construction and white or black plastic Visqueen for wall covering, an efficient, clean greenhouse can be created. In this set-up you’ll see a screen door covered in black plastic as an entrance; it creates a roll-up wall that allows easy access during work hours as well as eliminating any unwanted heat or humidity build-up. The ballasts normally sit on top of the structure but in this photo they have been removed to facilitate the takedown of the grow space. The exhaust fan can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of the photo; it is at the top of the room in order to eliminate any unwanted heat and humidity that might build up.
Grow Chamber
Inside the grow chamber we find strong plants and buds ready for harvest. The system here is a soilless mix medium (vermiculite and perlite) in ¾-gallon containers. The plants sit on a slightly tilted shelf constructed of plywood sheets on top of common plastic milk crates. The plywood is covered with rubber pond liner at the edges to keep water from running off the shelf. At the low side of the shelf is a plastic rain gutter; the runoff water naturally migrates to the low side of the shelf and runs off into the rain gutter and into a collection reservoir where it is then disposed of with a water pump. The plants were hand-watered every 24 hours in the early stages of development and two times a day in the later stages of flowering.
All electrical wiring and components must always be kept off the floor and away from contact with water, for obvious reasons.
Inside the grow chamber.
Empty space after plants have been harvested.
Photos: K
Harvest Room and Deconstruction
Harvested and stripped plants are on the left of this picture, with buds hanging in the next room and room deconstruction begun. Another bountiful harvest has taken place and it is time to go build another somewhere else. This location was almost perfect but there is always somewhere better! Always look for that perfect spot.
Here are many healthy, seven-day old plants. This organic media system uses the same shelf system mentioned previously—the difference being the organic media. In this photo you can clearly see the design and set-up of the edges of the shelf. Also you can see that the vegetating plants have had stakes placed in their containers early in life to avoid later root damage. The containers are ¾-gallon and since these plants, at the time of photographing, will only be in the pots for nine more weeks (10 weeks total), there is no chance of the plants becoming root bound. Furthermore, because small containers are used, more plants can be grown, thus using the space to its full potential. In seven more days the lights will be turned back to 12-hours on and 12-hours off to begin the flowering cycle. The plants will mature between one-and-a-half and three feet tall.
Ten Weeks Later
Ten weeks after installation these plants were ready for harvest: fat, stinky, heavy, sticky, organic buds, and lots of them. There are 11 different cultivars in this room that were preselected so that they all matured at approximately the same rate. The same day the plants were harvested, there were more ready to replace them, as per the symbiotic rotation system. Empty rooms only cost you time and money.
Stakes are placed into the media before the plants grow large so as not to damage the root system.
Ten weeks later (same plants as above) the plants are well into flower.
Basic cannabis garden.
Photo: Freebie
The most common grow system is easy to set up, with no maximization of roots or lights. A sufficient system for a small budget and low yield goals.
A more ambitious grow system is nominally more expensive to set up, but offers better nutrition, CO2, light, and root O2, and ultimately, a better yield.
A larger investment for a complex grow system includes features that offer the best nutrition, CO2, light, and root O2, resulting in maximum harvests.
Simple, Hand-Fed, Soilless Water System
This is another example of a small, simple system. Rooted clones are placed into three-inch Grodan rockwool cubes and hand-watered every day. The rockwool cubes here are sitting on an egg crate light diffuser atop a common 12-gallon plastic bin, placed to catch runoff water. The bin is emptied after every watering. The plants were allowed to grow for seven days like this under constant fluorescent lighting. After seven days the plants were transferred from the closet to the main bedroom where they were placed in 2-gallon containers and topped off with a soil / perlite / vermiculite mix of media. The plants were then placed on an elevated grow table under a 1,000-watt Halide (HID) light on an 18 hours on / 6 hours off light cycle. The plants will grow like this for 14 days and then the lights will be changed to a 12 on / 12 off cycle. At this point the plants will only require hand watering every three days.
The air conditioner in this photo keeps the room at a perfect 75°F. In the upper right of this photo is a completely blacked-out window (to prevent light-leaks). The garbage can in the photo is used to mix water and nutrients; fresh air enters the room from the open bedroom door. An oscillating fan keeps the air in the room constantly circulating.
This is a simple, hand-fed rockwool system.
Photos: K
Note the air
