I’m back now with my 3rd grow and this time I’ve decided to experiment with coco. Everyone has banged on about it including one of my good friends and even 2scoops, so I thought f&@k it, why not.
First of all, I’ll show you a few pics of my new room. I’m still growing in a tent, in a room that is 130cm tall, yes that’s right, a 130cm tall room. Needs must!
It was a dusty old room with no plugs and a miserable old light, just dreary. Lol
This is how it looked at the end of my last grow..

Had to use soft gardening pads for my knees as you obviously can’t stand.
So, I decided to get creative and think how I can really utilise the space whilst decreasing noise and smell from leaving the room.
First of all I insulated between the beams to retain heat and also help reduce noise.

Then I plasterboarded the roof


Then I got the big bastard of a power cable secured tight and 4x 2-gang sockets wired in to a 32amp breaker. I spent the extra £2 per socket for fancy USB's in them.. OoooOooOooOoooooo!

Started to put the 50mm metal frame in to mount the plasterboard to along with a couple of cheap £11 LED lights from Screwfix, absolutely mint sur. I wonder what PPFD they're throwing down? lol!

Plasterboarding finished... voila!

Once the plasterboarding was done, I used some left over carpet from when we did the house and laid it along with some soft interlocking pads. My knees literally couldn't take the pain any more. Now it's pretty much a soft play area, with cannabis!
At the same time, I lined the full room with black and white - this is for various reasons such as keeping smell contained, keeping mould and other harmful things out of the room, keeping my high humidity environment from getting into the breezeblocks and wood etc - also makes it look a hell of a lot more tidy.
I forgot to take some progress pics, but I also built a level base for my 1.2m/120cm/4ft tall 2x4 tent - It was mainly because the room itself isn't level at all, and as I'm growing with AutoPots, a level surface is extremely important. It's also doubling up as a way to keep the cold ground away from the base of the tent. Anyways, you'll see from the photos. I even stapled carpet onto the base to keep it looking tidy, yes, I'm that anal.
If you notice on the left hand side as well, I made a raised and level base/table for my reservoir too.


After that, I got the carbon filter, fan & ducting fitted. I have to run my carbon filter and fan OUTSIDE the tent... because, well, it's a bloody tiny tent. No one wants a huge CarboAir50 and Phresh Hyperfan taking up valuable real estate inside a 4ft tall tent, do they?

I then started making a 'control panel' for my environment controller and plugs etc. I mocked it up where it was going to go first of all, then took it down and found the best positioning for things to be mounted, a hole to tidy cables in behind etc.





This is pretty much the finished product, for now.

I have a small 90x60x90 BudBox tent to go in for a veg/clone/mother tent.
Behind the plasterboard there is also a vent leading into a garage which I'm going to open up and hide a 5 or 6" EC fan in the wall running constant extraction out of the room, as me being an absolute idiot didn't realise how humid and warm the room would get with it all sealed and lined with black and white. So, more upgrades!!!
It's directly behind the friggin' control panel so I'll have to re-position that, but all-in-all, the wee room will be running awesome after it's all finished.
A N Y W A Y S!!! Sorry if I bored the tits off you all, but I thought I may as well whack all of that in my diary.
Now, onto the grow!
I am a huge fan of Irie Genetics after listening to the Grow From Your Heart Podcast for such a long time, and also Bert Kreicher is one of my favourite comedians, so I had to nab a packet of The Machine on Pre-Release. I also chose 'White Wedding' from Ethos, mainly because I couldn't decide as all of his work is amazing and I'm getting married this year. I ended up getting some free feminised Ethos seeds, I got both "Big D Energy" and "Candy Store".
I couldn't find any info on Big D Energy at all, but it's now on his website listed as 'Coming Soon...' and it's actually called Big Detroit Energy!
A few days after this, Trichome Jungle Seeds chose me to be one of his testers which I'm absolutely stoked about, he's a top guy and his work is also top notch.
I got 5x of his 'R' testers, which I've only learnt last week is his feminised version of 'Raspberry Soul'.
Some decisions had to be made, and I've chosen to run 3x of Trichome Jungles testers, Raspberry Soul and also 1x Ethos Big Detroit Energy.



The Seeds I'm running are...


I popped them in water for 24hr and freezer bags with the tissue method for a further 24hr and all seeds germinated no problem at all.


As it's my first experience in coco I was absolutely fascinated by it and found myself running handfuls through my hands and amazed at how clean it was! lol
I then mixed in some beneficial bacteria/microbes and some mycorrhiza in the form of TNC (The Nutrient Company) Bactorr S13 and TNC MyCorr Max. They're a fantastic UK based company.




Got them all potted up and into the tent under my MIGRO 100 COB LED with bags over them to keep moisture in. The next morning, they'd already reared their little heads above the coco. Awesome.


Only a couple of days after they were a couple of inches above, loving life.

2 weeks went by and everything going smoothly. It still feels strange mixing up batches of Remo Nutrients in veg, as previously my soil mix did them for around the first 5/6 weeks or thereabouts.
I checked the roots of the ladies and they were rooted perfectly and ready to pot-up into the AutoPot Easy2Grow system.


I'm planning on using my old AutoPot system for a chilli tent, or even a greenhouse this summer, so I bought a new AquaValve5 system with some propagation domes and pot dividers in preparation for next run.. photograph featuring my little Pomeranian/German Spitz cross puppy..

So, I mixed up enough coco inoculated with more Bactorr S13 and MyCorr Max and got the ladies potted up into their forever homes.







I then topped them all along with some light training to even the canopy height.


The next morning..



A few days later the new 'main' stems from topping are growing strong, and I keep having to train the Ethos Big D Energy as it's growing a lot more vigorously and longer node spacing etc.

Anyways..... that's it for now, I'm still around a week on from these photos, so I'll have more updates over the next few days.
I hope you've enjoyed my thoroughly long, boring and lengthy first post!!!!!!!
Peace.





