Busy week for the little chocolope. Moved into her new pot, a 7-gallon fabric pot that I filled to the brim with Happy Frog soil blended with compost from my earthworm bin. I also moved her into the flower chamber of the Bloom Box, under the 400W HID sodium light (hence the lighting on the pics). I'll figure out the whole natural lighting editing thing on my phone later. The bloombox lets me just punch in the hours I want the lights on, so I have it running from 6 PM - noon the following day, an 18/6 schedule that let's me avoid running it during the hottest hours of the day. The Flower-box also has a CPU fan and an oscillating fan to help shake her little stem so she's not such a stretchy spindly thing. I also buried her almost to her seedling leaves to help give her support. Now that she's going to get blown around a bunch by the fan, she should get a nice thick base. Although the weather has been pretty hot and can still get up to 85F in the afternoons, things are starting to cool down - the overnight lows are in the 50s, and the mornings are enjoyably crisp. As we transition into winter and it gets colder, the light should keep her warm overnight, and her dark period will be when the ambient temps should be in the 50s or so. Either way, while I'm not worried about her getting below frost-temps, I do think she's going to see plenty of 45-50 days that should test any purple heritage she may have.
You can also see I rigged up a basic SCROG screen; magnetic tape with pretty middling magnetic hooks, and some plant line running the length. I'm surprised BCNL doesn't offer a screen/trellis accessory - seems obvious. I'm not sure this is going to work, those magnets are super weak. I may use liquid nails and just glue the hooks in place. I probably need more hooks too, those are giant holes considering the space. Oh well, still figuring this thing out. I'll get it dialed in eventually.
Clean, Experimental Country Living.
GreenInDixie
