My first two Costa Rican Bud-dies!

ok so i just moved back into my house here in CR two weeks ago. the night i got here, i stuck five seeds that i brought with me into peat pellets and put them under a plastic hood. two sprouted, the rest must have been bad. but now i have two plants of random species they are 6cm and 4cm tall, and i can already tell a difference in the size and shape of the leaves (one is a little thinner and longer, the other short and stubby)

i am having to be very thrifty here, due the availability of supplies, so my light set-up and soil mixture may need some improving/enhancing. CHECK IT OUT and let me know what you think!!

here is the light situation as of now:
the light cycle is about 11/13 here right now so i am using a clip-on lamp and and an elongated 15w florescent bulb i found in my house to give it the extra light for the veggie period. the plants are in a well lit room on the sunny side of the house so they get really good morning sun from 5:30~ until around 9am, and afternoon sun from 4-5:30pm, and the florescent light all day from 9am-9pm.
this is quite a variety of good light for now, but any tips on IMPROVEMENT are greatly appreciated i would love some HPS lamps, but i am going to need to do some serious searching if i am going to find them here. ( Any opinions of florescent lights as a second choice??? )

now as for the soil, it is ok here. i got it from the local vivero (nursery) here in town, and it is a dark coffee brown sandy, rocky, clay mix, with some added wood shavings. it holds moisture very well, but i was a little concerned about nutrients? but i took a trip inland the other day and found a vacuum sealed bag of WORM COMPOST (score, i know!). too bad i have already transplanted them into pots once. i mixed up some stuff in a compost bucket to decay a little for my next transplant, but LET ME KNOW if i should add any fertilizer for this first period of growth.

other than these two things, my plants seems to be happy and healthy. although i may have shocked them last tuesday night.. my timer stuck and they got a full 24 hours from a regular 60 watt bulb... but i figured in the veggie state, the extra light would be ok. i am going to try and be as consistent as possible from now on tho.

thank you in advance for any advice you can give me!!

pura vida,
Jason

t5 lights are good i use them also cfls might find some i also like to have nutes in my soil from day one

halfaweek said:

t5 lights are good i use them also cfls might find some i also like to have nutes in my soil from day one

Click to expand...

pura vida, i will check out some different lighting options soon... i was just curious about changing the type of lights used and the effect on the plant

and whats the best way to apply nutrients to the current soil???

thanks man

buy an organic soil and some nute from a graden center the nutes are added to the water you will want two kinds one for veg one for flower start with a small dose and work your way up to what the label says 5ml to 1L or somthing like that. As for the lights somthing like a t5 give 80-110 lumens per watt and a cfl give 60-80 i think so a t5 will give more light per a watt or more bang for your buck look for a 6400k spectrum and you will be good

i found some mercury lamps today in the ferreteria. i think i am going to stick with florescents tho until the flowering stage...

i checked my soil this afternoon, and i feel like it is draining to much. so i just transplanted my little ones again this time into the same soil with the worm castings compost mixed in. the peat pellets are still holding together nicely, so it wasnt too bad hopefully they like their new homes!

how long before i need to fertilize... i was thinking about making compost tea, for foliage and soil treatment. it seems easy enough, and i live next to cow fields, so there is plenty of manure. Also, costa ricas main export is sugar cane, and molasses is one of the key ingredients in compost tea.

other things i dispose of normally i can add:

egg shells
old tea bags
coffee grounds
avocado peels
banana peels

any other suggestions??

is a TL8 bulb more or less lumens than a TL5. They look really skinny. and are also housed behind a piece of transparent plastic. im sure that affects the amount of lumens actually being received by the plants, even if by a miniscule amount

here are some pics of my set up as of now.. 1 elongated cfl and one T8