In the words of my daughter, "like OMG" !
Our Tall Blue pre-filter and Merlin Garden Pro have been doing a great job giving us water for our greenhouse and grow room. We have a system on each due to the physical locations. The grow room has been serviced for a little over a year now without a filter change so I thought it was time. I normally change the filters in the house every 6 months due to the heavy use.
Well, I think I will be going to a 6 month cycle on the grow room as well. When I pulled the filters out, set them in the sink, and poured the excess water out of the filter housing about two inches of "scale" material came out of the housing. The filters weighed about 10 lbs, some I am sure was water, I can only imagine how much was particulate mater taken out of our municipal water system.
Moral of the story - CHANGE THE FILTERS!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
New Tomato Grow - Grow 7
The configuration changes in our room are complete. The new Stealth Grow LED Veg and Bloom lights have replaced the HIDs and the Monster Ebb n Grow is now the home of a few tomato plants. We are a little behind on posting updates to our blog due to another project we have been working on here at the ranch.
We started Grow 7 about a month ago. Several new tomato plants were started from seed including some of the hybrids tried in a previous grow as well as a few new ones. We are really looking forward to the "ice" tomatoes which are basically white cherry tomatoes. We wanted to start a new grow with the new LED lights so we could assess the full impact on the plants from seed to fruit. The plants did incredible under the Stealth Grow Veg LED and now they are under the Ebb N Grow system (small pots)
We transplanted three of our 9 month old plants from the PowerGrower into the Monster Ebb n Grow system. We had issues with the PowerGrower and large tomato plants with root creep clogging up the plumbing. With the tomatoes all transplanted we are hopeful that the aggressive pruning we did (literally hacked them down to an 8 inch stalk to start new growth) will allow them to continue to produce. So far they are putting on new leaves and looking well.
We started Grow 7 about a month ago. Several new tomato plants were started from seed including some of the hybrids tried in a previous grow as well as a few new ones. We are really looking forward to the "ice" tomatoes which are basically white cherry tomatoes. We wanted to start a new grow with the new LED lights so we could assess the full impact on the plants from seed to fruit. The plants did incredible under the Stealth Grow Veg LED and now they are under the Ebb N Grow system (small pots)
We transplanted three of our 9 month old plants from the PowerGrower into the Monster Ebb n Grow system. We had issues with the PowerGrower and large tomato plants with root creep clogging up the plumbing. With the tomatoes all transplanted we are hopeful that the aggressive pruning we did (literally hacked them down to an 8 inch stalk to start new growth) will allow them to continue to produce. So far they are putting on new leaves and looking well.
Stealth Grow LEDs Added
We have completed our previously planned configuration changes in the grow room. We have finished the installation of our Stealth Grow Veg LED and Stealth Grow Bloom LED. These lights operate with much lower electrical requirements and heat output. As we recognize, they are still a little expensive to acquire but recommend that you do a "total cost of ownership" calculation. They pay for themselves in a very short time.
WOW, what a difference. After removing the 240 volt / 30 Amp service to the room and the HVAC system is running about half the time, the electric bill plummeted. The HID lights were putting out an enormous amount of heat, even with a venting system. When you have over eighty days of 105+ temps outside, the venting didn't help much. The HVAC was running constantly and not able to keep up to well.
The plants love the new lights as well. Although not as "intense" a light, there certainly seems to be more than enough lumen in the correct color spectrum to make the lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries happy.
We have also removed the PowerGrower and replaced it with one of the Monster Ebb n Grow systems from the Berry House (outdoor greenhouse). Although the PowerGrower served us well, we had challenges keeping roots from growing so large that they plugged up the water loop. The drip rings would also clog up from salt buildup from the nutrients. Yes, we know that constant maintenance could prevent both of these situations but constant maintenance makes this hobby less enjoyable.
We have built some new plant support structures as the Ultimate Plant Cage didn't fare so well against our tomato plants. The PVC DIY is has a very stable base and we can extend 4 support poles out of it for each plant (and install cross members if desired). We will show more of this as this tomato grow continues.
WOW, what a difference. After removing the 240 volt / 30 Amp service to the room and the HVAC system is running about half the time, the electric bill plummeted. The HID lights were putting out an enormous amount of heat, even with a venting system. When you have over eighty days of 105+ temps outside, the venting didn't help much. The HVAC was running constantly and not able to keep up to well.
The plants love the new lights as well. Although not as "intense" a light, there certainly seems to be more than enough lumen in the correct color spectrum to make the lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries happy.
We have also removed the PowerGrower and replaced it with one of the Monster Ebb n Grow systems from the Berry House (outdoor greenhouse). Although the PowerGrower served us well, we had challenges keeping roots from growing so large that they plugged up the water loop. The drip rings would also clog up from salt buildup from the nutrients. Yes, we know that constant maintenance could prevent both of these situations but constant maintenance makes this hobby less enjoyable.
We have built some new plant support structures as the Ultimate Plant Cage didn't fare so well against our tomato plants. The PVC DIY is has a very stable base and we can extend 4 support poles out of it for each plant (and install cross members if desired). We will show more of this as this tomato grow continues.
Berry House Configuration Changes
It has been a brutal summer with over eighty days of 105+ temperatures. Normally we get a week here or there in August, but nothing like this. Couple that with a severe drought, and the rest is history.
We learned a lot about operating a greenhouse in the summer. A comment was made in one of our posts about burying the water reservoirs. I absolutely recommend this - except where you have caliche (sand/water compacted like concrete) as we do. Nothing short of a jackhammer, or some dynamite, can penetrate. Hence, burying was not an option for us - only a chiller.
The heat stress on our berries was pretty intense. We also noticed some sagging in our grow trays. This occurred over time and most likely was a combination of weight from the Hydroton and the heat. We are rethinking medium for next summer.
The raspberries and blueberries were doing ok until the intense heat of summer. We did have a heat / drought tolerant blackberry that did great - right up to the point where we took drought to an extreme by losing a system controller. Those that survived that incident are doing well again.
As you can see we removed the mixing tank and two grow systems from the house. Our thought of having that many systems in one greenhouse was misguided. We are down to one Monster Ebb n Grow, and the three stands for the strawberries. We will continue with this plan for next summer with a few other re-engineering thoughts between now and the cool weather. Once winter hits we will do some additional changes and hopefully next year have a better result in the greenhouse.
We learned a lot about operating a greenhouse in the summer. A comment was made in one of our posts about burying the water reservoirs. I absolutely recommend this - except where you have caliche (sand/water compacted like concrete) as we do. Nothing short of a jackhammer, or some dynamite, can penetrate. Hence, burying was not an option for us - only a chiller.
The heat stress on our berries was pretty intense. We also noticed some sagging in our grow trays. This occurred over time and most likely was a combination of weight from the Hydroton and the heat. We are rethinking medium for next summer.
The raspberries and blueberries were doing ok until the intense heat of summer. We did have a heat / drought tolerant blackberry that did great - right up to the point where we took drought to an extreme by losing a system controller. Those that survived that incident are doing well again.
As you can see we removed the mixing tank and two grow systems from the house. Our thought of having that many systems in one greenhouse was misguided. We are down to one Monster Ebb n Grow, and the three stands for the strawberries. We will continue with this plan for next summer with a few other re-engineering thoughts between now and the cool weather. Once winter hits we will do some additional changes and hopefully next year have a better result in the greenhouse.
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