I grow outside mostly on my deck in 30 gallon fabric bags. I made rolling platforms so I can move the plants around to keep them in the sun or a bit protected from the wind. When a big storm comes I can even roll them around onto the front deck as long as they haven’t got too tall.
I’ll add to this thread as I have time. Here are some of the parts I’ll start with:
seedling heaven (where I start seedlings)
how I grow my seedlings
my rolling platforms I use for the 30-gallon fabric bags
more about the DGR strain development
and more about plants I’m growing this year
Am definitely not presenting myself as an expert. Am sure some of the things I’ve learned will be useful/interesting to others and am of course interested in feeback.
As a relatively new outdoor grower myself (and when I say grower, I mean when I don’t poison my plants! HA!), I’m definitely pulling up a seat! This is all very exciting!!
rolling platforms I use for the 30-gallon fabric bags
I use these to move plants around on our deck – to get more sun, to be a bit more protected from the wind, and in the case of big storms I roll them around to the front deck which has a roof and is more protected.
Here’s what they look like:
Rolling platform on the left, 24" diameter plastic pan for water heaters in the middle, 30 gallon fabric bag filled with soil from last year on the right.
I bought 3/4" exterior grade plywood at home depot (the glue used in exterior plywood is waterproof) and had them cut it into 24" squares. I also bought the 24" diameter plastic pans that are used to go under water heaters.
At home I drilled a 1" hole in the center of each square and made a jig for my bandsaw to cut the squares into circles.
I used a 1/2" wide blade on the bandsaw to cut the circles. This probably should have been just 3/8" wide. The 1/2" blade was wider than optimal for cutting those curves. While it worked fine – forcing it to cut the curves caused one side of the teeth to get much more dull than the other so I couldn’t use that blade for cutting straight lines any more.
Before I attached the wheels I used a 1/4" round-over bit on my router to round over the exteriro edges and the interior edges of the center hole.
I gave each disc a coat of a white exterior deck paint and attached the castering wheels. Then I added two more coats on the top.
In general I grow a number of different strains that change from year to year in addition to developing a strain I call DGR (DroopyGelatoRed) that has beautiful deep red/burgundy stems. Here’s a picture of a DGR plant from last Fall.
The colas are smaller and somewhat more open than some of the commercial strains I’ve grown. I suspect this is one aspect that contributes to them having less botrytis than plants with larger denser colas. Of course this means it’s somewhat more work to trim.
The origin of DGR was a mystery bag seed we grew in 2020. It came in a bag from older long-time growers in CA. I grew it for fun and by June 24 it was already over 4’ tall. At this point I think I assumed (with no good reason) that it was a female and I called it Mrs Droopy because when dusk came it drooped much more than all the other plants. When the sun came back up it stretched up to the sun more than the other plants.
I moved Mr Droopy as far away as I could from all the girls. Mr Droopy was well over 7’ tall at this point.
I ended up crossing Mr Droopy with a Gelato clone I had made earlier in the summer which produced many seeds. This is the origin of the DG (DroopyG) strain.
I love the grow! I use 30 gallon for my full season too, I think it’s awesome u put urs on wheels, my roots grow through the bottoms and usually plant themselves in the ground below that they aren’t moveable so think that’s a great concept! I’ll be tagging along and seeing this awesome way to come in swinging with great grow space, great genetics and an awesome show!
In 2021 I grew 2 DG plants and also gave two DG seedlings to a friend. Both of the DG plants I grew were males however one of them had dark red stems going to the leaves and dark-red candy-striping on the main trunk.
Closeup on the red-stemmed DG plant June 19th 2021 when I knew it was a male (I had gotten better at paying attention to the earlier signs).
I made a harem as far away as I could for the red-stemmed DG male clone (it’s the tallest) and included the clones of the red-stemmed DG female (along with clones of a bunch of other commercial strains I was growing).
I’m using 2 Spider farmer SF-1000 100W led grow lights. I adjust them both down to 70W for growing seedlings.
There is opaque heavy reflective mylar on all the sides and the bottom.
I can roll down the Mylar on the front to make it dark. I have flexible magnetic tape attached to the mylar on the front which will seal to matching magnetic tape on the frames. I’d like to replace this with tape with a stronger magnetic attraction. Also need to find a better glue.
The whole apparatus is assembled and disassembled using socket-head cap screws screwed into threaded-inserts. I’m using standard NSF-type wire shelving to both hold the sides in position and to provide an easy way to attach the lighting and fan.
With the light reflecting off of all the inner surfaces the seedlings get light from all directions and they grow very sturdy and chonky without almost any stretching.
I started germination this year around April 16 and grew extra seedlings to share.
Germination started with a 24-hour soak in room-temperature water.
Solution:
1 gal distilled water
1/2 tsp Agsil
1/4 tsp Aloe powder
After the soak I moved each strain to small plates with a bottom and top layer of cheap paper towels kept moist/wet. I covered each plate with a second plate and kept this dark. I had had some seeds popping by day 2. When I could tell the seeds had popped I transferred them to rooting cubes.
I started transferring the rooting cubes to 6" coconut coir pot shells (these are much thinner than other coir pot shells I’ve seen. Am using a great soil sold in 25-gallon crates from a local grow store.
You can see here how chonky and sturdy the seedlings are growing!
I’ve been considering building something like this, probably won’t turn out that nice. Nice to know how much light you are using, 140W seems pretty reasonable. What’s the size? Is that a standard seedling tray?
Do you like those coco seedling pots? I tried cowpots this season but I thought about those, if they work well I’ll give them a try
Do the magnet strips (super clever BTW) seal decent to get the humidity up?
Those are standard-sized heavy-duty trays and I can fit six in Seedling Heaven with a little room to spare. Each tray can hold 6 of the 6" coir shell pots.
This year to make it even easier for the roots I used a very sharp zip knife to make vertical slices in the pots before moving them to their forever homes in the 30-gallon bags.
I really like the magnet strips! Here are three issues I’d like to improve:
Use more flexible magnetic strips.
Use strips with more magnetic attraction (this may be hard if I also want them more flexible).
Find a better glue to attach the strips to the mylar. The magnetic tape has come off the Mylar in some places.
When the magnetic strips are working well it’s a great seal!
This is all very exciting!!
