New guys take on a DWC, with pics.

[PaulF]

Has it really been only a week?

I don't know if anyone is still following along. But since I am have having fun doing it I am going to keep updating this post.

Like I said in my last post I decided to bring my MH lamp back to life. I bought the rather expensive bulb after I found some evidence that the symptoms my light was displaying were the EXACT thing one would see when a MH bulb is at the end of its life. To make a long story short my MH light is rocking and even my big noisy shop vac can't make it kick off. So my $50 MH light ended up costing me $82 when I put a new bulb in it. Not a big deal.

What IS a big deal is the astonishing growth that has occurred since I:

Re-potted everything in net pots.

Switched the nutrients to the GH "Agressive" formulation.

And most importantly brought this monster HID light back to life!

So probably the the net pots and the nutrient strength helped quite a bit. But I think a fully functional, 16 hours of metal halide light blasting down on my plants has made a HUGE difference.

I started the second 20 gallon tote and it is sporting lettuce, two peppers (which are pathetic!), and strawberries. I planted it all on last Saturday (04/09/2011) and the lettuce has easily tripled in size, and the strawberries have already put out flowers!

The real story however is the tote with the Tomatoes and Cukes. The Tomatoes are nothing short of enormous since just a week ago. And the cukes that had just put out some wimpy flowers last Thursday have now got actual cukes on them! I have hand pollinated the female flowers and it is working great. Cukes in my basement, from plants that have never seen the light of day and have NO dirt underneath them. It just boggles my mind.

More to come next week. Can it keep up like this? I can't imagine it, but who knows!

A good shot showing my MH lamp with its new lease of life. My homebuilt cfl fixture and the joke of an led panel are gone. As I am sure most everyone knows there is no replacement for HID lights. Some of us just are slow learners. Note that the DWC on the left is fully planted and kicking butt!



Look at that Romaine! And the strawberries, they have doubled in size since I brought them home from Lowes last Saturday as sad little things. The only thing that has me stumped are the peppers, and to be honest, after the tomatoes they are the things I wanted to have the most. Well, I'm not giving up yet. I did see some growth on them today, but only very little.



And what is this? I know, not very exciting, but it is to me! A cucumber, growing in my basement. I should mention I did the cukes so I could have homemade pickles when I wanted them. I am a pickle FREAK. I could live on them. And here is the start of my next batch of pickles, just grown in my basement!



And finally I have saved the best for last. Compare the photo below of my cukes and tomatoes to the one above that was taken only a week ago. I have it here in my basement and I can hardly believe it.




What will next week bring? I am continually amazed by my own hydro grow!

[amadare]

Looks good.

[ProZachJ]

Looking good, get prepared to seperate and trellis those plants as they get larger their nutrient needs will make growing them in the same system a problem. Yields won't be nearly as high because they all need a slightly different pH and EC

[cable24601]

Looking real good keep up the great posts

[PaulF]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I appreciate it.

As for this week, I hate to sound like a broken record, but, DANG!

This DWC is absolutely ROCKIN'! I am just blown away. I think the plants are probably doubling in size on a weekly basis. And I have to do almost nothing to keep up with them. I have noted a sizable increase in water consumption but that is very easy to keep up with.

The bad news is the space heater, oh my, the space heater! I had been using it to keep the grow room at 75 degrees 24 hours per day. Well, the power bill showed up and guess what? It added 70 dollars to the bill prior! D'oh! So the space heater has been relegated to keeping the grow room at 58-60 degrees at night and the MH lamp keeps the room at 66-68 degrees during the day. So far there have been no ill effects.

I have got cukes coming on like crazy! Probably at least a dozen growing right now. I have had to pollinate them all by hand but all of them took. The peppers have shown growth which makes me think they might work out. The strawberries that flowered I pollinated by hand and they are sporting little bitty strawberries now, how cool! Still not a single flower on the tomatoes, but soon I hope. The tomatoes are putting everything else to shame size wise, they are just incredible. The basement now smells like tomato plants all the time. It is really quite nice.

More to come for those of you following. The pictures below tell the real story.

Now who said that surplus High Bay lights don't work good for hydroponic applications?



My Romaine is delicious! And every leaf is perfect. Caesar salad from my basement? Now this is livin'! How can you beat it? Check out those strawberries too, they are lovin life in my hydro closet.



To give a sense of scale as to how much these tomato plants are growing I put a bottle of Sam Adams in there. Check out the stalk on that plant, unreal! I can't get over how FAST this stuff is growing and how big it is. Look at the size of the leaves on the cukes, and all the flowers!



And finally my standard overhead shot of the tomatoes and cukes. They have gotten so big that this pic has lost its impact. The plants are all just starting to look like one big mass of green!



More pics next week!

[hydrophotobio]

Looking absolutely beautiful! DWC hauls major butt so expect insane growth, especially if you're forcing a lot of oxygen through the nutrient solution!

[PaulF]

Originally Posted by hydrophotobio

Looking absolutely beautiful! DWC hauls major butt so expect insane growth, especially if you're forcing a lot of oxygen through the nutrient solution!

Thank you, the stuff is gorgeous! And to say that DWC hauls major butt is right on the money. This is just unreal.

Originally Posted by biloyp

Beautiful plants, really growing well and I know that light really did the trick. I am hoping your tomato plants don't take over by growing too much. How are you gonna support the tomato plants...cage or stick?? I think you should move the totes some so the cucs have some room. Looks ;like they may just grow down onto the floor which would be ok. I know cucs need lots of water so no problem there ha-ha.I think I need to get a lamp like yours. I am growing lettuce and spinach...spinach not doing too well but the lettuce has provided us with about 6 bowls of salad...But I am in the middle of a home renovation so I can't devote a whole lot of time to my hydro. Thanks for the pics and info.

Thanks for the compliment! Funny you should mention about moving things around due to size concerns. The pics below will reveal that you may have seen into my hydroponics future haha! As far as the support for cukes and tomatoes go I am going to put pieces of wire fencing in the grow room to help hold everything up.

Originally Posted by GpsFrontier

Hello PaulF,
Great looking growth, It won't be long before the taller plants outgrow the space. Are you sure the added $70 is all the heater, and not the light as well?

The light was definitely some of it. But the first month I ran the light it added about $15.00 to my electric bill so the majority of the increase was the heater. But I have to say, without the heat on at all the plants seem to be doing fine.


So, another week and another update. The closet continues to amaze! The growth is exponential. I really could never have imagined it would be like this. Having been a soil gardener for years I was expecting growth more along that type of rate. I guess not!

I had to re-arrange the cukes and tomatoes. The tomatoes were so tall they were shading everything else, and the cukes were running so much that I knew everything was going to get tangled up. So I moved the two to opposing totes and put them on the outsides. Everything is a much better fit now.

Water consumption has gone up drastically on the tomatoes. It wouldn't be a huge problem except the strawberries have very puny root systems and end up getting dried out. In the first picture if you look at the tote on the right the strawberries in the middle net pot are all wilted. When I went down to take these pics I found them like that, I put a gallon of water in and by tonight they will be back up and happy.


On a side note, I am an Air National Guard member and Uncle Sam has seen fit to send me to Europe for a couple of weeks. So there will be no updates for the next three weeks. My wife will be taking care of the garden while I am gone. I can only imagine what things will look like when I get back. Enough blabbing though, onto the pics.


The growth in only a week is just staggering. I thought the stuff looked big last week! I am going to put some wire fence on the out sides of the two totes. I figure it will give the cukes something to hold onto and it will allow the tomatoes support when they come.



I have been wanting to take one of these root system pics since the first day I planted everything! Finally here it is. Notice how small the strawberry root system is. I hope my wife keeps up with the water level while I am gone! Check out those tomatoe roots!



Look at all those baby cukes. I have lost count of how many are growing down there now. I thought it was going to be tough to hand pollinate them. It is so easy. You only need to gently rub the flowers together and by the next day you can tell it has taken by the way the base of the cuke gets shiny. It is really cool!



One of the bigger cukes. I have two or three this size now.



Gigantic Romaine leaves! And look at that healthy strawberry plant, they love it in there.



And the thing I have been waiting for the most! Flowers on my tomatoes. They have yet to open up but soon I hope.



See you in three weeks! Thanks to everyone following along.

[biloyp]

Beautiful plants, really growing well and I know that light really did the trick. I am hoping your tomato plants don't take over by growing too much. How are you gonna support the tomato plants...cage or stick?? I think you should move the totes some so the cucs have some room. Looks ;like they may just grow down onto the floor whicch would be ok. I know cucs need lots of water so no problem there ha-ha.I think I need to get a lamp like yours. I am growing lettuce and spinach...spinach not doing too well but the lettuce has provided us with about 6 bowls of salad...But I am in the middle of a home renovation so I can't devote a whole lot of time to my hydro. Thanks for the pics and info.

[GpsFrontier]

Hello PaulF,
Great looking growth, It won't be long before the taller plants outgrow the space. Are you sure the added $70 is all the heater, and not the light as well?