The Joys of an Herb Garden at Home v2 - Part 2 of 3

If you're watering every day hydroponically, you may be able to water twice a day if you increase ventilation and make sure the plants don't build up too much humidity. You can water more often (and thus increase plant growth) if you have slightly warmer temperatures, less water retention in your medium, and better drainage, or all of the above. What counts is that you're watering more often, but still allowing the medium to dry between waterings.

Change the solution every month if you're circulating it with a pump, but the reservoir system does away with this problem. Just rinse the medium once a month or so to prevent salts build up. Change plant foods often to avoid deficiencies in the plants. I recommend using 2 different plant foods for each phase of growth, or 4 foods total, to lessen chances of any type of deficiency.

Change the solution more often if you notice the PH is going down quickly (too acid). Due to cationic exchange, solution will tend to get too acid over time, and this will cause nutrients to become unavailable to the plants. Check PH every time you water.

Watch out for alga and higher humidities in hydroponics when watering plants. A layer of gravel at the top of the pot may help, since it will dry very quickly. Make sure you're not over-watering the plants. Allow them to almost dry out after each watering.

RECYCLING

Use pots made from squarish containers such as plastic water jugs, etc. More plants will fit in less space and have more rooting area if square containers are used. This makes your garden a recycling center, and saves you tons of money.

As previously mentioned, liter soda bottles work great, but are not square. 13 will fit in a kitty litter box, and these will take a 3 foot plant to maturity hydroponically. If you can get 4 litter boxes in a closet, you can grow 52 plants like this.

Old buckets, plastic 3-5 gallon containers (food and paint industries, try painters and restaurant dumpsters), paper paint buckets, old plastic garbage cans of all sizes, and garbage bags have all been used successfully by growers.

Do not use paper milk cartons and juice cartons for reservoir hydroponics, since these are difficult to sterilize, and they introduce fungus into your reservoir trays. Inert materials, such as plastic is best.

Be sure to sterilize all containers before each planting with a chlorine bleach solution of 2 tbs. of bleach to one gallon of water. Let container and medium such as rockwool soak for several mins. in the solution before rinsing thoroughly.

PLANTING OUTDOORS

Outdoors growing is the best. No light leak problems. No dark periods that keep you out of your grow room. No electricity bills. Light tends to reach more of the plant outdoors, if you're growing in direct sun. Unlike growing indoors, the bottom of the plant will be almost as developed as the top.

Outdoors, outside of a greenhouse, there are many factors that can kill your crop. Deer will try to eat them. Chipmunks and rodents too. Bugs will inhabit them, and the wind and rain will wipp your little buds to pieces if they are exposed to such storms. For this reason, indoor pot can be better than outdoor, but the best smoke I have ever had was outdoor pot, so that tells you something. Nothing beats the sun.

Put up a fence and make sure it stays up. Visit your plot at least once every two weeks, and preferably more often if water needs demand.

It's a good idea to use soil if you don't have a green house, since hydroponics will be less reliable outside in the open air, due mostly to evaporation.

Light exposure is all important when locating a site for a greenhouse or outdoor plot. In the winter, you need to know where the sun shines for the longest period in your yard, and privacy and other factors will enter in as well. Try to find an innocuous spot that gets full winter sun from mid morning to mid afternoon, at least from 10-4, preferably 8-5. This will be really asking for a lot if you live north of 30 degrees latitude since days are short in winter. Since most gardeners will not want to use the greenhouse in the middle of the winter, you can still use winter sun as an indicator of good spring and fall lighting exposures. Usually the south side of a hill gets the most sun. Also, large areas open to the sun on the north side of the property will get good southern exposures. East and West exposures can be good if they get the full morning/afternoon sun and mid-day sun as well.

Disguise your greenhouse as a tool shed, or similar structure, by using only one wall and a roof of Filon, and using a similar colored material for the rest of the shed. Try to make it appear as if it has always been there, with plants and trees that grow around it and mask it from view while allowing sun to reach it.

Filon (corrugated fiberglass) sheets can be used outside to cover young plants grown together in a garden. Buy the clear greenhouse sheets, and opaque them with white wash (made from lime) or epoxy resin tinted white or gray and painted on in a thin layer. This will pass more sun than white Filon, and still hide the plants. Epoxy resin coats will preserve the Filon for many more seasons than it would otherwise last. It will also allow you to disguise the shed as aluminum, if you paint the clear filon sheets with a thin layer of epoxy resin tinted light gray!

Dig a big hole, don't depend on the plant to be able to penetrate the clay and rubble unless you're sure of the quality of topsoil in the area. Grassy fields would have good top soil, but your back yard may not. This alone can make the difference between an average 5' tall plant, and a 10' monster by harvest time.

You may want to keep outdoor plants in pots so they can be easily moved. A big hole will allow the pot to be place in it, thus reducing the height of the plant, if fence level is an issue.

It's always best to put a roof over your plants outdoors. When I was a lad, we had plants growing over the fence line in the back yard. We started to build a greenhouse around them, and a cop saw us hauling wood, thought we were stealing it (which we were not) and looked over the fence, at us and our lovely plants. We were busted, because he saw them. If he had seen a shed, there would never have been a problem. Moral of the Story: build the roof before the plants are sticking over the fence!

When growing away from the house, in the wild, water is the biggest determining factor, after security. Water must be close by, or close to the soil surface, or you will have to pack water in. Water is heavy and this is very hard work. Try to find an area close to a source of water if possible, and keep a bucket nearby to carry water to your plot.

GUERRILLA FARMING

Guerrilla farming refers to farming away from your own property, or in a remote location of your property where people seldom roam around. It is possible to find locations that for one reason or another are not easily accessible or are privately owned.

Try to grow off your property, on adjacent property, so that if your plot is found, it will not be traceable back to you. If it's not on your property, nobody has witnessed you there, and there is no physical evidence of your presence (footprints, fingerprints, hair, etc.), then it is virtually impossible to prosecute you for it, even if the cops know who it belongs to.

Never admit to growing, to anyone. Your best defense is that you're just passing through the area, and noticed something you decided to take a look at.

Never tell anyone but a partner where the plants are located. Do not bring visitors to see them, unless it is harvest time, and the plants will be pulled the same or following day.

Make sure your plants are out of sight. Take a different route to get to them if they are not in a secure part of your property, and cover the trail to make it look as if there is no trail. Make cut backs in the trail, so that people on the main trail will tend to miss the cut-back to the grow area. Don't park on the main road, always find a place to park that will not arouse suspicion by people that pass on the road. Have a safe house in the area if you are not planting close to home. Always have a good reason for being in the area and have the necessary items to make your claim believable, (i.e., a fishing pole if you claim you're fishing).

Briar and poison oak patches are perfect if you can cut through it. Poison Oak must be washed away before an allergic reaction takes place. Teknu is a special soap solution that will deactivate poison oak before it has time to create a reaction. Take a shower with Teknu immediately after contact.

Try to plant under trees, next to bushes and keep only a few plants in any one spot. Train or top the plants to grow sideways, or do something to prevent the classic Christmas tree look of most plants left to grow untrained. Tying the top down to the ground will make the plants branches grow up toward the sun, and increase yield, given a long enough growing season. Plants can be grown under trees if the sun comes in at an angle and lights the area for several hours every day. Plants should get at least 5 hours of direct sun every day, and 5 more hours of indirect light. Use shoes that you can dispose of later and cover your foot prints. Use surgical gloves and leave no fingerprints on pots and other items that might ID you to the fuzz...in case your plot is discovered by passers by.

Put up a fence, or the chipmunks, squirrels and deer will nibble on your babies until there is nothing left. Green wire mesh and nylon chicken fencing net work great and can be wrapped around trees to create a strong barrier. Always check it and repair every visit you make to the garden.

When growing away from the house, in the wild, water is the biggest determining factor, after security. Water must be close by, or close to the soil surface, or you will have to pack water in. Water is heavy and this is very hard work. Try to find an area close to a source of water if possible, and keep a bucket nearby to carry water to your plot.

Carry water in a backpack in case you're seen en route to your garden, you will appear to be merely a hiker, not a grower.

SOIL GROWING

Use Super Soil brand in California, as this is the only known soil on the West Coast that is guaranteed to be good. Many other brands are mostly wood products and have very few nutrients, are too moist, etc. Add vermiculite, pearlite or sand to Super Soil to increase it's drainage and aeration.

Organic gardeners use their own compost prepared from a mixture of chicken, cow or other manure and household food waste, leaves, lawn clippings, dog hair and other waste products including urine, which is high in nitrogen. Dog hair is not recommended for guerrilla gardeners planting off their property where police could find it. DNA tests could prove it was your dog's hair!

Use P4 water crystals in the soil to give the plants a few days worth of emergency water reserves. This substance swells up with water and holds it like a sponge, so that roots will have a reserve if harsh drought makes constant watering necessary. Go real easy on this stuff though, it tends to sink to the bottom of the pot and suffocate bottom roots (new growth roots) and stunts the plant. Use in extreme moderation, let it swell up for at least 45 mins, preferably and hour before mixing with other soil.

Plant size in soil is directly related to pot size. If you want the plant to grow bigger, put it in a bigger pot. Usually, 1/2 gallon per foot of plant is sufficient. A six foot plant would require a minimum of a 3 gallon pot. Remember, square containers have more volume in a square space (like a closet).

SUBTERFUGE

Its interesting that pot plants really do blend in with other plants to the point that they are unidentifiable by all but the most observant. I remember a relative of the family on a visit to Texas showed me his corn in the garden and I was standing 12" from several pot plants before I recognized them for what they were.

Plants started outdoors late in the season never get very big and never attract the least bit of attention when placed next to plants of similar or taller stature. Even tall plants grown among several trees will be almost invisible in their camouflage.

Outdoors the object is to control access to an area, and not to arouse suspicion. Tucking them here and there, never in a recognizable pattern. Space them out, and fit them in to the existing landscape such that they get full sun, but they're hidden or blend in.

Visit the plants at night on full moons, and if you're visible to neighbors, appear to be pruning a tree, mowing the lawn, or doing something in the yard that looks makes you invisible.

Dig a hole and put a potted plant in it. The plant's height will be reduced by at least a foot, maybe 2 or 3 feet if it's a big hole.

Some growers top the plant when it is 12" high, and grow the 2 tops horizontally along a trellis. The plant will never be over 3 feet tall, and never arouses suspicion from neighbors. This type of plant can even be grown outdoors in full view if you don't arouse suspicion by being in the area (like your own back yard, or land near your home).

PLANT FOOD AND NUTRIENTS

Plant foods have 3 main ingredients that will be the mainstay of the garden, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. These 3 ingredients are usually listed on the front label of the plant food in the order of N-P-K. A 20-20-20 plant food has a Nitrogen level of 20%.

Secondary nutrients are Calcium, Sulfur and Magnesium. In trace quantities, boron, copper, molybdenum, zinc, iron, and manganese.

Depending on stage of growth, different nutrients are needed at different times. For rooting and germination, levels of high P nutrients with less N/K are needed. Vegetative growth needs lots of N, and human urine is one of the better sources, (mix 8 ounces to 1 gallon water), although it is not a complete fertilizer unto itself. 20-20-20 with trace elements should do it; I like Miracle Grow Patio food. Watch for calcium, magnesium, sulfur and iron levels too. These are important. One tablespoon of dolomite or hydrated lime is used per gallon of growing medium when a hydroponic medium is first brought on-line, to provide nitrogen, calcium and magnesium. Epsom salts are used to enhance magnesium and sulfur levels in solution.

Tobacco grown with potassium nitrate burns better. Plant foods with PN (P2N3) are foods such as Miracle Grow. This is an excellent fertilizer for vegetative growth, or through the flowering cycle as well. Consider however, potassium nitrate is also known as Salt Peter, and is used to make men have less sexual desire or impotent, such as in mental institutions. So if certain plants are destined for cooking, you might use Fish Emulsion or some other totally organic fertilizer on these plants, at least in the last weeks of flowering.

"Pumping" is when you use more waterings to make the plants grow faster. This is dangerous if you proceed in a reckless manner, due to potential over-watering problems. You must go slowly and watch the plants daily and even hourly at first to be sure you're not over-watering the plants. Use weaker plant food mixtures than normal, maybe 25%, and be sure you're leaching once a month and running straight water through the plants at least every other time you water.

Use of light strength Oxygen Plus plant food (or Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide) allows the roots to breath better and prevents problems with over-watering. Check soil to be sure there are no PH anomalies that might be due to Hydrogen Peroxide in the solution. (One experienced grower told me he would not use H2O2 (HP) due to possible PH problems. This should not be a problem if you're checking PH and correcting for it in watering solutions. Until further experience verifies use of HP as not a problem, we will consider it an optional measure if you're worried about over-watering problems.)

Be sure your medium has good drainage. At this point, if your watering soil based plants once a week, you can water every 3-5 days instead if you plant them in a medium with better drainage. Pearlite or lava rock will greatly increase the drainage of the medium and make watering necessary more often. This will pump the plants; they will tend to grow faster because of the enhanced oxygen to the roots. Make sure the plant medium is almost dry before watering again, as the plant grows faster this way.

An alternative is to use a standard plant food mixture (stronger) once every 3 waterings. The nutrients are suspended in the medium and stored in the soil for later use. The nutrients are washed out by 2 straight waterings afterward and there is no salts build up in the soil.

Stop all plant food 2 weeks before harvesting, so that the plants don't taste like plant food.

WARNING: Do not over-fertilize. It will kill your plants. Always read the instructions for the fertilizer being used. Use 1/4 strength if adding to the water for all feedings and 1/2 strength for hydroponics. Use as recommended if adding to water 1 out of 3 times you water in soil. Novice growers tend to over-fertilize their plants.

PH AND FERTILIZERS

PH can make or break your nutrient solution. 6.7-6.2 is best to ensure there is no nutrient lock-up occurring. Hydroponics requires the solution to be PH corrected for the medium before exposing to the plants. Vinegar can make the PH go down, and potash can take it up when it gets too acid. Buy a PH meter for $10 and use it in soil, water, and hydroponic medium to make sure you're not going alkaline or acid over time. Most neutral mediums can use a little vinegar to make them just this side of 7 PH to 6.5 or so.

Most fertilizers cause a PH change in the soil. Adding fertilizer to the soil almost always results in a more acidic PH.

As time goes on, the amount of salts produced by the breakdown of fertilizers in the soil causes the soil to become increasingly acidic and eventually the concentration of these salts in the soil will stunt the plant and cause browning out of the foliage. Also, as the plant gets older its roots become less effective in bringing food to the leaves. To avoid the accumulation of these salts in your soil and to ensure that your plant is getting all of the food it needs you can begin leaf feeding your plant at the age of about 1.5 months. Dissolve the fertilizer in worm water and spray the mixture directly onto the foliage. The leaves absorb the fertilizer into their veins. If you want to continue to put fertilizer into the soil as well as leaf feeding, be sure not to overdose your plants.

FOLIAR FEEDING

Foliar feeding seems to be one of the easiest ways of increasing yield, growth speed, and quality in a well vented space, with or without elevated CO2 levels. Just prepare a tea of worm castings, fish emulsion, bat guano, or most any other plant food right for the job and feed in vegetative and early flowering stages. It is not recommended for late flowering, or you will be eating the sprayed-on material later. Stop foliar feeding 2-3 weeks before harvesting. Wash off the leaves with straight water every week to prevent clogging the stomata of the leaves. Feed daily or every other day. Best times of day to Foliar feed are 7-10 A.M. and after 5 in the evening. This is because the stomata on the underside of the leaves are open then. Also, the best temperature is about 72 degrees, and over 80, they may not be open at all. So find the cooler part of the day if it's hot, and the warmer part of the day if it's cold out. You may need to spray at 2 A.M. if that's the coolest time available. The sprayer used should atomize the solution to a very fine mist; find your best sprayer and use it for this. Make sure the PH is between 7 and 6.2. Use baking soda to make the solution higher PH, and vinegar to make the solution lower PH. It's better to spray more often and use less, than to drench the plants infrequently. Use a wetting agent to prevent the water from beading up, and thereby burning the leaves as they act as small prisms. Make sure you don't spray a hot bulb; better yet, spray only when the bulb has cooled.
Perhaps the best foliar feeding includes using seltzer water and plant food at the same time. This way, CO2 and nutrients are feed directly to the leaves in the same spray.

Foliar feeding is recognized in most of the literature as being a good way to get nutrients to the plant later when nutrient lockup problems could start to reduce intake from the roots.

WARNING!: It is important to wash leaves that are harvested before they are dried, if you intend to eat them, since they may have nitrate salts on them.

NOTE: One grower who reviewed this document comments: "Fish emulsion smells. Bat guano could be highly unsanitary. Stick to the Rapid-Gro, MgSO4, hydroponic trace element solution. Nitrate salts (The "N" in NPK) are unhealthy to smoke. Personally, I never foliar feed."

Above is a great comment, and there is great wisdom in an organic or non-toxic garden.

CO2

Elevating carbon dioxide levels can increase growth speed a great deal, perhaps even double it. It seems that the plant evolved in primordial times when natural CO2 levels were many times what they are today. The plant uses CO2 for photosynthesis to create sugars it uses to build plant tissues. Elevating the CO2 level will increase the plants ability to manufacture these sugars and plant growth rate is enhanced considerably.

CO2 can be a pain to manufacture safely, cheaply, and/or conveniently, and is expensive to set up if you use a CO2 tank system. CO2 is most usable for flowering, as this is when the plant is most dense and has the hardest time circulating air around it's leaves. If you're strictly growing vegetatively indoors, (transferring your plants outdoors to flower), then CO2 will not be a major concern unless you have a sealed greenhouse, closet or bedroom, and wish to increase yield and decrease flowering time.

For a medium sized operation, one approach is to used CO2 canisters from wielding supply houses. This is expensive initially, but fairly inexpensive in the long run. These systems are good only if your area is not too big or too small.

The basic CO2 tank system looks like this:
20 lb. tank $100
Regulator $159
Timer or controller $10-125
Fill up $15-20
Worst case = $395
for CO2 tank setup synched to a exhaust fan with a thermostat.
CO2 is cheaply produced by burning Natural Gas. However, heat and Carbon Monoxide must be vented to the outside air. CO2 can be obtained by buying or leasing cylinders from local welding supply houses. If asked, you can say you have an old mig welder at home and need to patch up the lawnmower (trailer, car, etc.)

For a small closet, one tank could last 2 months, but it depends on how much is released, how often the room is vented, hours of light cycle, room leaks, enrichment levels and dispersion methods. This method may be overkill for your small closet. Another solution is a small alcohol lamp in a safety enclosure, or even a single candle. If the closet is closed, with no ventilation during the daylight period, this method will work, since CO2 is produced very slowly this way. It does work however.

Make a candle or lamp enclosure from materials that will not burn. Make sure ventilation is adequate for the rising heat from the flame. BE CAREFUL! Think about earthquakes, or any other factor (cats) that might turn a flame over on it side, and take proper steps to minimize this risk. Never burn a flame unattended if you're not home. Leaving it for hours unattended is safe only if you trust your enclosure to keep out falling dead leaves and not tip over. For a larger space, an alcohol lamp will work better than a candle.

It is generally viewed as good to have a small constant flow over the plants at all times the lights are on, dispersed directly over the plants during the time exhaust fans are off. Or have an internal oscillating fan spread the rising hot gas from a flame around the room for you.

Opportunities exist to conserve CO2, but this can cost money. When the light is off you don't need CO2, so during flowering, you will use half as much if you have the CO2 solenoid setup to your light timer. When the fan is on for venting, CO2 is shut off as well. This may be up to half the time the light is on, so this will affect the plants exposure times and amount of gas actually dispensed.

Environmentally, using bottled gas is better, since manufacturing it adds to greenhouse effect, and bottled CO2 is captured as part of the manufacturing process of many materials, and then recycled. Fermenting, CO2 generators, and baking soda and vinegar methods all generate new CO2 and add to greenhouse effect.

Other alternatives are CO2 generation from fermentation and generators. A simple CO2 generator would be a propane heater. This will work well, as long as the gases can be vented to the grow area, and a fan is used to keep the hot CO2 (that will rise) circulating and available below at the plants level. Fire and exhaust venting of the heat are issues as well. A room that must be vented 50% of the time to rid the environment of heat from a lamp and heater will not receive as much CO2 as a room that can be kept unvented for hours at a time. However, CO2 generators are the only way to go for large operations.

Fermentation or vinegar over baking soda will work if you don't have many vent cycles, but if you have enough heat to make constant or regular venting necessary, these methods become impractical. Just pour the vinegar on baking soda and close the door, (you lose your CO2 as soon as the vent comes on). This method leaves a great deal to be desired, since it is not easy to regulate automatically, and requires daily attention. It is possible however, to create CO2 by fermentation, let the wine turn to vinegar, and pour this on baking soda. It's the most cost-effective setup for most closet growers, for whom $400 in CO2 equipment is a bit much to swallow.

In fermentation, yeast is constantly killing itself, and takes a lot of space to do right. You need a big bin that you can constantly keep adding water to, so that the alcohol levels will not rise high enough to kill the yeast. Sugar is used quickly this way, and a 10 pound sack will run $3.50 or so and last about 2-3 weeks. This is also difficult to gauge what is happening as far as amounts actually released. A tube out the top going into a jar of water will bubble and demonstrate the amount of CO2 being produced.

Try sodium bicarbonate mixed with vinegar, 1 tsp.: ~30cc -- this will gush up all frothy as it releases CO2. do it just before you close the door on your plants. A MUCH cheaper way to provide CO2 is 2 Oz sugar in 2 liters[3 pints] of water in a bottle [sterilized 1st with bleach and water, then rinsed], plus a few cc urine[!] or if you insist, yeast nutrient from a home brewing supplier. Add a brewing yeast, shake up and keep at 25 deg. Celsius[~70 F] . Over next 2 weeks or so it will brew up about 1/2 Oz CO2 for every Oz sugar used. Keep a few going at once, starting a new one every 3 days or so. With added CO2 growth is phenomenal!!! I personally measured 38 cm growth in 8 days under a 250 watt HPS bulb[tubular clear, Horizontal mount].

A good container is a 1 gallon plastic milk jug, with a pin-hole in the cap. Also, the air-lock from a piece of clear tube running into a jar filled with water will keep microbes out and demonstrate the fermentation is working.

A variation is to spray seltzer water on the plants twice a day. This is not recommended by some authorities, and receives great raves by people who seem to feel it has enhanced their crop. It stands to reason this would work for only a small unvented closet, but may be right for some situations. It could get expensive with a lot of plants to spray. Use seltzer, not club soda, since it contains less sodium that could clog the plants stomata. Wash your plants with straight water after 2 or 3 seltzer sprays. It's a lot of work, and you can't automate it, but maybe that's good! Remember, being with the plants is a beautiful experience, and brings you closer to your spiritual self and the earth. Seltzer is available at most grocery stores (I get it at Lucky's @ .79 for a 2 litter bottle). Club soda will work if seltzer water is not available; but it has twice as much sodium in it. A very diluted solution of Miracle Grow can be sprayed on the plant at the same time.

CAUTION: Don't spray too close to a hot bulb! Spray downward only, or turn off the lamp first. Wash leaves with clear water before harvesting leaf for cooking, since nitrates are not healthy to be smoking or ingesting.