Lets grow this cake!

Welcome to my first indoor grow! This is going to be an interesting journey as I have zero experience in indoor growing and only knowledge I have is from books and online videos. ******************************** * BUILDING A GROW ROOM * ******************************** Before this journey begins I had to setup a grow room. Fortunately, there is small space in the attic area that is perfect to turn it into a grow room. Unfortunately, that room was completely uninsulated with bear walls. That means RH/temp problems. To do a complete and proper roof insulation it would have cost me a lot so I opted out for only cheaper version and that was to use 3cm thick Styrofoam boards between beams and roof plates just to reduce heat dissipation, for the walls 2cm Styrofoam boards and for the floors, I spread thick plastic sheet over it and placed on top 3cm Styrofoam boards wrapped in white plastic sheets. With those plastic sheets on, everything is washable with ease. Now it’s time to test the room and see how the temperature holds. As I was worried, the room needed some heat source so I placed one heat radiator in the back of the room. Next day I checked the temp and it was around 23°C. The insulation was working nicely as the radiator was not constantly on and outside was -10°C. All in all I was satisfied even with some small draft coming in which was impossible to close but on the upside it will actually provide constant flow of fresh air. After renovation was done I had to decide how and where I should set up pots and lights. Room dimensions look like a right-angled triangle with entrance height of 2m and floor length of 3m. Only middle of the room is usable for growing due to a roof slope. That allows height of the plants up to around 1m and with the 90 cm room width, the actual growing space for plants would be 90x100x120cm. Now all I need was lights that would cover that space. ******************* * GROW LIGHTS * ******************* Since last year I started reading about grow lights, as it turned out, there are so many brands, models and it’s very difficult to choose one, but quantum boards caught my attention with their high efficiency, low wattage and on top of that they are passively cooled. After spending hours of browsing through different QB models I came across one company “EasyGrow Lighting” that was making quantum boards and something told me that this is it. What stood out was free shipping, cheap prices and 5 year warranty and in case of a failure they will pick up the lights at your place and send it back repaired for free Now that sounds like a great deal. S600 Full Spectrum model is ideal for my grow space with its recommended coverage: Grow stage: 120x120cm - 150x150cm with light distance 40-60cm Flowering stage: 90x90cm - 120x120cm with light distance 30-40cm Technical specs: Chips: Samsung LM301B and Far red diodes Epistar 660nm PPFD: 1075.60168 μmol/(m²·s) Driver: Meanwell HLG Light power: 0 - 250w Luminosity: max. 228.99 lm/W Lifetime: 100 000h in operation Light dimension: 68x22 cm Weight: 5 kg Replacement for: 600W HPS Yields: 2-2.5 g/W Those are some great specs. The Samsung LM301B is one of the most efficient LEDs on the market and exceeds the 200lm/W limit. PPFD readings are over 1000 at distance of 40cm and goes up to 1800 at distance of 30cm. That’s going to be more than enough and plants will love it. When the package arrived I was surprised how good the product was packed. At first glance you can see that the lights are professionally made and assembled and with the black heatsink it looks beautiful. In the package was also power cable (3m), rope ratchet 2pcs suspension system with spare clips and steel wires to connect ratchet and lights. What I also got was the EasyGrow Controller that has temperature/humidity probe and comes with 2 cables, one shorter and the other is 2m long, built-in timer for lights which you control via mobile app and it also comes with a light dimmer 0-250W. App has options like on/off light schedules, timers and you can monitor temp/humidity when you’re away from grow room. For me this is very useful as my grow room is in a different part of house and it keeps me somewhat closer to my plants. One thing to mention is that controller and lights are already connected together so the whole light system is plug&grow out of the box. I’m really impressed with the whole package and I can’t wait to try out the lights. ********************* * SOWING A SEED * ********************* For my first winter indoor grow I chose sponsored Original Sensible Seeds - Wedding Cake Auto, Strain info: Genes: Indica dominant Genetics: Wedding Cake, Girl Scout Cookies Auto Flowering: 10 weeks Harvest: 600gr/m2 Height: 60-120 cm THC: Up to 20% CBD: Low Description: “Wedding Cake is another West Coast strain from California that has it's parentage in Girl Scout Cookies and Cherry Pie and is sometimes referred to as Birthday Cake or Pink Panties. Wedding Cake Auto gives growers the opportunity to experience these American strains without the need for special lighting and the ability to achieve 2 or more harvests a year as Wedding Cake Auto will be ready to harvest in around 70 days from seed with a yield of 150g per plant when grown outdoors and 600g/m2 when grown indoors. The effect from Wedding Cake Auto is potent and relaxing as you would expect from heavy Indica seeds but well balanced between physical and cerebral. The flavor is sweet, woody, vanilla, pineapple and hints of lemon.” There are few things to do before the seed starts its journey. For 11l pots I made my own light soil mix that consists of: 2l – black earth mix 1l – worm castings 1l – perlite 6l – coco coir 40g - Bio Guano 5g – Mycorrhizae Bio Guano composition: N - 3-5% P2O5 - 9-12% CaO - 23-28% K2O - 1-2% MgO – 0.5-1% C (org) - 5-7% org substance - 21-26% I decided to do some layering in a pot so at the bottom of a pot I added a thin layer of coco coir, on top of it 1-2cm layer of perlite, then up to a half of pot added my light soil mix and sprinkled 20g of Bio Guano, then added 15cm of light soil mix, again sprinkled 20g of Bio Guano and then finished filling the pot with light soil mix. Mycorrhizae was mixed with the soil where the seed will be planted. Time to start feeding the microbial life in the medium. I watered the medium with 500ml solution of 5ml/l molasses, Root Juice, Acti Vera, Bio Heaven, Fish Mix 1ml/l each, and once again after 12h. The pot was kept in a warm room at temp of 20°C. Seed was pre-soaked in shot glass of water for 24h. Seed was then sowed 10cm from the corner of the pot. To keep the RH at 80-90%, plastic bottle was placed on top of seed spot. Seeding broke surface after 48h. Health & Growth: - After the seedling broke surface she grew to 4.5 cm in first three days and stopped stretching. Watering: - Instead of tap water I used distilled water in the first week. - 100 ml of nutrient solution every other day just around the seedling. - 500 ml of nutrient solution last day of a week so the medium doesn’t dry out and to keep microbial life in the medium happy. Lighting: - Each day power of lights was increased by 10W starting from 60W. - Distance from plant started at 30cm and was daily raised gradually to 50cm.