indoor grow light garden

Tobacco update! april 27th 2011...check it out!...

2011-04-28T05:14:00.000-07:00

Tobacco seedling

small now...but wait a month or 2 and they will be monsters!

Young tobacco leaf.... no nicotine at this point.

My tobacco seedlings are doing so well...I have a bunch of them maybe over 80 of them in total. A bunch of them died because I didn't water them in time...but a bunch still made it through all right.
At this time of year I usually start to think about my annual May 9th BAR-B-Q and plant out. This year I'm thinking BAR-B-Q lamb steaks and lamb chops and some hot dogs hamburgers and roasted veggies on a stick....yummmm!.... followed by the planting of the first plants of the season. I will film the occasion and take photos for the blog as well.

Lemon tree update...april 27th 2011....

2011-04-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

My summertime lemon 4 months ago

My summertime lemon today

My smaller lemons present day

The smaller lemons four months ago

Well guys, it's time for another lemon growth update....In the pics above, I have compared the trees four months ago and at present....they have grown significantly over a four month period as you can see, and my summertime lemon is definitely going to be the perfect size to graft this season...I have stopped giving the lemon trees any fertilizers of nutrients because of the nutrient burn I found on some leaves...I forgot to water the smaller lemons and they kind of dried out a bit but were back to their usual selves in no time after a good deep watering.

Flowers in the forest...toronto park forested area full of low growing blue flowers...

2011-04-21T04:44:00.000-07:00

Spring flowers cover the terrain in the local park

Flowers *up close*

The trees and bushes are now starting to grow new leaves

Hey guys...spring is here but it's still cold in Toronto. It's +2 feeling like -4...so still a bit to go till I plant my crops out side... Yesterday I went for a walk in the park and was amazed at the great blue colored flowers covering the earth in the forested area of the park.

Summertime lemon in new stages of growth...at least three or four new branches growing...check it out...

2011-04-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

New branches on lemon tree

Another branch...a bit more mature than the others

Small start of a branch

Hey guys, time for an indoor garden update... I was looking at my summertime lemon this morning and I realized it had around three or four new branches growing! Some were more mature than others, some were just tiny beginnings of a branch. It still has some nutrient burn, but I don't think that will go away overnight...I'm counting the days till the nursery will have mature lemon trees in stock so I can graft this guy. Anyway, I'll keep you updated...

Tobacco growing after transplant....lemon looks like its got nutrient burn on leaves...

2011-04-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Tobacco seedlings before transplanting

Tobacco seedlings after transplanting

Healthy tobacco seeling

Sick lemon leaf-nutrient burn

Another leaf with nutrient burn

Healthy lemon leaf

Hey there everyone ....time for a blog post update for the indoor grow light garden!...
I gave the summertime lemon a dose of nutrients in the form of mist from the spray bottle to let the leaves soak up the nutrients...but this has backfired and some of the leaves look like they have nutrient burn...so for now I'm going to lay off the nutrients and I gave the plant a good watering this morning ....I have decided to move the summertime lemon under a 125w CFL just until my closet is free from all my tobacco seedlings.
My tobacco seedlings are doing quite well. One or two have died but that is not unexpected when transplanting so many. The pictures were taken with my new camera. Hope you enjoy them....

Toronto in spring! soon will be planting time!...have a look...

2011-04-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

Flower

flower clusters near the subway

Flowers in the sun

Beutiful red bud/flowers on a tree in the park

Yellow buds on Toronto side street

As you can see, the trees and bushes are budding and the flowers are looking really great. Ahhh.... spring at last! Nice cool breeze, glistening sun, people on the move... The temp is about +14 C. i need some help identifying theis flowers I think the yellow one is a Dafadil but im not 100% sure...If you know feel free to leave it in the comments section...thanks.

In my closet right now there are over 120 tobacco seedlings in separate cups... I have found a few more places to plant the tobacco seedlings that get at least 6 hours of light a day in and around the parks and side streets in my neighbourhood. My biggest concern will be gardeners... Will they recognize the plant and steal it? Or will they not even notice it? Will they give me a fine? Who knows, but I'm going to find out...so in a few weeks I will start to upload photos of my out door guerrilla garden and my tobacco plants as well.

Spring's around the corner went out in my shorts the other day...

2011-04-08T00:12:00.000-07:00

My grow closet taken over by teeny tiny tobacco seedlings

Small transplanted tobacco seedling at 8 days old

My new planting station, 125w CFL (veg)

ok guys well you can see im getting ready for spring and the last frost...ive been having a hard time with the little bathroom cups i used to transplant the tobacco seedlings into they dont drain well and are falling apart ...so dont use dixie bathroom cups for planting if you can help it...some of my tobacco seedling have died because they got too dryed out and i didnt get to them in time with the spray bottle. so now im going to be watering them as much as possible maybe even 3 times a day with the sopray bottle so the ones that are still alive wont dry out and die too. I cant wait till planting day that will be great...May 9th is the last frost in toronto ...May 25th for tropical plants (and also my birthday!) My strawberry seeds did not sprout at all they were total duds not even one of them...oh well...happens some times. also i would like to invete you...my viewers...to watch my videos on youtube...click on the link below its one of my favoret indoor garden update videos in my youtube.com channel. In the mean time ill keep you posted on new stuff going on in the "indoor growlight garden":) click here for youtube video

Tobacco, strawberry is a carrot!...planted out a bunch of stuff today!...

2011-03-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

My grow closet full of newly planted seeds

Hey, guys, time for a quick update...today I planted a whole bunch of tobacco seeds and got my grow closet really full of potential new plants for my spring garden!...I'm going to keep some of the tobacco plants inside and compare the indoor tobacco with the outdoor tobacco plants and see which are better.
My "strawberry" that I posted a picture of in an earlier blog post turned out to really be a carrot seedling! I am using the soil from my previous carrot harvest so I guess a seed got mixed into the soil and decided to sprout. I haven't been having luck with these strawberry seeds I bought on ebay... I bought the tobacco seeds from a Canadian company so let's hope the tobacco seeds sprout better. I'll keep you updated!

tobacco seeds arived today.......chek it out....my youtube.com video...

2011-03-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

ok guys got a tobacco seeds video out on youtube.com......all welcome to check it out and subscribe...join and share some videos too if you feel like it...click on the link below....

http://youtu.be/EvAGMM3wk10

Tobacco and Morning Glory seeds! arrived in record time!

2011-03-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

Tobacco seeds (left) and Morning Glory seeds (right)

Today I got my tobacco seeds in the mail. I bought them from a Canadian company located in Barrie, Ontario called Providence Acre Farm. I was surprised at how fast the seeds arrived. I only ordered them three or four days ago! And on top of that, they sent me a free bonus -- morning glory seeds! Today I will be planting the tobacco seeds so that I get a head start on the growing season. Tobacco seeds are sown directly on top of the soil and watered with a spray bottle until they germinate. It takes anywhere from 7 to 27 days for them to germinate. They should be about 5-6 inches tall before they are planted outside in the garden after the last frost. They will grow just about anywhere and the tobacco plant will adapt to the terrain and weather of most places and will produce seeds hardy to that climate. I plan on trying to make my own cigarettes, and I heard that tobacco plants repel bugs in the garden. So we'll see if that's really true this summer. Anyway, I'll keep you updated...

First of the strawberries is germinating!...

2011-03-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

Look at that tiny strawberry plant...

Well it's official. I now have some strawberry seedlings starting. So I moved them out of the little mini greenhouse and put them under the 90w LED UFO grow light! It looks like I'm right on schedule for preparing my spring plants to go into my garden in the park. I hope to have an abondant crop of berries all summer long. Well I'll keep you updated.

update!....summer time lemon looks a bit sick ...

2011-03-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

My lemon with some yellow leaves.

My 5 gallon buckets ready for the transplanting

My lemons have been looking a bit yellow lately so I have tried to figure out what the problem might be. I am currently going to wait till the soil dries and then I'm going to transplant the summertime lemon into the 5 gallon buckets (as seen in the picture above) to try and eliminate the possibility that the tree might be root bound. and I raised the LED 90w UFO light higher to see if the light was too close to the plants. So in the next couple of days I will be monitoring the summertime lemon and hopefully I will find out what the problem is. If you have any info or you know what the problem is, feel free to subscribe and leave a comment or idea. I'll keep you updated.

I harvested my carrots and was surprised...watch the video...

2011-03-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

Carrot harvet video!

for those of you who like to watch videos on youtube check out my videos i have a bunch of them realted to gardening indoors and outdoors... just type into the youtube.com search box - growboy123 and you will see all my videos. or click on the link below to watch the harvest!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiyZnmNvcqw

My babies have GROWN!!! lemon update...

2011-03-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

My summertime lemon at around 7-8 months old

one of my younger lemons under the CFL

Measuring my summertime lemon

Today I decided to post an update about my lemon trees, so I decided to measure my summertime lemon tree to see how much it grew in the last couple of months. It is standing at around 14 inches. on January 4th 2011 the tree was standing at 6.5 inches...so in about 2 months it's grown almost 8 inches!

Today I also took a few photos of the younger lemons that have also grown a few inches since my last update. The younger lemons were approx. 3.5 inches on January 4th and in two months had grown to 8.5 inches. (4 inches of growth in about two months!) I also have some other good news... the summertime lemon is now the perfect size to graft it. I would like to graft it now but I need branches from a mature fruit producing lemon tree, and because lemon trees dont grow outside in Toronto I'll have to wait till late spring or early summer to get my hands on some graftable mature lemon trees from the local nursery. So in about a month or so I'll show you how to pick good grafting trees from the local nursery and how to do the grafting.

My newest addition....

2011-03-18T02:41:00.000-07:00

Pear and apple seeds drying

freshly planted strawberry seeds

pastry container turned into mini green house

Today in Toronto it was unusually warm, about 15c to be exact and it felt like spring and served as a reminder to get a head start on the growing season. I planted a bunch of strawberry seeds in small pots and put them in the container (seen in the picture above) to keep them moist. I ordered my tobacco seeds today, virginia gold tobacco to be exact. I'm hoping they will arrive in time to germinate and grow them to about 6 inches before I put them outside. I also started to get some pear and apple seeds ready, and am now in the process of drying them. The apple and pear trees will not go out into my guerilla garden till next spring (2012) because I want them to have a year to grow in height and be strong so that when I do put them outside no animals step on them or something like that.

I see avocados in my future!

2011-03-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

My avocado seed cracking and roots

After three months and after deciding to give up on my avocado seeds, i had one last glance, and to my surprise one of the seeds was puting out roots and had cracked in several places! I wanted to mention that very early on after puting the avocado seeds in water I noticed that the part of the avocado seeds that were submerged turned a dark color (as seen above) and it looked like mould was growing on them. At first I thought uh oh is this sapost to be hapening? But instead of cleaning them off I decided to just hope for the best and leave the seeds be. Now that one of my seeds is germinating I'm pretty sure that the mouldy color does not afect the prossess, so dont worry if your seeds look a bit mouldy. How ever I dont think its good if the roots are dark and mouldy so watch out for that. I predict that in about another month there will be visable leaves on my avocado seed and then it will be time to plant it in soil and move it to its new home....the grow closet! i will keep you updated.

It arrived!!! My brand new 90w LED UFO light!!! Check out my setup...

2010-12-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

My 90w LED UFO hooked up to a cheap coat rack I bought at Canadian Tier

My plants from one of my grow closets now in their new spot under the 90W LED UFO

OK guys I can hardly contain my excitment!...but I'll try my best, lol. Today the new light arrived by mail! A nice guy from the post office delivered it right to my door. I couldnt wait to plug it in and move some of my plants from my grow closet under it. But I had to go and buy the coat rack before I could hang it because I didn't want to put holes in the ceiling. I made a few calls to some stores in my area and the closest and cheapest place I could find that had coat racks was Canadian Tier. So off I went and got the coat rack. It cost me 19.99 + tax. I got home and put the coat rack together and finaly the moment was at hand...the hanging of the new light! I had a few chains left over from hanging the CFLs in the grow closets so I used one of them and in no time the light was hung! I then moved the plants from one of the grow closets under the light (as seen in the picture). I kept the partial shade plants including the carrots a bit further from the light and put the "summertime" lemon directy under it. I also put two avocado seeds in the vacinity of the light (they dont like full sun at this stage). The other two smaller lemon seedlings will stay under the 125w CFL for now untill they get too big for the light. I will be getting my strawberry seeds in the mail soon. I ordered them from ebay a couple of days ago. The strawberry plants will fit in the empty spaces under the light around the summertime lemon seedling. I will also be putting some new plants in the now empty grow closet. so i will keep you posted.

check out my "guerilla" grow spot!

2010-12-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

Me infront of my intended grow area

Some bushes that will be lush with leaves in the spring/summer and serve as "cover" for my garden

A big tree in the area near my "guerilla" site

The forested area behind my grow spot (great "cover")

Well there you have it... my grow area for my guerilla garden. I will be planting strawberries and lettuce for sure and perhaps tomatoes as well, Im thinking about planting some partial shade plants closer to the tree but I haven't made up my mind about that yet. I intend to plant some tobacco plants around my garden as I have heard they are good insect repellents. I've ordered the strawberry seeds (mainly for my indoor garden right now, but also so I will have them ready for the spring), I will order the tobacco seeds in February and the lettuce and tomatoes I will buy as seedlings from my local plant store when spring comes around. There are a few things that worry me about my guerilla garden location...One is it's sort of close to the road (but there is nothing I can do about that its the best spot I could find). Another is that there are a few young ever green trees about 3 feet tall that were planted by the city in that area last year. Im hoping they won't come and check up on them, but if they do I hope they don't tear out my plants. But what can I say it's worth a shot, right?

These things are great!!!!...

2010-12-13T21:39:00.000-08:00

This is my 125w CFL grow light! I have been using it for about 2 months now and i have had the best results ever! I had previously atempted to grow a big indoor vegitable garden with a 1000w HPS grow light (1000w is much more powerful and covers much much more growing space) but with no success. The bulb was so hot that my plants were deformed and burning under the light. It was very very hot. So I did some research on what I could do to fix the problem. The fix to the problem was to buy a "cool tube" that fits around the grow light and run vent fans connected to the cool tube to take the heat away from the light. Well at the time I didn't have the money to purchase the cool tube so I just left it for a while and just grew plants out side in my back yard garden. A couple months passed and I decided to move to a new apartment with out a garden so I got back into indoor grow light gardening. But the 1000w was too big for my bachelor apartment. It covers a space of 5'x5' and I didnt think that was the right size for my apartment. So I sold the 1000w HPS and bought the two 125w CFLs... and boy! am I ever glad!!! They run very cool (not very much heat from them) so I can get away with a fan blowing on them to keep the seedlings safe from the heat, and one of them does'nt even have a fan. I just keep it a bit farther away from the seedling, and it is very happy! This time around my atempt to grow trees and plants has been perfect. The trees and plants are healthy as can be. They are showing amazingly fast growth, and color-wise they are looking very vibrant and bright! I have no complaints about the CFLs. The only thing about the CFLs is that they are meant for a maximum of one or two plants or small trees (I'd say after the plant or tree reaches a height of 1.5 to 2 feet its time to put it under a more powerful light). This is due to the fact that with the CFLs the "full sun" plants or trees need to be very close to the bulb to have any effect. Im experimenting with the carrots to see if it is possible to increase the grow area by placing partial shade or shade plants/trees around the CFL. We'll see if that theory works with the CFLs. I'll be sure to keep you updated about that experiment in future posts.

as promised a look at the growth of lemon seedling #1...

2010-12-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

lemon seedling #1 at 3 days old

lemon seedling #1 at 8 days old

seedling #1 at 16 days old

seedling #1 at 23 days old

and last but not least 29 days old

seedling #1 at 29 days old - first branch

So there you guys have it...the growth of lemon seedling #1 from "birth" till 29 days old. In the upcoming posts I'll show you the amazing growth of the lemon I started in the summer on my balcony, or as i call it "the summertime lemon".

great avocados start from the planting of a single seed....

2010-12-13T18:34:00.000-08:00

Today I was sitting at home and I was getting to be very bored and a bit stir crazy so I decided to go to the supermarket to see what kinds of fruits and vegetables they had there in order to plant something.... anything! So I looked around and decided on what i wanted to start. i went home all excited and got to work... I started an avocado seed! I didnt have enough money to buy the toothpicks to keep the avocado seed hanging in the cup (I know I know your probably like "its only 2 bucks for toothpicks!" but time are tough and i couldnt aford it) so I used two forks instead, and guess what, they work fine. Avocados are very healthy fruits they have vitamin B6, vitamin C, and avocados can help regulate blood pressure and may lower cholesterol. This little guy can grow to be a very big tree so incorperating the bonsai methods i have talked about in earlyer posts is necissary to ceep it as an ornamental tree inside. This avocado seed will fist crack after 4 weeks then after another four weeks it will have its first root growing. I cant wait to plant this guy in soil. Not every avocado seed will germinate so no promesses with this one but we can hope for the best.

My plans to expand the indoor garden...

2010-12-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

LED grow light over a plant

Well the holiday season is here again...and its cold out side, and winter is just around the corner. It's the perfect time to expand my indoor garden! And my mother (god bless her soul) offered to buy me a present and asked what it was i wanted for the holidays. So I got all excited and asked her if an LED grow light was OK. We looked online and found a 90watt UFO LED grow light for around $250 including the shipping and taxes, and she agreed to purchase it for me! So I will be expanding my indoor garden in about 2-3 weeks when my new LED light arives. Im not 100% sure what I'm going to grow under it yet but I'm leaning towards strawberries.
The reason I chose a 90w over any other one was a) because of the price (the higher watt ones were more expensive) b) because I had seen videos on youtube that show an experiment growing with 90w LED UFO light and they proved that they are good grow lights (even out performing the conventional HPS grow lights) and c) because the LED grow lights dont put out any heat what so ever so I wouldn't need to buy a fan or a "cool tube" or any kind of cooling system as I would for the HPS and MH grow lights.

PS: The 90w UFO LED grow lights are equivalent to between 400w - 600w HPS or MH, so they are much more powerful than the 125w CFLs I have now and cover a bigger growing area.

How I intend to control my lemon trees' growth by using bonsai methods...

2010-12-12T03:23:00.000-08:00

By cutting off the bottom 2/3 of the roots...

and careful pruning....

a bonsai tree is born!...and thats exactly what im going to do to my lemon trees! (When they reach a height of 3.5 - 4 feet, that is). I am still in the stages of learning this my self so it will be a neat experiment, but to tell you the truth I'm a little nervous about it. It could go terribly wrong and my tree might not recover from the stress of the pruning and root cutting, but its something I have to do if I want a manageable ornamental tree and not a 30 foot monster in my apt. So its all or nothing here!

I have 3 lemon seedlings all together check 'em out...

2010-12-12T02:48:00.000-08:00

Lemon seedling #1 at 29 days old

Leomn seedling #2 at 27 days old

Lemon seedling # 3 at 3 months partial shade on balcony (with not much growth)

and 5 weeks 5 days under CFL (lots of growth, nearly doubled in size)

Now that we've seen my lemons and carrots in my next post I will explain how I'm going to contain the lemon trees' growth and how I do grafting. In later posts I will show the growth of the lemons from day one (except for the biggest one that I started on the balcony in the summer, because I didnt have the camera yet)

My carrot seedlings (3 days/6days/12days old)...

2010-12-12T02:34:00.000-08:00

3 days old

6 days old

12 days old