I am a relatively new grower and just finished my 2nd harvest in my life. I am growing in an unfinished basement of an old house. Before my first run at this location about 5 months ago; I vacuumed, mopped with water/ laundry detergent, then water and bleach. I then ran an ozone generator for about 4 hours.
I am getting ready to reset and start again, and wondering if I should be scrubbing the walls with soap/water, then water/bleach? I am hesitant because I don’t want to damage the walls or create mold by introducing excess amounts of water.
Should I scrub the walls or am I being OCD? Still trying to figure out how to post pictures here, will share them asap.
I’m gearing up for a full reset myself. In a bedroom though not basement. I’d paint the walls with some mold/mildew killing paint and get an air purifier going, I’m not looking forward to tearing up the carpet and pulling out all the staples 🫤
Thanks Eugene! I never even thought to paint with mold/mildew killing paint or introduce an air purifier that sounds like a good plan.
I want to move my garden to a spare bedroom, but then I gotta disassemble bedroom sets and refigure out ventalation. I will make the move eventually when I have enough $ to add another tent and start running photos. Until then autoflowers in the basement!
I use the shop vac and clean the tent, the room, etc. I use some of my wife’s special organic spray cleaners and wipe down my seed starting table with alcohol and above all allow not a bug ever in my room, especially now with the outdoor plants soon to be harvested, they will stay in an old wading pool in the rafters of an outbuilding to dry and cure for a while, if I bring them in to the basement now they will bring aphids and lord knows what else, be careful even going in your grow room now after you are in the outdoors, the bugs are wanting to get inside
Thank you for response Keene! I did shop vac everything, and wiped down the tent with water/bleach. I am thinking if I want to continue in the basement I need to wait until it gets cold, because there are like holes in certain parts of the wood that leads outside. I can see bits of daylight on the exterior wall/ ceiling. So I don’t think I can keep bugs out entirely, but it worked when I grew last winter. Clean weed no bugs.
No need to wait until winter. With a solid IPM program, you will keep the bugs away. Everyone should have an IPM program regardless of time of year, indoor or out.
Do yourself a favor and start researching and laying out a plan, and get to work. Best of luck.
I have a lot of humidity at home and consecuently some dark mould in the walls. After searching I realized it easily goes away with a mixture of warm water, cleaning vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice. Acidity protects wall from creating new mold. You’ve got to be careful while adding the baking soda as it reacts with the lemon and vinegar, if you don’t have that killing mold peinture suggested it’s a good alternative …
I do a clean with a mild detergent like dish soap
Tent walls and floor
Lights get a good dusting
Fans get cleaned
Wiring gets check
Surge protectors check for yellow marks where plugs go ( it’s a sign there no good
Check timers
A can of air is a good thing to have to get dirt out of fan blades
Thanks Foreigner! No problems yet and I am just about done vacuuming/ wiping so I think I’m good to move forward. Will mix soil/worm castings and plant seeds in the coming days . * and get familiar with IPM so I am prepared for the worst.
Thanks @Papalag! I never thought to check the wires/ surge protectors,timers or can of air and need to be hyper vigiliant on checking these things for sure. I like the 1 year clean, 2 year paint schedule. Adding to my notes
One day in my tent checking on my plants I happen to watch one of my circulation fans stop before my eyes and start to smoke from that day on I check everything. I look at all my gear every day but I do a good clean in between grows just the other day one of my exhaust fans died in my drying tent thank God I have replacements I would’ve lost all my hard work
I’m getting ready to upgrade my setup. But I’m also in a unfinished basement of an old house. I used white and black plastic to make a room then I setup my tent inside of that. . Ventilation exhaust straight to outside and passive air intake. It easy to control temps and humidity keeping the dehum in what I consider the lung room.
Holy shit… Sometimes I leave my tent/lights running 24 hours a day and go out of town for 3-4 days at a time. With circulation fans running… I need to get a girlfriend living here asap to keep an eye on things while I am gone lol
Yea anything with moving parts unfortunately you can’t cheap out on. Buy high quality and replace every so often. The things that have failed in me the most are airpumps and fans. For the pumps I actually used to build a little open box out of bricks so if it ever seized and overheated there would be no way it could singe (or burn) anything. Used to do that with my ballasts too when I ran HPS.
Best of luck.
lol
. * and get familiar with IPM so I am prepared for the worst.