I’m so excited about this grow I could hardly sleep last night! Every day the plants just look better and better not to mention the fact that flowers are opening all over the place and we already have a couple baby tomatoes on the vine. Last time I tried to grow these things it took over 100 days for me to get anything like this going, and that was from a pretty sizable soil transplant. pH 5.8 EC 2.0 Using General Hydroponics Floramato, CalMg+, and Florablend (as a foliar spray). The daytime temps have been a little higher than I would like (max 87 min 75) since one of our AC units at Studio Logic is down. We are trying to use the ultrasonic fogger to keep the humidity around 70% but it ranges from 50-80. Looks like the new intake fan I installed is going to keep it a little cooler right now 80.9 degrees and 58% RH.
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- The First Baby Tomato
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- Check out those flowers!
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- Another couple trusses
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- Leaf health improving
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- The top view
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- Ah! The Beauty
Tags: Baby Tomato, Flowers, General Hydroponics Floramato, General Hydroponics Power Grower, Grow lab, Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Indoor Tomato, Leaf, Nutrient Concentration, pH, Relative Humidity, Ultrasonic Fogger
Video update of my growroom. Hydroponic Strawberries, some new starts and a little comparison grow. Leave us a comment to suggest a crop…soy? bok choi? Super-dwarf plants of some sort?
Tags: AeroRail, Hydroponic Jalapenos, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Hydroponic Strawberries, Hydroponic Thai Peppers, LED UFO, T5 HO, video
Do you want to learn how to build our systems? Do you grow vegetables hydroponically indoors or out? Or maybe you want to learn? If so UHGU can provide lots of help/advice as well as plans to build any of the systems you have seen us growing with. After a year and a half of experimentation and system building we have a lot of things figured out and we are willing to share that knowledge with individuals who share our vision of distributed urban agriculture. The more people we have collaborating on developing proven methods of indoor/backyard/rooftop hydroponic production the sooner the “Harvest” will come. The only current requirements to become a contributor is a willingness to collaborate with us on your grow projects and the ability to post weekly updates on your progress(i.e. internet connection and a digital camera). Beginners and experienced growers welcome. If you are interested in becoming a contributor click here to send us an email.
Tags: Advice, Contributors, Distributed Urban Agriculture, Hydroponic Systems, Knowlege, Urban Hydroponic Growers Union Mission Statement
The growth rate of the plants has definitely increased since raising the humidity in the tent and the rolling of the leaves has improved even further (although not completely solved). The plants are still abandoning limbs a little earlier than I would like to see. We are figuring by Monday the plants will be large enough to begin trellising into the scrog. I am very encouraged by the number of buds I am seeing and even flowers opening.
Tags: Buds, Flowers, Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Indoor Tomato, Leaf
So we got motivated today and went even further with Charles’ shade house. We got the frame finished and got some tan shade cloth hung ofter half of the roof. Charles still has to make a decision on the other half. We are thinking maybe some polycarbonate paneling would be nice. Just wait till we get a power-grower 8-pack out under this thing growing some jalapenos, thai peppers and maybe some bhuts!
Hanging some rafters
Setting up the shade-cloth
Tags: General Hydroponics Power Grower 8-pack, Outdoor Garden, Peppers, Shade-House, Topsy Turvy
I haven’t yet talked a whole bunch about the vision that Charles and I share for UHGU. So even some of our regular readers may not be aware of what we mean by “pioneering distributed urban agriculture”. More on this coming very soon. While indoor LED growing for apartment dwellers like myself plays a huge role in our vision, we want UHGU to be so much more. Backyard, Greenhouse, and even rooftop greenhouses all all a part of the future for urbanites who want healthy, pesticide free produce. Recently, Charles was able to help us take the next step forward by obtaining a backyard! We have big plans for his newfound square footage and we made some of the first steps today. We are turning his deck into a shade-house and have plans for a Greenhouse as soon as we can scrape together the funds to make it a reality. Until then, enjoy the comedy of us using my car as a lumber hauler so that we could hang a couple of topsy turvy’s on the back porch until we can get the roof on it so that it’ll be ready for hydro.
Tags: Backyard Gardens, Distributed Urban Agriculture, Greenhouse, Heat Wave Tomato, Rooftop Greenhouse, Shade-House, Topsy Turvy
So after doing loads of research and asking every growing contact I could think of for help with our Roma grow, I found this article on Urban Garden Magazines Website: Plantworks: Part 1 – Humidity and Vapor Pressure Deficit which included this chart:
| Low VPD / High RH | High VPD / Low RH | |
| Mineral deficiencies | Wilting | |
| Guttation | Leaf roll | |
| Disease | Stunted plants | |
| Soft growth | Leathery/crispy leaves |
Since we had 2/4 low humidity symptoms and our daytime RH was only about 45% I decided to take one of my ultrasonic foggers and put it in a bowl in front of the intake fan and see what happened. Low and behold when relative humidity started coming up above 50% and maxing around 65% the plant started to slowly unroll their leaves and look better in general. Getting this right required me to rewire a couple things to allow the exhaust fan to only come on during the irrigation cycle so the temps rose a little bit, but it looks like the Romas are enjoying this new more tropical environment! Reminds me of the first Urban Garden Magazine issue I ever read and Everest was right…environment is everything.
Tags: environment, Exhaust, Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Indoor Tomato, Intake, Relative Humidity, temperature, Tomato Physiological Leaf Roll, Ultrasonic Fogger, Urban Garden Magazine, Vapor pressure deficit
So we set out to complete our Roma tomato setup with a scrog screen and some bases to put the powergrowers on. We figured this would be the last change to take the plants out of the tent to do a good nutrient flush so we did that two. I am really happy with the way the screen came out and hope the results are as good. There is no doubt that these tomatoes are growing faster than I have ever seen under LED, especially since they are already starting to bud. The leaf curl seems to be improving albeit slowly since I reduced the irrigation cycle.
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- The Screen of Green (Hopefully)
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- Detail of the screen hangers
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- Check out the buds!
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- The smaller of the two plants
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- Me clipping the plants to their strings
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- All ready!
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- A look under the screen
Tags: General Hydroponics Power Grower, Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Indoor Tomato, SCROG
So Charles recorded and uploaded this video from his new iphone 4, but he hasn’t yet remembered to turn the thing on its side before recording video 
Anyway check it out.
Tags: General Hydroponics Power Grower, Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Indoor Tomato, Tomato Physiological Leaf Roll, video
The Romas are growing fast (almost doubled in size the first week) but initially struggled a bit from transplant shock. I am hoping the plants will grow out of their tendency to “roll” their leaves up a couple days after growing them. This condition is known as “Tomato Physiological Leaf Roll” and current research says it is purely cosmetic and does not affect growth or yield. We shall see! The current nutrient concentration is EC 1.8 and pH is 5.8
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- Under the Penetrator
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- Plant 1 True Color
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- Plant 2 True Color
Tags: Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Tomato Physiological Leaf Roll, Transplant Shock
Added a Tri-meter to the setup to help with nutrient maintenance. I highly recommend these things as they save a lot of effort when watching your nutrient concentration and pH I also decided to crawl under the rails and take some pictures. This is pretty much what I have to do every day to find the ripe berries. After spending the time to calibrate all my meters it looks like the Tri-meter is on the KCl scale so 920ppm equates to about 1.7EC. So I plan on letting the concentration go as high as 1000ppm before adding refill solution each time. This is usually 3-5 gallons weekly.
The pH in the pictures is low (5.0) because I just added nutrient solution and it takes a little time for the pH to buffer. Which is why I prefer to make nutrient adjustments when the irrigation pump is off during the night.
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- Another Harvest
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- They may cost $200 but its worth every penny
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- Got to love that familiar purple glow
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- The grow from the front with lights off
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- Sideshot with the lights off
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- I lost a plant due to a clogged sprayer, but i’ll just root a runner soon to replace it
Tags: Grow lab, Harvest, Hydroponic Strawberries, LED UFO, Maintenance, Nutrient Concentration, pH, runners, Tri-Meter
So here are the specs for the grow. One 47″X47″ Growlab. Two Roma tomato plants. Two General Hydroponics Power Growers. Couple of Axial fans. One oscillating fan. Subculture -M, GH Floramato 1.2 EC & pH 6.2, Flora-blend being used as foliar spray. Photoperiod 16L 8D. Irrigation 30 minutes on 1 Hour off during the light period. Two 30 minute irrigation periods during the night mainly just to keep the solution aerated. Whenever irrigation is happening the exhaust and intake fans go to work to bring in fresh air and keep the temperature prime. The oscillator runs all day(Or manually adjusted). The light is set at 21 inches above the plants (according to Hydro Grow’s graph on the website this should provide ideal quantity of light for the toms, don’t worry forgot to lower the light before taking those last setup pics it is lower than shown there). I have placed a temperature sensor in the tent so i’ll provide the min/max temps soon.
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- Mixing up the beautiful black of subculture-m
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- Beneficial Bacteria anyone?
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- Inoculating the seedlings with subculture-m
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- The Setup before the plants
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- Setting the Irrigation Timer
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- Gota have exhaust and Intake fans
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- Setting the pH before adding nutrient
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- Mixing away
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- Ready for planting pH 6.2 EC 1.2
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- Attaching the air hoses
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- Playing with our little balls
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- Bury them deep. We’ll even add more as the plants grow
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- Plants are purposely planted low
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- Tada!
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- Already to thrive…now lower that light!
Tags: Aeration, Axial Fan, EC, Exhaust, Flora-Blend, Foliar Spray, General Hydroponics Floramato, General Hydroponics Power Grower, Grow lab, Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato, Intake, Irriagtion, Light Height, Oscillating fan, pH, Photoperiod, Subculture-M
Finally a retail grow light company gives us a shot!
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- Finally a retail grow light company gives us a shot!
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- The Penetrator 345 Led Grow-light
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- The light pattern of the 345 seems to be very unique
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- Coverage and Intensity with light at 20 inches
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- Coverage and Intensity with light at 35 inches
A few things I like about Hydro-Grow-LEDs lights
– They are very upfront about what spectra of LEDs compose the light
– The provide a chart of the light output of their light at different heights in micro-moles/sqinch
– They have chosen not to exaggerate the coverage area of their lights.
– The square shape of the light is good for square tents.
– Have you seen their vertical LED light? Super cool.
Some questions the test should help us answer
– Can LED lights produce Full-size tomatoes?
– Will the use of 60 degree bulbs provide for better light intensity and canopy penetration?
– Is it worth the smaller coverage area? (Our 345W test light has a 3′x3′ coverage area)
– Will the addition of IR bulbs help fight leaf edema?
The one known downside to this light?
– The Cost. I think this baby retails for ~$1200, but honestly if it can produce some Roma Tomatoes and other lights can’t, I’ll give it a round of applause.
First look at this thing…Wow! what a monster! That light pattern is really cool looking too. Looks like this light does have some ingenuity put into it that Chinese Ebay lights don’t. Can’t wait to get started. We got the plants started several weeks ago so all lights are a go for this test.
Tags: Hydro Grow LED Penetrator 345 Test, Hydroponic Roma Tomato
Well, The harvest are continuing to get larger and more frequent and the fruit size is increasing. Looks like the adjustments we have been making have paid off.
Tags: Harvest, Hydroponic Strawberries, LED UFO, Zach's Tent 1
Yesterday Charles and I spent some time getting our grow spaces ready for the next major UHGU project. Although I’m not quite ready to let the cat out of the bag on what the project is exactly I can say that it will involve 2 grow tents and some Roma Tomato plants (more on this coming soon. As we did that, I was able to do a complete nutrient change on the strawberries as well as add a fan into their tent. I have also begun using a foliar spray of GH Florablend on them as well as on my tomato seedlings.
Starting to fine tune the parameters. Added an air-stone into the reservoir as well as some flora-nectar. Harvested the first really full size fruit today. Looks like this grow is continuing to increase in quantity and quality.
LED Strawberries Fruits of Labor
Tags: Flora-Nectar, GH Flora 3-Part, Harvest, Hydroponic Strawberries, Indoor Pollination, LED UFO
Since Charles is about to move and in between grows. I get to hog some wattage. Check out these pics of a 4×4 grow lab with (4) 90W UFO LEDs. That’s right my friends, 360W of LED glory. If I don’t get some boostamente out of this setup, I might just have to give up . I also was informed by my apartment complex yesterday that they would be visiting our apartments during the day today. I left my windows open on the tent so they could see the plants. I also left a sign that said, “These are strawberry plants. I don’t grow illegal substances.” I still half expected to be greeted by johnny law and destroyed equipment when I got home. It did however, motivate me to do a uber clean of the growroom. While I was at it I did alot of strawberry pruning and pollinating. I really think this grow is starting to look great. Hopefully it begins to yield as good as it looks.
Tags: 360W, Hydroponic Strawberries, LED UFO, Pruning
I’ll be posing alot of video updates soon. Until then, enjoy. Tigerlily, ragnar, or red any advice on nutrient mixture? I am currently using 3-part flora series in a 1-1-1 ratio at 500ppm.
Tags: Hydroponic Strawberries, Indoor Pollination, LED UFO, Zach's Tent 1
These pictures where taken on May the sixth, at this point in the grow the plants where just starting to yield their first fruit. Most all the plants had between 5 and 8 mature leaves, so I felt that it was time to begin the transition to an LED only grow. I added a third UFO for a total of 270W. It turns out that the hardest thing about growing these strawberries is finding and pollinating the flowers. You have a very short window to get the job done, and many days there are a bunch of flowers to find, not to mention that you need to find and cut all the runners as well.
Tags: Hydroponic Strawberries, Indoor Pollination, LED UFO, runners, Zach's Tent 1
Sorry it took so long for an update on the strawberries, but I spent a bit of time in the hospital due to a subdural hematoma. Crazyness. Anyway things are well on the way to normalness now so I figured I’d post a couple of pics of the strawberries. 5 of them didn’t take so I replanted with the extras from burpee. For the most part things are looking great. I’ve been plucking alot of flowers of due to reading that I shouldn’t let fruits develop until the plants have 5-8 mature leaves. I am getting close
Tags: Hydroponic Strawberries, LED, Subdural Hematoma, T5 H0
Well, Today i decided to pick the next batch of jalapenos, mainly because its time to make some more pickled peppers! Hook me up with some recipes! to my surprise, I found a few of the Thai peppers have started to ripen. I thought this would never happen!. I would say that the total weight of the pepper harvest is around 1 lb, although I’m going to add the mature peppers found in the super cropper at work tomorrow. Ive got a scale up there, so I will give an exact weight. I also snapped a few shots of the sugar snack plants, and have my fingers crossed that they are going to start to ripen any day now. the plant is huge! Never worked with a tomato plant myself–let alone an indeterminate! Zach has some clones going for me, so i can start fresh with a better game plan for keeping them under control. Its been just over a year since we started, and look forward to learning as much as we can. If anyone in the Houston/Texas area is interested in joining the team, contact us, as we have accumulated enough growing systems and know-how to get you going, even if you’re a beginner!
Well, yet another new garden is being designed and constructed. Although it is a typical soil based outdoor garden, we believe in utilizing as much space as we c
an get our hands on. The task for today was to take a massive pile of leftover stones from the construction of my parents new house and integrate them into the landscape, creating a semi-circle shaped raised bed.
each of the stones weigh between 20 and 85 pounds, and although some had straight edges, most were irregular in shape. the goal was to create a raised bed with a height of about 12-18 inches since the natural terrain is too rocky and coarse.
after about 6 hours of work, we finally created the shape, stacked the stones and essentially leveled the mound of material we started with. although there is plenty more land to make the garden bigger, expansion will have to wait til another season.
Stay tuned, the next steps are filling in the gaps between the larger stones with the rock fragments, lining the form with garden liner, and hauling in the tons of dirt!
stay tuned
Tags: Charles Sr., Outdoor Garden, rocks, stone
Not only do I think it is a great idea for a houseplant but where I think the hydroponic systems of tomorrow should be aiming. Can you imagine a power-grower with integrated nutrient monitoring? A little digital readout right on the front of an aeroflo reservoir that tells you nutrient temperature, pH, and concentration. I’m going to go really tech-fi here and say throw a wi-fi card in these things and let them sync up with a program on my desktop (I think i’ll start working on the software now maybe an iphone app ) that will record the data, keep track of the plants life-cycle, and notify me of maintenance events like nutrient changes. Heck why not have it keep a life feed right here on urbanhydro.org. When you think about it the technology is here today, its really more about economics. As jealous as I have become over what I see as the economic ease that cannabis growers enjoy when compared to indoor vegetable growers, I don’t really see any other driver behind hydroponic economics that could bring this techno-hydro dream into reality. So I hope my friends on the other side of the law become really lazy gardeners who want to monitor their cash crops from the other side of an internet connection so I can enjoy the toys!
Seeing Eye Flower Pot
Tags: Randomness