InkyStinky
Member
Okay, so... long story short: I had a nice plant growing outside, about 9 -12" (just started this year). It was pretty unmistakeable as to what it was even hiding in with a mixture of other plants. My wife made me move it (out of plain site), so I dug it up, found an old plastic bucket (like a kids sand box kinda thing), filled it with some dirt and the plant and stuck it in the garage in clear path of some decent light.
*MISTAKE #1- Make sure anything holding your plant has DRAIN HOLES in the bottom.
*MISTAKE #2- Don't stick a plant in the garage an expect it to live.
After it started withering a bit (in the little bucket) I had assumed that the muggy atmosphere in the garage was killing the plant. I realize NOW what I did (after doing research on this excellent website). When the plant was planted outside I would go out and water it every day. Water would soak into dirt and go down, down down. Pretty much even when it stormed, the plant was fine. However, when moving a plant into a pail, bucket, pot...
*MISTAKE #3- DO NOT water the plant everyday. Best advice I read on here was water every 3-4 days. Let the soil almost dry up and the roots will be forced to grow deep searching for water. Overwatering drowns your plant. Awesome. Wish I knew that earlier. Plant died... had to start from seed again.
Anyways, since then I gutted an old broken computer case, rigged it up with a "plant light" I found at Home Depot, and 2 computer fans (one low blowing in, one high sucking out)
*MISTAKE #4- DO NOT use "Plant lights" from Home Depot. These are the lights that are basically in the shape of an old style oil can and they are coated blue. They are garbage. If you have a small space, go buy a 60 Watt Compact Fluorescent Light.
After the plant started to get too tall, I ditched the computer case and gutted and built a 2 drawer stealth File cabinet.
*MISTAKE #5- DO NOT bother gutting a computer case in the first place. If you're going through all the trouble anyway, just do a file cabinet.
So, reflective tape all around, relocated the computer case fans. Dopped in my light with 1 60Watt CFL and add water and new baby plant.
*MISTAKE #6- Make sure you're still not watering EVERY DAY (at this point I had still not learned that lesson yet)
*MISTAKE #7- Go and buy a bag of fresh SOIL/POTTING MIX instead of reusing stuff that was sitting in a planter outside (plant had no Nitrogen in soil)
*MISTAKE #8- Don't use just 1 CFL ( I have a High Times Cultivation Manual which was reading material I had purchased in my younger days. However with copyright date of 1995, there was no info on CFL's... since they hadn't been invented yet). Buy some two way bulb splitters... but don't screw the bulbs into them, screw more splitters into them... then screw in 4 60Watt CFLS (what a concept).
*MISTAKE #9- The lights are better suited just a few inches from the actual plant, not way up high at the top of the cabinet.
So when my plant was growing in the PC case, the stem was pretty tall (about 4-5") while the plant only had 2 leaves.
*MISTAKE #10- Maybe I didn't bury the seed deep enough, not sure, but fix this by reburying that stem under the soil so that just these leaves are sticking out of the soil (shortening the plant). My plant kept falling over. I ended up propping it up with 2 tattoo needles and a bread tie wire. Then after seeing everyone's low growing plants on here, realized I was doing something wrong.
So all said and done, I did more research (using my copyright 1995 book) and decided to make a (as suggested) C02 producer, using an inverted 2 liter, vinegar, some tubing, a tupperware container filled with baking soda, and a shutoff valve (basically creating an IV... I'm not explaining it, Google it). This worked great at first. Eventually it started leaking and now my basement smells like vinegar.
*MISTAKE #11- Do not bother making one of these things unless you can make it foolproof/leakproof. I had to take apart my cabinet, clean everything, my basement still smells, and my plant could've died (vinegar is basically acid, when it leaks out and fills in a small space with a plant in it the plant starts to wilt).
So I think I'm pretty current now. Realized my last mistake last night:
*MISTAKE #12- Make sure your pot/planter is filled with soil ALL THE WAY to the top. If it's sunk in, light is not getting in there, it's getting blocked by the lip of the planter and the leaves of the plant. I'm pretty sure mine was flush when I added the new soil, but after the first couple waterings, it sucked itself down.
So there you have it. 12 simple stupid mistakes that can be easily avoided with a little research. But I figure it's trial and error. Nobody does everything right the first time, right? And I'll probably make 12 more mistakes before I'm done.
I do have a taller 4 drawer heavy duty filing cabinet that I'm gonna be revamping for my next project. It was a freebie that I got from my last job.
So anyway, to all you NOOBS out there (like ME)... use this... learn from my mistakes. And never stop doing research.
*MISTAKE #1- Make sure anything holding your plant has DRAIN HOLES in the bottom.
*MISTAKE #2- Don't stick a plant in the garage an expect it to live.
After it started withering a bit (in the little bucket) I had assumed that the muggy atmosphere in the garage was killing the plant. I realize NOW what I did (after doing research on this excellent website). When the plant was planted outside I would go out and water it every day. Water would soak into dirt and go down, down down. Pretty much even when it stormed, the plant was fine. However, when moving a plant into a pail, bucket, pot...
*MISTAKE #3- DO NOT water the plant everyday. Best advice I read on here was water every 3-4 days. Let the soil almost dry up and the roots will be forced to grow deep searching for water. Overwatering drowns your plant. Awesome. Wish I knew that earlier. Plant died... had to start from seed again.
Anyways, since then I gutted an old broken computer case, rigged it up with a "plant light" I found at Home Depot, and 2 computer fans (one low blowing in, one high sucking out)
*MISTAKE #4- DO NOT use "Plant lights" from Home Depot. These are the lights that are basically in the shape of an old style oil can and they are coated blue. They are garbage. If you have a small space, go buy a 60 Watt Compact Fluorescent Light.
After the plant started to get too tall, I ditched the computer case and gutted and built a 2 drawer stealth File cabinet.
*MISTAKE #5- DO NOT bother gutting a computer case in the first place. If you're going through all the trouble anyway, just do a file cabinet.
So, reflective tape all around, relocated the computer case fans. Dopped in my light with 1 60Watt CFL and add water and new baby plant.
*MISTAKE #6- Make sure you're still not watering EVERY DAY (at this point I had still not learned that lesson yet)
*MISTAKE #7- Go and buy a bag of fresh SOIL/POTTING MIX instead of reusing stuff that was sitting in a planter outside (plant had no Nitrogen in soil)
*MISTAKE #8- Don't use just 1 CFL ( I have a High Times Cultivation Manual which was reading material I had purchased in my younger days. However with copyright date of 1995, there was no info on CFL's... since they hadn't been invented yet). Buy some two way bulb splitters... but don't screw the bulbs into them, screw more splitters into them... then screw in 4 60Watt CFLS (what a concept).
*MISTAKE #9- The lights are better suited just a few inches from the actual plant, not way up high at the top of the cabinet.
So when my plant was growing in the PC case, the stem was pretty tall (about 4-5") while the plant only had 2 leaves.
*MISTAKE #10- Maybe I didn't bury the seed deep enough, not sure, but fix this by reburying that stem under the soil so that just these leaves are sticking out of the soil (shortening the plant). My plant kept falling over. I ended up propping it up with 2 tattoo needles and a bread tie wire. Then after seeing everyone's low growing plants on here, realized I was doing something wrong.
So all said and done, I did more research (using my copyright 1995 book) and decided to make a (as suggested) C02 producer, using an inverted 2 liter, vinegar, some tubing, a tupperware container filled with baking soda, and a shutoff valve (basically creating an IV... I'm not explaining it, Google it). This worked great at first. Eventually it started leaking and now my basement smells like vinegar.
*MISTAKE #11- Do not bother making one of these things unless you can make it foolproof/leakproof. I had to take apart my cabinet, clean everything, my basement still smells, and my plant could've died (vinegar is basically acid, when it leaks out and fills in a small space with a plant in it the plant starts to wilt).
So I think I'm pretty current now. Realized my last mistake last night:
*MISTAKE #12- Make sure your pot/planter is filled with soil ALL THE WAY to the top. If it's sunk in, light is not getting in there, it's getting blocked by the lip of the planter and the leaves of the plant. I'm pretty sure mine was flush when I added the new soil, but after the first couple waterings, it sucked itself down.
So there you have it. 12 simple stupid mistakes that can be easily avoided with a little research. But I figure it's trial and error. Nobody does everything right the first time, right? And I'll probably make 12 more mistakes before I'm done.
I do have a taller 4 drawer heavy duty filing cabinet that I'm gonna be revamping for my next project. It was a freebie that I got from my last job.
So anyway, to all you NOOBS out there (like ME)... use this... learn from my mistakes. And never stop doing research.
