First Grow: Hollowed Desk

The desk I am using has a hollowed out space for extra shelfs, I've always wanted to use it as a grow box so I decided to give it a try. I did some quick dusting and wiping of the inside but I still have some area's to get. My overall concern is if it's gonna have some venting issues, and if they will have enough room to grow properly. It's just under 2' tall and 2.5' in length, the strain I have is The Doctor (greenhouse seeds) and some auto that was free. I placed them in water last night and will be growing them in soil. Are there any special techniques that will help them grow wider then taller?


You can see where the hole is up top, my question is if I should cover this up or place a small fan there for airflow? There are three holes, two on the sides and one in the middle. With the current fan inside I can feel air entering behind the fan and blowing out near the back, it seems the only issue is the one in the middle.

Is having this middle open an issue for when it's in the night phase?

Would I need to line the insides for lighting/dust? This is my first grow attempt so I'm just trying to get the basics down, any input is really appreciated.

I recommend you start reading up some more on what your doing, you'll find all those answers on this forum

Paint the inside flat white, it reflects more than gloss.
Get a cheap humidity/temp gauge, this will tell you how your
enviroment is doing. You can add small pc fans to help control
the humidity and temp.

Cool Desk

Been doing a lot of reading, had some trouble getting my initial seedling to sprout, didn't work until the 2nd seed. I've added a small fan on the inside, changed our the AeroGarden for a power strip and 3 CFL lights. Two 5000k daylight and a 2700k soft white that I had laying around. Temps are not that bad until I'm lighting mid day it could get up to 90 if it was unattended. Since smell and heat are not an issue yet I still have to add PC fans and a DIY carbon filter soon.


First picture is around the 30th of April.


The last two are the latest pictures. Call it day 15 from sprout.

sorry for the picture angles ill try and edit later

Lookin Good, I have some of the same bubble foil. Really like the surge strip and cfl's. I gotta find those sockets. IMO your temps should get more manageable once you get the fans in and will help with humidity. I spend more time figuring environmentals in the beginning than messing with the girls, probably why they survived. Keep up the updates.

What strain survived?

HDPursuit said:

Paint the inside flat white, it reflects more than gloss.
Get a cheap humidity/temp gauge, this will tell you how your
enviroment is doing. You can add small pc fans to help control
the humidity and temp.

Cool Desk

Click to expand...

^This also use that pc fan as a(n) (baffled) exhaust

also you can replace those cfls with leds as they burn out (so something like crees from homedepot or wahtever hardware store), less heat and less energy used. The bulbs do cost twice as much as a new cfl would but they use a fraction of the power and will last longer. Keep a couple cfl bulbs around to stick in there to warm it up in the winter if necessary. Get a mix of bulbs that are at or around 6500 kelvin temperature and 3000k.

edit: plant looks good, also you already have the light color temps figured out

HDPursuit said:

What strain survived?

Click to expand...

I have The Doctor from greenhouse seeds. There was an auto seed which died from shipment I think.
The sockets where only $2 at Home Depot. Might add another strip once/if the canopy gets too big. If heat is too much of an issue I may switch to LED like Dan has said.

Ill be uploading some pictures in a moment, did some FIM (not sure the term) and pinched the newest leaf coming in. Will be transplanting into a new pot prob tomorrow.

First image was taken today, you can see where I attempted to cut a new set of leafs coming in, and now the tips are looking a little stupid. The next set currently forming is the one I pinched off.

The 2nd picture you can see the new pot I will be putting it into, not sure how big it is but my biggest concern is if I get one too large for my grow box. Will be my first time transplanting so any tips would be helpful (if it's even big enough to transplant yet anyways). I've held off on giving it any nutes yet, I have to make a gallon of it and I didn't want a lot of it sitting around.

Heat is going to be an issue coming up, The last picture shows what the top looks like when the table leaf is removed. The top of the picture you can see where I run the power strip from, this is one of the three "holes" when I have the thing closed. I'm afraid the PC fans might not do enough justice for this amount of space, there would be too many open slots.

to transplant let the soil dry, bc wet soil hangs on to the roots and work a butter knife around the side of the cup, put the plant between your fingers with your palm over the top the cup, flip it upside down, pat the bottom if necessary and put it into a hole in the bigger pot (also with dry soil) and bury it up to the lowest set of leaves. Ideally you would want to do this a little before the dark cycle starts so the plant has some time to rest. Then it will recover over the next few days and show new (above ground) growth once it is situated. If you did carry out a FIM or other topping technique you should wait a few days for recovery before stressing the plant again by transplanting.

technical dan said:

If you did carry out a FIM or other topping technique you should wait a few days for recovery before stressing the plant again by transplanting.

Click to expand...

That's good to know, I just watered it today so I need to wait for it to dry as well.

Place her in the new pot, didn't see much root system on the soil when I pulled it out. Guess it was too early? I'm more worried its growth would of been stunted being in the solo for too long.

the other is some sun flowers in a can my niece was growing. Figure they do good in some more light.

Been a few days since I've really done much to her, have an auto light schedule going and keeping an eye on the temp. Seems to have grown a lot in the past week without nutes yet.

Finally got around to making the nutes, after about two days of doing 1 watering the tips of the bottom leaves only are starting to yellow.

Anyone got any tips? The yellowing is slowly starting to form more. The next two feeding times ill use only water and no nutes. Unless the nutrients isn't what is causing the problem.

Climate inside the box isn't bad or anything, never over 86 in temp