Hey all,
I’ve mostly just asked a lot of questions and signed up for seed runs since I started. I figured it was time to start a thread tracking some of my efforts in building out my grow room. This will be an ongoing process over the next few months and I’ll update as I make progress.
Last weekend I framed out around the utility room in my basement, leaving room for a new “closet” that is 3×11ft.
Next step will be to figure out how much electricity to run, then bring it to the room. I know there’s a breaker that was set up to run a hot tub that no longer has anything running on it, so I’m gonna first look into using that.
Then I need to wall it all off, hang doors, etc.
Since its been 14+ years since my last grow, ive been working on getting my organic soil mix down by growing veggies on the back deck. I mixed up 30 gals yesterday and put peppers in 1 10 gal pot. These 2 will get my tomatoes that are in 5 gal pots right now and loving the soil mix theyre in.
And I also have a 5 gal bucket worm bin going right now to try and start generating my own worm castings. So while I may not be growing now, I’m working on getting all set up so that when I’m ready, everything will be well in order. Looking to be a lot more organized than when I was a lot younger doing this!
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Swap out that bucket for the same size or bigger pots you have in the pic above and your worms will lova ya for it!
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They wont crawl out of the pots without a lid on it?
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Naw they don’t like light and won’t venture off away from their moist environment unless things are truly inhospitable for them.
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Check out “let’s see your worm bins” for some pointers you might pick up !
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Thanks Tinytuttle. Ive been over at the worm bin thread. I’ll mess around w them in the smart pot today and see how it goes. The appeal to the buckets was keeping it closed amd somewhat sealed off, ya know to keep the wife happy and the kid’s hands outta the worms!
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Nice beginnings of your new “closet”. Hope to follow along on your progress, basement set ups always interest me. My basement has too much crap in it to build anything out down there.
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Thanks! I’ll take more pics as I move along, was hard to take pictures of the framing without including my entire basement in the shot!
Been reading up on fans and filters a bit this morning, just looking to gain a little more knowledge each day.
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I well maintained worm bin won’t sink ! Lol … kids taking them fishing with your own bait! Lol
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Moved my worms into the 10 gal fabric pot right after you suggested it @Tinytuttle. They seem pretty happy. I did leave the whole thing in a corner of the garden and it did fine w a fat layer of straw insulating on top of the moist bedding. They seemed to do fine all last week when the temps ranged from 90-95°F.
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Mixed up my own soil on the 5th, potted 2 pepper plants into it that were hurting pretty bad bc I left them in small pots for too long.10 days later, and they seem to be turning around in a major way- yellow leaves are now reverting back to green and there’s a bunch of new growth. Good sign the soil mix is good!
So I mixed up another 30 gals of this mix and moved my tomatoes up from 5 gals to 10 gal fabric pots. The tomatoes are doing great, shouldve taken some pics to share, will do that when I get home in a few days. Below is my mix, what do y’all think? I started feeding w compost tea about once a week, but still need to grab some kelp meal.
I also would like to start using worm castings more, but I figured id just top dress when transplanting and when needed and also use for compost tea. Until I start generating enough, I would like to avoid spending a ton of money on castings, thats why I’m not gonna use in the soil mix itself. Anything glaring that I’m missing?
Soil mix- July 5, 2019
10 gal/1.5 bags pro mix organic
10 gal perlite
10 gal peat moss
1/2 tbls dolomite lime/gal
15 tbls/just shy of 1 cup
Same amount of hydrated lime
3 cups azomite
2 cups bone meal
4 cups biolive- down to earth organics
1 cup humic acids- down to earth organics
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In your base mix promix and peat moss are pretty much one in the same if not mixed yet I’d use a 1/3 volume of a compost source , leaf mould , sheep poo steer manure , rabbit poo or EWC . EWC make a mix pretty dense IMO so I suggest 5-10% range as a portion of that 30% portion
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I think those last two Down to products will do well for ya ! I haven’t used them alone but I hear good things from them , this year I started using their All Purpose fertilizer and it seems to have almost their entire line of dry amendments mixed in it! If on a budget that could be an option!
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Thanks Tinytuttle. Some previous batches I mixed had some compost in it, I used some bagged topsoil in another batch (which I don’t like buying at all). The last batch I used what I had on hand, and then just replicated that mix the last time bc it seemed to be doing good.
I have a horse farm down the road I need to go hit up for some compost in my next batch.
You organic growers- do you buy a mycorrhizal product, or do you just rely on what bacteria and fungi grow in compost teas?
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I used a bunch of DTE organics in my veggie raised beds and everything sure seems to love it! I’ve been putting a little of each of those products in the compost tea each time I brew it as well.
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Oh yeah, since the thread is new room build out- here’s a little update on my room. Started looking at my electrical box, and theres a 240v 50amp breaker that used to feed a hot tub on the back deck thats no longer there. Starting my research on how best to run this to my room and get everything set up.
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When using horse poo it’s usually good to find out what there eating if their naturally foraging you could pick up weed seeds that make it through the horses gut rabbit poo is Excellent iv started using some of that in the soil as well as worm bins
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Excellent taking your tea to the next level!
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I run a 3x11 room as well.
Great for mono cropping a single strain.
Best of luck!
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So ive been working on figuring out the electrical set up for the new room. No real progress made yet, but the next step is to run the electric before I put the walls up. Ive mentioned before there’s an old unused 240v 50 amp circuit from a hot tub that is no longer there. There’s a small breaker box outside w 2 breakers in it, one a 30 amp the other a 20. I’m thinking about disconnecting and mounting it in my room and running everything off that one.
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