Vertically Challenged's vertical plant pot (Indoor grow Metal Halide)

Discussion in 'Vertically Challanged' started by Vertically Challenged, Sep 14, 2014.

  1. Vertically Challenged

    Vertically Challenged Gardener

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    DSC00029.JPG DSC00030.JPG DSC00031.JPG DSC00032.JPG Hi I'm a new plant pot manufacturer I'm here to of course try to sell these to you guys but just as importantly advice. I'm always open to possible improvements and tweaks after all Rome wasn't built in a day.

    The plant pot is a stackable plant pot which you use to create walls of plants, I've had success with tomatoes, chillies and strawberries. At the moment I have a set in a grow tent with a 600w metal halide for testing purposes. The plant pot is an injection molded piece which is super strong I've tested them with 100kg's + of weight with no signs of failure. It does of course work outdoors it what it was built for I've had to hack it to make it work indoors.

    1/2 these stacks are hydroponic with Fytocell as the media (Compost replacement) and 1/2 are in Levingtons compost (Mixed 10% Fytocell). I've treated the media with a mycorrihzae that I will be selling, I also use SM6 seaweed extract.

    I have 1 wall time lapsed, they're only been potted up 4-5 days now these pics were from 2 days ago. Initially I grew the chillies on from plug plants under a fluorescent lamp before I potted them on for 14 days.

    The majority of the plants are chillies but I managed to confuse them doh! There's 10+ different strains of chillies including Scotch Bonnets, Naga's and Scorpion Morich.

    Not something you really want to confuse :)

    I will hand pollinate
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2014
  2. Vertically Challenged

    Vertically Challenged Gardener

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    The tomato plants are now ready to pollinate and 40% chilli's are forming flowers as well I would expect the rest of the chillies to go into flower within the next 7-14 days. I have the plants lit 16 hours lights on and 8 hours lights off.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
    The tomatoes are the clear winner here when it comes to shear speed it's hard not to love them. I will remove the net tomorrow and trim the tomatoes appropriately before renetting. Hard to see in the photo's but there are yellow flowers all over them. The tomatoes are probably Money Makers but I cannot confirm this (I was gifted them at four oaks grow show and they weren't 100% sure but they were labelled Money Makers)

    Cost of running the lights so far
    £14 (£7 a week)
     
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    • Vertically Challenged

      Vertically Challenged Gardener

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      Plants look healthy to me considerably quicker than my outdoor chillies and far healthier and vigorous. All are showing flowers some are further on than others. These were taken 14 days later. DSC00035.JPG DSC00034.JPG
       
    • Vertically Challenged

      Vertically Challenged Gardener

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      DSC00042.JPG Another day another tent :)

      This time 1.2m only set up last few days at another location once everything is happy will trim up and support as needed and restack to create a more even growth profile.

      400w mh in a cool tube

      all hydroponic in pure fytocell (2 stacks are Seramis)

      Plant size is irrelevant some plants were bigger than others when potted in, my set the plants were all roughly the same size.

      All Chillies
       
    • miraflores

      miraflores Total Gardener

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      With £7 electricity bill a week I rather have an iguana...
       
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      • Vertically Challenged

        Vertically Challenged Gardener

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        Horse for courses there's a lot of heat generated a properly setup system with heat recovery could change those efficiencies around a lot. Reducing the house heating bill or preheating your hot water. Or of course heat a reptile room or fish tank (Very useful for aquaponics)

        Normally heat is exhausted.

        Of course you could also run smaller lights and grow less which would cost less I will have 1000+ chillies.

        We will be selling reaper clones £1.50 each and fresh reaper pods £1.50 each when the time is right so the grow will easily be a profit making venture.

        It's not hard to make legitmate profit from a setup like this from clones alone and car booting late april to early june with virtually any plant which is suitable to grow in this.

        Illegal growers have damaged the potential of indoor growing I'm hoping to rectify that somewhat.
        IMAG0033.jpg

        The plant pot works outdoors though so buy it for your balcony and forget the grow tent and hydroponics it's much cheaper and costs nothing in leccy :)
         
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        • Phil A

          Phil A Guest

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          There is hope, i've just got an illegal grower to plant Manx Marvel tomatoes in his set up :biggrin:
           
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          • Vertically Challenged

            Vertically Challenged Gardener

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            I intend to give freebis for any pics I use of legal plants best pic I will pay leccy.

            Need to sell some first :)
             
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            • clueless1

              clueless1 member... yep, that's what I am:)

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              How do you keep them all fed and watered in the correct measures, given that they are stacked?

              Do you just water into the top and then let it drain all the way down through the multiple levels, or do you have to water each pot individually?
               
            • Vertically Challenged

              Vertically Challenged Gardener

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              There's a hole in the base of every pot which lets them drain and gravity feed. There is also an air gap between stacks which air prunes the roots so the hole doesn't block this has been heavily tested now.

              The easiest way to water the plants is to water the top and let it drain by gravity (Or dripper feed on a timer with pump the super easy way) but there's a gap between each stack you can water between this gap to individually water each pot I found this useful occasionallys.

              I also found cutting the top off a 2l bottle and then punching a single 4mm hole in the base was a useful watering aid. You sit the bottle in the top pot and fill it up the single hole then slows down the flow so it had time to be absorbed and wick properly. 2 fills was enough to water a stack of 4 high for run off. If they were let to dry off I would water twice several hours apart both for run off.

              In fytocell when growing hydroponically you can just water with a watering can flow rate is much less important due to excellent wicking of fytocell.

              When ran outdoors with compost sometimes they were let to dry out a little too much and being able to water each pot was useful in those circumstances. Although a yukka extract (Makes water wetter) would have been better I intend to sell a yukka extract by next year before the outdoor season. with good watering practices yukka is redundant.

              After 1 week of feeding I tested the ec and ph run off and it was spot on what I fed them so they do reach an equilibrium.
               
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              • NigelJ

                NigelJ Total Gardener

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                What happens to the costs if you switch to LEDs for lighting? Admittedly this may push the heating costs up.
                 
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