2'x6' Grow Closet With 8 Tube 432 Watt Fluorescent Light - An Ongoing Log
 

I live in Las Vegas, and for a long time i've been wanting to try growing some full size vegetables in my house over the winter. I do have a garden in my back yard with four 4'x8' raised beds, but it can get down to 20 degrees here (with snow) in December and January. So during the cold season, growing Summer veggies like peppers, tomatoes, and basil indoors during the winter is the only option for me.

Since I had limited space in my house, I figured i'd pull out the wire shelving in one of my 2'x6' closets and hang an 8 tube fluorescent light in there (Quantum badBoy T5). I screwed two hooks into the ceiling and hung it using two ropes with ratchets at the bottom so I can easily move the light up and down as needed. This closet was too small to use a light that generates high heat like an HID. There would also be no way to vent that type of heat properly without cutting holes in my wall or ceiling, so an HID was not an option. Since the closet was already painted white inside, I decided not to go through the hassle of trying to hang mylar.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/WQMX2.jpg[/img]

I'll be growing primarily tomatoes and peppers using soil. The tomatoes will be grown in these 5 gallon buckets. I'll drill holes at the bottom of the top bucket, then insert it into another bucket so it's able to drain. For peppers, i'll put them in smaller containers, maybe 2-3 gallon. They'll sit all around the tomato buckets along with some basil.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/RNtaq.jpg[/img]

As for the tubes in the fixture, there are four cool 6400k tubes, and four warm 2900k tubes. This should provide a good balace of foliage and flowers. I thought about using all 6400k at first, then switching to all 2900k for flowering.. but we'll see how this goes first.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/eijqI.jpg[/img]

For the growing method on the tomatoes, i'll be setting up a "scrog" which means "screen of green". I'll put a grid with 4.5" squares across the entire closet, about 2ft up from the edge of the buckets. Once the tomatoes start hitting the grid, i'll train the branches outward along the bottom of the grid for maximum light exposure.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/l5Hhu.jpg[/img]

So that's about it. I'll post my log here and we'll see what I can grow with 432 watts of fluorescent tubes :)

I've been waiting for my new order of seeds and they finally arrived today. I just planted a bunch of tomato, pepper, and herb seeds in plastic cups using Fox Farm Happy Frog soil. Once they germinate, i'll stick them in the closet under the floro light, and i'll take some new pics. I've always had great results using this potting soil for both germination and transplants, so i'm going to stick with it.

Once the seedlings grow a few inches tall i'll transplant them into the 5 gallon buckets which will be filled with Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil. It can be dangerous to plant seedlings in the Ocean Forest soil too early since it's a pretty "hot" mixture (lots of nutrients), but so far I haven't had any issues.

for best growth you will have provide air movement for best results,you
can use a small fan set on a timer to get air movement every 4 to 5
hours,i get good results by doing this,good luck,regards.

les

So as I think about it more, I'm thinking I may not do the scrog this time. It seems like i'd really be limiting the amount of usable space in this closet, and i wouldn't be able to grow as many peppers as I want. The tomatoes in the scrog would start to grow right over the tops of the peppers which wouldn't be good. The scrog will still be great if i decide to do indeterminate tomatoes later, but for this grow, i'll stick with all peppers and smaller varieties of tomatoes that should only grow 2-3 feet tall, to stay in line with the average height of the pepper plants.

Here's a pic of the layout I was thinking of using for the buckets:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/1f7Vb.jpg[/img]

Two rows of buckets fit in there PERFECTLY, but just by a fraction of an inch. I can slide the closet doors shut without them hitting the buckets.

For the fan, I was thinking of mounting a large 16" fan to the wall above the light, turning it on high, and letting it circulate within the closet. I think this should still provide some nice air flow to all the plants even though the fan would be above the light.

Well keep us posted on your progress, looks good so far. Good luck.

Damon

[QUOTE=sprtsguy76;194629]Well keep us posted on your progress, looks good so far. Good luck.

Damon[/QUOTE]

I definitely will. I'll be recording all the relevant details. Right now i'm shopping for a good wall mount fan while I wait for the seeds to germinate. The next couple months will be fun :)

Any progress updates? The set up looked promising!

[QUOTE=bullish;206104]Any progress updates? The set up looked promising![/QUOTE]

Yup there are quite a few updates :) Unfortunately I forgot to update my log here. I've been updating it at the hot pepper forum. I'll post ill my updates here too right now though.

[B]Week 1 Update:[/B]

Just hung up a layer of panda film along the walls, moved all the buckets in, and turned the lights on. I'm going to leave the seedlings in the cups until they get larger then i'll transfer them to the buckets. I'll also thin them to 1 plant per bucket of course. Feels good to make some progress.

I also received my heat mat so germination should be much faster next time. The potting mix i used in the buckets is Fox Farm Ocean Forest potting mix, and the soil i used in the plastic cups for germination is fox Farm Happy Frog potting mix.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/3bZeD.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/xGbTz.jpg[/img]

[B]Week 2 Update:[/B]

Things are looking good. True leaves are up and i thinned out a couple cups today after I took these pics. I decided to go with the General Organics line of nutrients. I contacted them and requested a sample box that contained some smaller bottles of everything in their organic line, so they should last easily through this whole closet grow.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/QDIql.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/WiQNO.jpg[/img]

[B]Week 3 Update:[/B]

Things are still going nicely. I'm still waiting just a tiny bit longer to thin them since a few cups didn't have an obvious winner yet. I'll thin them by tomorrow no matter what though. I gave them a light dose of the organic fertilizer for the first time today. I forgot to poke holes at the bottom of a couple of my pepper cups (oops), so the leaves started curling a bit, but i recognized that right away and poked more holes at the bottom of the cups. The leaves are already starting to go back to normal so that wasn't a big deal.

For the fertilizer, i started following the "week 1" line on the feeding chart I posted below, with 5ml bio root, 5ml biothrive grow, 5ml CaMg, 2.5ml bio weed, and also added 15ml of the diamond black. The reason i'm starting their week 1 feeding program at week 3 is because I already started all the seeds in fox farm soil which is already a very good potting soil. I also don't usually like to use much fertilizer (if any at all) while the cotyledons are still nice and green. On the next watering i'll just use plain water again, then after that, i'll probably move to their week 2 feeding schedule.

I have a min/max thermometer in here as well, and with the fan on it hovers around 80 degrees during the day, and 73 at night. I tried turning on the fan off to see how high the temp would go, and it went up to 86.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/uDNe5.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/hybnF.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/QfuhL.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/5bKQL.jpg[/img]

[B]Week 4 Update:[/B]

Couple days late with my update, but here's where everything is so far. I've been fighting some pretty low humidity (around 20%) which is caused a couple of the lower leaves to look a little rugged, but overall everything is doing pretty good. I filled up some containers with water and hung rags over the edge in front of the fan, which increased the humidity about 10% or so. I also ordered a humidifier which should be here on tuesday. It's been pretty cold outside lately, so i've kept the window open to get some cool air into the room.

My red robin tomato and gardener's delight tomatoes are already starting to get flowers. I think i'll just let them go instead of pinching them off, that way the plants don't get too huge. The red robin is only supposed to get up to 12" high anyway. Another nice thing I noticed is that my 6" pots fit perfectly into the space between my buckets, so I moved my basil pot right there as you can see in the pic.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/fUtrf.jpg[/img]

[B]Week 5 Update:[/B]

I got my humidifier and set it up last night. I also removed the closet doors for better circulation. It's made a really big difference and i'm happy with it. Temperatures are lower, everything is already looking more perky. My humidity now fluctuating between 40-50% which is really nice.

Before the humidifier, my humidity was staying around 20% which was pretty bad. It was causing the lower leaves on a couple plants to look rugged and leathery, and i think that was also contributing to low potassium. (purple veins, etc). I think a lot of people may not realize how badly low humidity can effect their plants. It can cause the leaves to die, nutrient lockous, stunted growth, and all sorts of bad things. I'm glad I got this figured out early.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/1Gptw.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/EE15F.jpg[/img]

[B]Week 7 Update:[/B]

Oops, I missed my week 6 update, but here's an update for week 7. Everything has gotten much larger and lots of tomatoes are already setting. The gardener's delight tomatoes look particularly cool with the nice sets of tomatoes. The peppers are a bit slower, but they're still moving along ok. I did have some issues with the fox farm Ocean Forest soil. It just seems to be too hot of a soil. A few of my peppers got some pretty bad nutrient burn before I even added any fertilizer. I think they got somewhat stunted, and are now recovering. I'll show you an example of this in the photos. I've been snipping off the buds on the peppers to allow them to spend more time recovering and veging a bit more. Next time I think i'll just use the normal Fox Farm Happy Frog soil instead of the Ocean Forest. That way i'll still have a great soil but without the added fertilizer and i'll have more control over it.

Here are the photos. The light has been raised to make it easier to take the pics.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/F5Q5M.jpg[/img]

Bell Peppers:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/nMgsn.jpg[/img]

Red Robin Tomato:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/bl3tN.jpg[/img]

Gardener's Delight Tomato:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/G0DNw.jpg[/img]

Here's an example of the weird stuff that's going on. These two plants are both bell peppers from the same exact seed packet. They are both in the same exact soil, and have been watered at the same times. The one on the right has leaves that look like crap, but it actually has a lot more growth than the nice looking one, so we will see what happens with it I guess. It has lots of new flower buds hidden under the leaves, so i'll let them go without snipping them now.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/dCXdO.jpg[/img]

[B]March 21st:[/B]

I read that calcium deficiency could cause torn up leaf edges, bumps, craters, etc.. so i figured i'd try doing a foliar spray using the CaMg bottle in my General Organics line. It seems to have actually helped somewhat. The plant grew more vertical in the last couple days, and the top leaves smoothed out. Compare this pic with the pic i posted a couple posts above this one, and it's already looking a bit better.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/mOiYH.jpg[/img]

There we go, all caught up now as of yesterday :) Next update should be tomorrow. I'll remember to keep this log updated too.

Wow that is an impressive effort. I have always thought that tomatoes needed sunlight and heat to produce fruit that tasted good and was not mealy textured. I hope you'll prove that wrong. Your method seems likely to eliminate some standard issues such as bug infestations and probably leaf disease as caused by exposure to pathogens.

I'm also going to be curious what you do when those plants get really large as in outgrow your closet space? Good luck. I look forward to future updates.

[QUOTE=Dewayne mater;206163]
I'm also going to be curious what you do when those plants get really large as in outgrow your closet space? Good luck. I look forward to future updates.[/QUOTE]

I won't let anything get much taller than 3ft or so. After that, you really start to get diminishing returns with artificial lighting. I'll just start topping the plants and forcing them to focus energy on the fruit

Looking great! Thanks for the updates! I cant believe how fast that tomato plant grew!

[B]Week 8 Update:[/B]

Im getting quite a few tomatoes setting now. All the peppers are still falling behind somewhat. The first bell pepper flower finally set in the last couple days, and it looks like a purple one. I still feel like some plants got stunted because of the earlier problems, but I think things are recovering, especially now that I have RO water. I've been able to do a higher PPM nutrient mix, and i've been making sure to add no less than 5ml cal/mag per gallon. Oh and that mutant bell pepper plant is doing better and growing a bit more vertical now, and it has tons of flowers on it :) I can't wait to see how many pods I get off of it.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/P8P7u.jpg[/img]

New Big Dwarf Tomato:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/BsTcH.jpg[/img]

Window Box Roma Tomato:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/23kev.jpg[/img]

Red Robin Tomato: (wow there's at least 20 tomatoes on this plant already)
[img]http://i.imgur.com/N1EVp.jpg[/img]

Carnival Bell Peppers:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Uxsfm.jpg[/img]

First Bell Pepper showing:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/LRCU7.jpg[/img]

[B]Week 10 (almost)[/B]

More tomatoes and peppers are setting and growing larger. Not without continuous environmental challenges though. It's been getting much warmer lately, and i'm no longer able to blow cool air in through the window. I didn't realize just how much heat this T5 unit would build up with that window show as it gets closer to summer. Once i shut the window, it didn't take long at all for the temperature in the room to hit nearly 100 degrees. Keep in mind i've been running the light cycle at night too, with the lights off during the day. I've turned on my central AC in the last couple days which helps. While the rest of my house stays at 74F, this closet is still creeping up into the high 80s. OH and remember that humidifier I bought? well it's now having trouble keeping the humidity at 23-25%. A lot of times it still goes as low as 20%

I think the most important thing to learn from this is that you should not believe people who say T5s don't create heat. How much it will really effect you depends on where you live. The heat they make is dispersed over a wider area than an HID bulb so there's no hot spots like you sometimes get with an HID, but if you have an HID bulb that's inside an air cooled reflector, it's MUCH easier to keep cool because you can easily direct the heat out of the room via a fan and a duct. With this T5 fixture, all the heat basically just radiates everywhere and i can't do much about it. I do have several oscillating fans, but that's about it. Soon I plan on having a 24k BTU split AC unit installed in this room since the central air in my house has always favored the downstairs area anyway. It should help increase the efficiency of my air conditioning during the summer.

Even with all of the above challenges though, i'm getting some results. Here are some pics:

I raised the light for a better view. I've organized all the plants from tallest to shortest so i could angle the light for best exposure. You can also see i had to trim that jalapeno pepper plant in the front/middle because its lower branches and leaves were suffering from the issues I discussed. it's doing a bit better now
[img]http://i.imgur.com/k0acM.jpg[/img]

New Big Dwarf Tomatoes
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZvRLE.jpg[/img]

Gardener's Delight Cherry Tomatoes
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ASN95.jpg[/img]

Window Box Roma - This plant has suffered the most, with lots of crispy leaves. I've been cleaning up the dead leaves as they come. It's interesting that even though all its leaves are falling off, it's setting a good amount of romas, so I guess i'll keep letting it go and see what happens. The weird thing is that I have two more seedlings of this variety sitting in another part of my house where it's much cooler with better humidity, and even those little seedlings are already starting to develop crispy leaves. Maybe this variety just doesnt like the overall environment in my area?
[img]http://i.imgur.com/aBGVi.jpg[/img]

Cayenne Peppers. You can see the plastic loops i've been using on this plant to try and spread out the top a bit. It grew tall and skinny so I wanted to give it a better canopy that was more spread out.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/21DN0.jpg[/img]

Green Bell peppers growing on the mutant pepper plant. It's already set a couple peppers and it looks like it has a nice group of other flowers that will soon set (hopefully)
[img]http://i.imgur.com/XrrFi.jpg[/img]

This is my nicer looking purple bell pepper plant. That purple bell pepper you see is the "first bell pepper" that you saw in my previous update. You can't really see in this pic, but there are two more peppers which have already set that are closer to the top as well.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/b3OPy.jpg[/img]

Red Robin Tomatoes - Lots of little cherry tomatoes on this one. Some of them are starting to turn red already too.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/5rb58.jpg[/img]

Looking good! I am growing purple peppers also. I got them from Victory seeds along with my dwarf tomatoes.

[B]Week 11.5[/B]

I'm seeing lots of tomatoes ripening up this week. I've already plucked a few of them to give them a taste, and theyre really sweet and juicy. I still haven't had the additional AC installed because i'm waiting on approval from my HOA.

All Plants:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/6aRsS.jpg[/img]

Habaneros: - No peppers set on this plant yet.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/4THmv.jpg[/img]

Thai Peppers: Look closely, a bunch of flowers are starting to set and peppers are emerging.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/4Gep4.jpg[/img]

New Big Dwarf Tomatoes:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/h2KC7.jpg[/img]

Green Bell Peppers:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/mqed2.jpg[/img]

Purple Bell Peppers:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/msFpQ.jpg[/img]

Gardener's Delight Tomatoes:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/4vI0L.jpg[/img]

Cayenne Peppers:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/QkL4y.jpg[/img]

Window Box Romas: - The leaves and branches on this one are still looking pretty sad, but it still produced a nice bunch of little romas (and still setting even more) so i'm letting them ripen up. This tomato plant just really doesn't seem to like this environment. I have smaller seedlings in plastic cups that are already starting to show the same signs of weirdness.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/yfYdR.jpg[/img]

Red Robin Tomatoes:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/4xkER.jpg[/img]

ASFX2600-

I've really enjoyed and benefited from reading through your posts on this thread. I've just purchased a very expensive LED light and was trying develop a plan of action on how I might do something very similar to what you've done, albeit perhaps in a grow tent or out in my garage (no spare closets currently). I'm still trying to decide whether I should consider hydroponics or just stick with something like what you've done with the buckets. BTW, do you drain the bottom bucket or just let it set and slowly wick up? How are you determining your water schedule? What kind of holes/patter did you drill in the upper 5-gal bucket?

Please do continue to post your results on this experiment. I'd like to know how things finished up for you. Do the plants just slowly die or can you regenerate another cycle of blooms/fruit. I really like how you've chronicled so many of the details around humidity, temperature, solution density, RO water (was that really important?), etc. You must be an engineer (or should have been). In any case, looking forward to hearing more.

Thanks,
Naysen

Oh I'm fascinated too by your posts and photos. I'm going to experiment with indoor tomatoes this year since I have a short season and didn't have the harvest I was hoping for this year. I don't have a spare closet, but I do have a very long living room that has a corner I have been stumped with what to do for years. I've decided to make it my tomato garden for winter and see how it goes.

Thanks for the tutorial !

When I was in my local hydroponics store picking up a new T5 light a few weeks ago I saw that they had stand alone "rooms" with reflective sides for growing indoors in a couple of sizes. If you have a hydroponics store near you you might want to see what they have available.

I love my new T5 light, it is way better than my old Goliath, but the sucker does put out a lot of heat. I have a little desk fan that is on the same timer as the light that seems to do the trick. I'm not growing full size plants, just starters.