mojavemama
Vapor Vixen
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2009
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ROFL,4U2Smoke! I DID leave detailed written instructions for my hubby. Unfortunately, he just didn't understand the concept of keeping water in the bottom of the carts for humidity, and instead, filled the carts a few inches deep every day, so the pots were sitting in the water, not on the river rocks.
Poor man felt terrible when he realized he'd goofed, but I felt even worse knowing how hard he tried to do his very best by the plants, using the moisture meter on each one every day, and hauling them inside and out morning and evening. I just wanted to minimize his feeling bad about making such a simple mistake, when, for the most part, he did everything else right. No way was I going to jump down his throat for a simple mistake, when his heart was in the right place.
SwiftTGT, great questions!
"how many hours daylight are you getting now?"
Only about 6 hours, before it gets just too hot outside and growth would stop. Then I bring them inside, and they are under fluoros and CFL's for 12 hours, with 6 hours of dark during the night. Before it started getting so hot here, I had them out about 10 hours a day, from dawn to dusk, then back inside under the fluoros overnight.
"Do you know what relative humidity is outside?"
Yes, it's 7% right now. Hideously dry. That's life in the middle of the Mojave desert. So, to augment as much humidity as I can, I line the bottom of the rolling carts I keep the 3 gallon pots in with river stones, and keep an inch of water in the bottom. Inside, I now remove all the plants from the carts, put them on the floor of the garage, and have two humidifiers going 24/7. I have about 30-40% relative humidity in the garage growing area right now.
Closer to 30% now that I have to leave the kitchen door open so the air conditioning will keep the garage cool enough for the plants to continue growing.
"what is your water sourse like, are you using a well, or just normal tap water?"
You're singing my song! I had some major Ph problems early on in veg due to using tap water that had sat out for 24 hours. When I finally got a Ph tester, I was horrified to see how high the Ph of our tap water was. So, I immediately began using bottled water, which has a 7.0 Ph, and flushed all the plants well, and have since used ONLY bottled water.
"you might be able to get a pump set up with a timer to spray a fine mist of water on your outside plants like every 5 mins, should keep the temp down abit during the day,"
Yes, we can get misting systems, and setting one up is not a problem. But I was concerned that misting water on the leaves in that intense sun would be very problematic, and burn the leaves. Also, I was concerned about the foliar feeding effect of that high Ph water, since I can't use bottled water for the misting system. Hence, I have been misting them before the sun comes up, and every hour in the late morning, when I put them under the shade tent.
My in-house grow room will soon be finished, and I'll be able to put the plants in the COOL house (73%) by next week. I plan to let them veg a couple weeks longer, to help fill out the leaves they lost during the flood, then change bulbs and start them on flowering. The culled plants (the 10 that took the worst beating) are outside now, and I'll just keep them out there until they die. I'm sure they won't last long in this heat. In another couple of weeks, it will be 110 degrees during the day, and only going down to about 95 degrees at night. Way too hot for the plants. But, they are the ones slated to die anyway, since I can't flower 21 females inside!
On the tip for painting the pots white: great tip! I did this when I lived in a more friendly climate. But it is not enough in this dry, extremely hot climate. We can't keep any potted plants alive unless we double-pot them, with wet moss or newspapers between the pots to keep the roots from boiling in the desert sun.
So what I've done is to wrap thick layers of wet newspapers around each pot to help keep the soil and roots cool. And I re-wet the newspaper every hour they are outside.
Thanks so much for your responses--it's so helpful, and I appreciate all the time you spent reading and responding. I'm deeply grateful!
Poor man felt terrible when he realized he'd goofed, but I felt even worse knowing how hard he tried to do his very best by the plants, using the moisture meter on each one every day, and hauling them inside and out morning and evening. I just wanted to minimize his feeling bad about making such a simple mistake, when, for the most part, he did everything else right. No way was I going to jump down his throat for a simple mistake, when his heart was in the right place.
SwiftTGT, great questions!
"how many hours daylight are you getting now?"
Only about 6 hours, before it gets just too hot outside and growth would stop. Then I bring them inside, and they are under fluoros and CFL's for 12 hours, with 6 hours of dark during the night. Before it started getting so hot here, I had them out about 10 hours a day, from dawn to dusk, then back inside under the fluoros overnight.
"Do you know what relative humidity is outside?"
Yes, it's 7% right now. Hideously dry. That's life in the middle of the Mojave desert. So, to augment as much humidity as I can, I line the bottom of the rolling carts I keep the 3 gallon pots in with river stones, and keep an inch of water in the bottom. Inside, I now remove all the plants from the carts, put them on the floor of the garage, and have two humidifiers going 24/7. I have about 30-40% relative humidity in the garage growing area right now.
Closer to 30% now that I have to leave the kitchen door open so the air conditioning will keep the garage cool enough for the plants to continue growing.
"what is your water sourse like, are you using a well, or just normal tap water?"
You're singing my song! I had some major Ph problems early on in veg due to using tap water that had sat out for 24 hours. When I finally got a Ph tester, I was horrified to see how high the Ph of our tap water was. So, I immediately began using bottled water, which has a 7.0 Ph, and flushed all the plants well, and have since used ONLY bottled water.
"you might be able to get a pump set up with a timer to spray a fine mist of water on your outside plants like every 5 mins, should keep the temp down abit during the day,"
Yes, we can get misting systems, and setting one up is not a problem. But I was concerned that misting water on the leaves in that intense sun would be very problematic, and burn the leaves. Also, I was concerned about the foliar feeding effect of that high Ph water, since I can't use bottled water for the misting system. Hence, I have been misting them before the sun comes up, and every hour in the late morning, when I put them under the shade tent.
My in-house grow room will soon be finished, and I'll be able to put the plants in the COOL house (73%) by next week. I plan to let them veg a couple weeks longer, to help fill out the leaves they lost during the flood, then change bulbs and start them on flowering. The culled plants (the 10 that took the worst beating) are outside now, and I'll just keep them out there until they die. I'm sure they won't last long in this heat. In another couple of weeks, it will be 110 degrees during the day, and only going down to about 95 degrees at night. Way too hot for the plants. But, they are the ones slated to die anyway, since I can't flower 21 females inside!
On the tip for painting the pots white: great tip! I did this when I lived in a more friendly climate. But it is not enough in this dry, extremely hot climate. We can't keep any potted plants alive unless we double-pot them, with wet moss or newspapers between the pots to keep the roots from boiling in the desert sun.
So what I've done is to wrap thick layers of wet newspapers around each pot to help keep the soil and roots cool. And I re-wet the newspaper every hour they are outside.
Thanks so much for your responses--it's so helpful, and I appreciate all the time you spent reading and responding. I'm deeply grateful!
