). At the moment we just have gravel which, still works relatively well especially when i need to increase the humidity. So now I don't think a cement floor is really necessary.
Here is my gnat tip, open a bottle of wine. Iv used red but I doubt it matters. Place the wine in a glass, set it in the green house. I find when I leave fruits around my home, I can never eat them fast enough. I get like a small cloud of gnats that appear and fly around like annoying tie fighters. They seem to like the wine and fall in and die! So if all else fails give this a try. I can lose my gnats in three days with one glass. The only issue I can see with this is.. I live in Alaska and I'm only guessing that they are gnats.. Hope it helps Nice looking plants man, and the green house looks excellent
i have a 10x12 greenhouse that i built out of polycarbonate and PVC in a weekend for about 600 bux though the outside temp rarely gets above 100 around here, greenhouses often do mine however never has gotten this hot i have two vents at the far end of the greenhouse and an open door at the other i also have four seperate 5gal buckets filled with water in the greenhouse that i use for watering the plants when i'm out there water being as dense as it is helps to regulate temperature quite well and the more you have, the more stable your temps will be, both ends of the spectrum, hot and cold things to look up for future builds that will make this less of a problem: walipini greenhouse aquaponics passive solar greenhouses and their design and just to look up for the hell of it: sqft gardening things that may help fix this problem now: -keeping buckets in the greenhouse with the water that you use for your plants, these will HELP regulate temps, the more the better, and effecient maybe get a black 55gal drum and fill it, keeping the lid on when not watering to keep misquitoes and algae away -buy some shadecloth and cover the greenhouse with it in the summer months -combine the two and that should do it, if you have vents in there anyway hope this helps
UPDATE I have transplanted my largest plant into a 7 gallon bucket. I drilled holes in the bottom, put down some coffee filters followed by a couple rocks. This plant seems to be suffering from a mg deficiency. I put a bunch of garden lime in the soil when i transplanted it, both on the top layer and bottom. I bent a lower branch pretty bad but, it should be fine. The pappaya clone i tranplanted seems to have a bunch of small white dots on the leafs, I hope it doesn't get worse. The other three clones seem to be doing okay but, not great. I'm getting some pale leaves, and yellowing following by some browning on the edges. I found two hashbomb males, one two days ago, and one just today with pollen sacks already on them. I wouldn't mind seeds but i don't want there to be alot of them. I have one hb seed that is already flowering alot, which is strange cause none of my other plants have reached this stage. I wasn't expecting this for another week or two. I think I got the gnat situation under control a bit more now that I got the sticky traps and the gnat spray I have. I've tried vinegar mixed with honey, but that doesn't do a thing. These are fungus gnats not white flies (which act like gnats). My outdoor crop is doing great, bushing out alot, they had a slight mg deficiency so i gave them some garden lime. I accidentally bent a few of the tops of my largest outdoor while trying to bend a few, I guess that's what happens when your a stoner. I fixed it no problem with some more string though. I am going on vacation and I won't be back for about a week and a half. I'm leaving my crop in the hands of some well trusted individuals, I just hope that they don't mess things up too bad. Speaking of messing things up bad, I just got jorge cervantes book and I plan on reading it on my trip. Thanks alot for the support and suggestions guys, keep it coming
UPDATE Just got back from my trip yesterday. The plants outside are doing great, the greenhouse and inside - not so much. Two males were discovered while i was gone, one in the greenhouse and another indoors. When I got home I found 4 more males inside the greenhouse lol. Hope it doesn't pollinate - the balls weren't opened up at all so it should be okay. A wall in my inside room fell down onto a plant, broke a branch on the skunk. That's okay though, the stake saved it and it seems to have four tops now. My good friend has sunspots in his eyes, so he couldn't really pick up on the gnat problem and only sprayed once. The result - a larger infestation within the greenhouse and inside. In addition to the gnats, I discovered spider mites on the papaya. Sprayed neem oil on it - in another day or two i'm going to get some sponges and manually remove all the webs and spiders. Basically, the papaya ain't lookin to great. It's got more white spots, and paling leaves. I don't know if it is thrips or a fungus. Alot of the younger plants are getting pale/yellowing leaves - this is because of the fungus gnats. I got some nematodes, so I should be able to get this under control before the real flowering and resin production begins.