Improving your grow-game doesn’t always have to be expensive, or difficult to learn. Our greatest growing successes are often the culmination of many small efforts and tweaks rather than one grandiose slam-dunk.
Let’s have a look at a few tasty bits that you can easily adopt into your garden – whether you are just starting out, or have been enjoying indoor harvests for a few moons now.
[highlight ] 1 [/highlight] Don’t water your plants right out of the tap or immediately after RO (reverse osmosis) filtering your water into your holding tank-chances are, it’s too cold and is going to shock your plants. The roots will have to warm again for the plant to get back on the rails of accelerated growth. Temperature is the number one governor of all living reactions on this planet. [highlight ] 2 [/highlight] Understand how much space your plants are going to need. How many plants it will take to fill your grow space within the time you allot for the crop? This usually takes practice to dial into perfection; you need to understand the characteristics of the strain you are working with. Will it grow 25% or 300% more after you initiate the bloom phase? Asking breeders or other growers may provide some answers. Those answers can be worth more than gold! [highlight ] 3 [/highlight] Keep the growing area clean and uncluttered. Too many growing disasters originate from clutter or plant debris scattered about the growing area. Keep the inside of the grow room or tent as clean, and as organized as possible – no wires on the floor either! Your life may seem like pure chaos, but in your garden is where you can reign supreme. [highlight ] 4 [/highlight] Maintain the right temperature. It’s easy to blast plants with light; and it’s even easier to overheat your crop if you can’t manage it properly. Most artificial light sources throw off a lot of heat. If you can’t keep your grow temperatures below 29.5 C when the lights are on, your plants are likely to suffer. Dimmable ballasts or using lower wattage lighting may be an option if your ventilation abilities are maxed-out. [highlight ] 5 [/highlight] Don’t fly blind, learn some biology. While you don’t need to become an HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) expert or a fertilizer chemist to achieve great results these days, it still pays to have a good understanding of how the different types of equipment operate in your garden and what the different nutrient ingredients are going to do for your plants. Reading gardening magazines can help a lot, and the internet can also be a good source of info. Once you understand the fundamentals you can make it all work better for your particular growing needs. [highlight ] 6 [/highlight] Don’t under estimate the importance of training and sculpting your plants in the garden so that they can give you the best production and quality possible. For example, the lower third of the plant is often receiving much less light than the top. These lower portions produce poorly, and rob energy from the more intensive top growth. Prune those suckers off after about the secondweek of flowering. [highlight ] 7 [/highlight] When you are a grower, avoiding disaster is as much a mark of success as any. If you have waterlines that are pressurized in the grow room, for example city or well pump pressure; make sure that you use reinforced hosing that will not burst when unattended. You could wind up coming back to a huge problem if you don’t. [highlight ] 8 [/highlight] Avoid interrupting the dark cycle, especially in the bloom phase. If you don’t you can wind up with confused plants that produce poorly or that go straight to seed. When entering the room during the dark cycle is a must, only green LED lighting is recommended. It will help you see your way around without seriously interrupting your plants’ rest. Make sure you don’t see any light leaks when you stand in the room during the dark phase.
[alert type=white ]This indoor growing tips article is reprinted from Garden Culture Magazine, Issue 1. It was written by Erik Biska under the title, “Things That Make You A Better Grower”[/alert]