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@Freshlypicked I am using the Umya range, but I just have the 3 basic ones, Pot Radix, Pot Grow and Pot Flora. I use those in conjunction with EM Pro Soil and am really loving it. Super easy to use and at that price point I think I will be sticking with this range for a while. I still consider myself a noob when it comes to growing so I'm in no position to "recommend" the brand especially since I have nothing else to compare to, but I enjoy using it and it works for me. @Totemic Blueberry Glue - 10L Pot - FF Premium Soil - Umya Nutrients

I would only start defoliating once it starts flowering. For now tucking leaves behind growth points is ok.

I typically do the bud wash, then I trim afterwards, then hang to dry. I find it easier this way, but much of a muchness really I guess. It is quite nasty to see the dust and dirt on the bud which comes off and even worse is the stuff you probably don't see. Each time you open your tent, dirt gets in, and when you get inside your tent you are bringing dirt in as well... there is soil or coco most of the time and fans blowing stuff around in the tent etc. etc. Do you really want to be smoking all of that? Likely makes the smoke a bit harsher too. I personally don't want to smoke hair, dust and bugs.

Washed my buds last season due to being close to sandy piggery and you could see the dirt. It was a serious mission but you would be surprised at all the stuff that comes off the bud. The difference in before and after was huge. I cant for certain say the smoke was better, but I did know I smoked alot less junk. As per above, try and do it when its hot and sunny rather than cold and wet. Mold is horrible.

@Tee_Aitch_See Perlite is actually great at creating humidity as it has a large surface area due to it's structure - not sure that will help keep the moisture in. Coco could possibly work as a layer taking the knock, otherwise I have seen people use hydroton and that should be fine to use. Never used it myself. I personally just water more often when its hot and when the plants are big.

If you want to keep using mulch then I would recommend Hydroton aka clay pebbles, does help quite a bit to retain moisture and an added benefit is the top soil does not shift around when watering the plants. Try to get the smaller pebbles so they pack tighter together than the larger pebbles.

I think I went down a similar rabbit hole as you. The process was not too bad, was just a bit taxing after the cutting and trimming. So far the drying is looking good too, this is just a normal dry in a tent with good air circulation. Seems to be drying at roughly the same pace as the non washed batch. Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

This is all so interesting to read as well as the different perspectives. I have been watching a lot of videos and reading up in the recent week/weeks as I am coming near harvest. I have also been in 2 minds with a bud wash, as I have run into a slight bit of PM on a few leaves. Doesn't look to be on the bud sites yet, however, I am still new at this, so could not be looking carefully enough So with the PM in mind, with the googling, I came across washing your buds. I was first blown away as I thought this must be a joke and thought, this would affect the potency, taste etc. But as far as I have read, it doesn't seem to have any negative impact and read so many people saying for outdoor, you should definitely bud wash as anything could have blown into a bud or a sneaky worm created his home in there XD I do believe, if you do run into any pest or PM issues, it should be treated prior to harvest time, but there could be a time when this stuff comes in at the worst time e.g. a week before harvest (then possibly doing a bud wash would be the solution here with the hydrogen peroxide) Obviously, I have never tried this and cannot say yay or nay. But thought I would add here as it was something I have been looking into due to the recent PM issue I have run into.

Hello 420SA! I am wondering how many community members have actual experience (past or present) with 2-in-1 tents like these : https://vivosun.com/products/vivosun-2-in-1-48-x36-x72-mylar-reflective-grow-tent-for-indoor-hydroponic-growing-system I am aware that Secret Jardin have two different sized "Lodge" series tents which are available locally. So if you use, have used or have considered using one of these types of tent : Why do use, not use or no longer use a 2-in-1 ? (major pros/cons in your setup) And if you currently do use one : Local or international supplier ? Price ? Quality ? Any comments ? Thank you.

Hmm interesting, having never done an outdoor grow I wouldn't really know. Never had too much wind in a tent, not that we get as much wind up here in Joburg anyways. Haha I have noticed plants doing that when they know its their bed time. Seen that happen before. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

And bang, the final product, was hoping for better pictures and colors, but this was the result. Delicious. Also made a logo today for my bottles of liquor.

For sure @PsyCLown I had never thought about it until recently. To think of it from another perspective. You have spent a lot of money on everything from the medium, to seeds, to nutrients and so on. Why not go the extra mile and bud wash before drying and curing to insure all your cash and efforts have not been a waste, also seeing as a lot of the people have said that it would have no impact to the potency. On the opposite side of things though, I doubt I have ever smoked a bud washed bud ever in my life and I haven't died yet But I guess this is the beauty of doing it for yourself now, you get to test all these different techniques until you find the way which fits your needs @Slartibarfast let us know how it goes

Clones now 2.5 weeks since i cut them

So I actually bought one of these tents last year. I looked and looked and this ended up being the best option for me. Mine is a 90x90 area by 180 I think. And then the partition is 90x30x180. What I really liked about this, is that my light flowers a 80x80 section. I took the divider, and only blocked off the top shelf of the "seedling" section. In the bottom half, I have my fans, humidifier etc. This means that I have the FULL 90x90 area for plants. Before I was running in a 80x90 DIY which still had to house my fan, heater, humidifier etc. so I lost out on grow space. Then literally this week, I have been light proofing the seedling section, as the lighting is not perfect with the velcro seals, and obviously with how I ran the divider half way. I installed some small lights and my bathroom extractor from my last tent. My hope is to just shave off 4-8 (probably more like 4 because as mentioned the plants can't get too big in there) weeks. Just to reduce the time between harvests. So for those 2 purposes it really made sense to me. This is the one I got: https://happyharvest.co.za/product/multi-chamber-grow-tent/ I will take a pic later of the set-up once lights are on.

Hmm it may cause more problems than what it may solve. Mulch with bark can be quite acidic and drop your water pH significantly, especially if it's on top and the water runs over it and through your soil. I see your temp is sitting at like 29C and humidity is below 50% so understandable that your soil is drying out quite quickly. See you got a nice little ice pack hanging there to try help. Seeing as it's just two plants I'd rather just water more often than have the mulch. Maybe add some coco on top instead of the mulch to hold more moisture if you really need a solution in that regard.

So my thing with those tents is that I do not feel it suits my needs properly. I feel the way the space is divided is a bit of a waste. It does not allow for me to do a perpetual grow, the veg area is more of a seedling area and cannabis seedlings do not stay small for very long. I'd rather have a dedicated veg tent and keep the seedlings as well as vegging plants inside there and then have a separate tent for flowering. Having one of those tents, if I started plants in the smaller area, I'd likely have to move them to the larger area and veg them there for a while longer before I could flip to flower. Therefore I feel it is a waste and ruins the appeal to having a split tent. If the smaller section could allow for one to veg plants until they were large enough to go into the flower section and had enough space to be able to fill the flower secton from the veg section - then sure. It would in essence be like having 2 separate tents, in a single tent. However... they are once again separate. So double the lights, double the extraction (unless you use a Y-connector I guess) and so forth. End of the day it comes down to a single larger tent which is split vs two separate tents. Much of a muchness, just the two separate tents offer more flexibility. However the single larger is likely going to be cheaper... but I have yet to find a split tent where the veg and flower area are the same size or large enough to justify using it for a perpetual.

Hey all, So I was going to wait till my stuff arrived, but I figured I may as well show my grow tent build and then I can update about the first grow later on. I have a bunch of stuff that should hopefully be delivered within the next week so I can start my new grow (Pots, PH meter, soil, seeds, extractor etc). I bought 2 fem seeds earlier in the year and tried with that and some bag seed. But it was just too late to be starting in the season AND I was plagued with issues. But I have learnt a lot and have read even more and I hope that will pave the way to a great grow now. I am also moving indoor hence the thread My next seed order contains some auto's and some photo's. I am going to be starting with 2 critical autos from different seed banks. I want to run a few autos to try out some stuff and see the results. Anyways...to the tent! As I was trying to get this grow up and going with the "least" cost but still a good build, I decided not to buy a tent, and rather allocate that money to lights etc. This is the dedicated grow area. 80cm x 90cm x 200cm (but I could go higher). Its in a garage, so hanging the light should be easy. I decided to use 20mm conduit as I really only needed enough strength to hang the material around the tent. The light I am hanging from the roof. Even if I did want to hang the light in the tent, I think with a bit more roof structure it would manage the +- 3kg LED easily. Here I started on the first flat frame (for the front or back) and am checking the width fits in. Lots of 90 corners and t pieces Frame upright now (back) First support beam in. Sadly I didn't realize that the 90 corner and the T piece don't extend the same length. So when I cut the same width for top middle and bottom, the middle pulled in a little more. Its fine for now, will maybe replace eventually or just upgrade to a proper tent. So here you can see it pulling in, in the middle. Front frame and back Structure now joined front and back. I ended up adding another support which made it nice and rigid. I was resourceful and used "space" blankets AKA rescue blankets. 3 of them got me about 90% covered around. Completely covered. Little gap in front where I will be checking in. Top view down I then rolled out black painting sheeting, the stuff you get at builders to cover the floor when painting. Basically big trash bags. I covered all sides and then did an inset to the bottom as well as a roof that flaps over everything. Finished product, you can see my spot on top where I will connect the light. I ended up using only one of those and hanging an old small chain I had from it as the light has a cradle and single point to hang from. The chain is awesome, because with the carabiner, I can adjust the height quite easily. This doesn't cover the light getting in 100% but probably in the 90% region. As it is in a garage, I do not need to worry too much about light getting in. Currently I am also on a 12/12 flower cycle with it being on 6AM - 6PM. So even if there was outside light, it wouldn't;'t be much. I am considering reversing this on the next grow to get the light on at night and warm the tent ever so slightly for being an LED. But for now, this is where it is at. Tent finished and testing the 3 light modes (veg, veg+bloom, bloom). I hung the light from the open roof rafters in the garage so that worked out nicely. Outdoor plant finishing off flower in there. Sadly this was one of the learning curve plants. Week 5 flower and almost nothing on there. But this one was bag seed and as mentioned, the one to learn on. I am running a fan on #1 inside to get some light air circulation. I have a 150mm exhaust fan on order with ducting. So for now I am planning to pull air out the top of the tent, and passively let fresh air pull in from the bottom. As it is in the garage, I am not sure how fresh this air will be. Eventually I will have a second fan to push fresh air in. For now, if I have enough ducting, I may connect the ducting to the outside, so hopefully it pulls fresh air passively, else I will just let it pull air passively without the duct, from the garage "air". My garage is clean and not an oil filled smelling one, so no real worries there. I also worked out the air exchange for my cubic metres and I should have no issues there. I have also got a small 9w heating pad that I am using the keep the plant a bit warmer at night. Day temps at the moment are around 25 C. At night this is dropping to sub 15 C with winter approaching. The heating pad keeps the underside by the tray around 38C (I have one temp probe there) and the roots are around 20-22C from what I can tell (another temp 60% into the medium/soil). So as far as I understand it, as long as the roots are warm, the rest should be also. By the time summer comes, my air exchange will need to be good as the garage gets hot. But we will see. Also worried that at this point the 150mm fan will be too much and cause too much cooling. But I am not planning on running air exchange at night. Not sure if that is good, or if I should have air exchange when the light is not on? If I do need it, then I will set it up with a timer to run like 15min every hour or something. Oh and the most important bit, building this tent came in at under R450. Hence me wanting to do this, because as a first indoor grow, this should do compared to a 1500-2500 tent. Next steps >>>> Once all my stuff arrives, 2 x 40l pots are going in with the 2 different Critical Auto's. I will toss the current plant out then and give the tent a good bleach down clean. I have some powdery mildew on this plant, so want to avoid that hanging around.