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January 23rd, 2019




After work today I checked the temperature gauge and the tent maintained 78°F - 81°F in a 24 hour period, I'm going to start working on the humidity next.



And another little surprise I had was my Jimmy Nardello peppers were infested with white flies or something on the top leaves, the bottom of the leaves were loaded with aphids, so I hand washed each leaf and will continue to monitor the plants closely.

I'm liking this Rocky Top Blend a lot, days to mature is 45-50, I'm guessing this can be harvested @30-35 days.

I received my new pot trays and they are a tad too big, they take up too much room in the tent, I may use a couple but to be honest the 5 gallon home made saucers work better with a few caveats, first, it's hard to see the water level in the tray with the three gallon bags and second, sometimes when you add water the water runs out of the bag onto the floor missing the saucer.


However, next year I am limiting the tent to 9 plants.






January 24th, 2019


When I got home I headed right to the grow room and checked the plants, I removed all the Romaine and BSS Lettuce from the grow table and Grow tent and took them upstairs.

I also noticed something chewing on my Bok Choy and some droppings in my Romaine.
I hope it was from this guy, sorry buddy!

It was round 2 with the aphids, they were worse today after the purge yesterday. I removed everything from the grow tent and placed them on the table. I topped off all the pots with some potting mix, inspected every plant and trimmed some leaves and branches from the tomato plants.

I hand washed every leaf on the Jimmy Nardello peppers and some leaves on the tomatoes and eggplants with warm water, massaging the leaves between my fingers, for some reason the aphids are loving the pepper plants. I don't want to use insecticidal soap or anything just yet, as I am afraid to damage the plants.


I am really impressed with the growth of the tomato plants, the stems are very thick and stout.

This Abe Lincoln even has a few flowers already, I dont know if that is a good thing or a bad thing?

Everything is placed back in the tent.

I ordered these pot saucers which are very nice but take up too much floor space so they were sent back.

I installed my Monkey fan but plan on keeping both fans in the tent.

My original goal of having the garage between 65°F - 70°F and the tent between 72°F - 82°F, is going to be a lot harder than I thought.

I am having a hell of a time controlling the temperature in the tent and the garage, it's not so bad when it is cold outside but the temp swing outside is just unbelievable, it was 9°F a few days ago then today it was 61°F

I have a digital temperature controller that I made a few years ago for my Sous Vide machine, I'm going to give that a shot, but to be honest I don't think it will help when the outside temps are warmer.


With all the Grow Lights running at 100% it gets pretty hot in the tent. The only other thing I can think of is pulling in more air from outside which should work just as long as it stays cool (below 35°F) outside.

I also turned the "Red" settings on the grow lights to 50%. I'll bump them back up to 100% when I start getting flowers.

January 25th, 2019


When I got home I installed the temperature controller.

I'm still battling the aphids, I'm going to hand clean each plant a few more days before I start spraying. The pics below are 24 hours after the last cleaning.

They aren't damaging the plant yet but its getting harder to get these nasty guys out of the new leaves.






They're easy to maintain when they are under the leaves.

I turned the lights up to 100% and I'm also still battling the heat in the tent, 87°F seems about the highest it will get. If it gets any higher I need to figure out a better exhaust and intake.



Two of my tomato plants have put on flower buds, the Jet Star and the Abe Lincoln.

Decided to harvest most of the Bok Choy for dinner.

January 27th, 2019


Once the tomato plant flowered, I fertilized the Jet Star with a Jobes 2-7-4 and will see how that does before fertilizing the Abe Lincoln which has also flowered. I hit the flower with an electric toothbrush.

Here is a quick Grow Room Tour




January 28th, 2019


I sprayed the Jimmy Nardello pepper with my "Aphid X" (1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper - Teaspoon Dish Soap - 1qt. water)


Here is my Robotic Bee!

January 29th, 2019


I really don't get this temp swing, I can't see how it can get to 67°F when I have the temperature controller set to 72°F, anyhow I adjusted the Temperature controller to 75°F. So the low (oil heater) is set for 75°F and the high (vent fan) is set for 80°F



I have three tomato plants with flowers, time to pollinate with my robotic bee! Everything is doing pretty good except my one pot of Jimmy Nardello peppers, the plants seem to be at a standstill.

I found where the Aphids were congregating, seems they love the cilantro. I sprayed the cilantro real good then washed the entire plant under tepid water.