Lighting:
One of the biggest advantages to indoor gardening is the regulation of plant growth through the use of artificial sunlight. The most commonly used grow lights are metal halide, high pressure sodium, and fluorescents. Each has its advantages that I will briefly cover. Both metal halide and high pressure sodium lights are high intensity discharge, which mean the light they produce has a better ability to penetrate the plant leaves.
Fluorescent light can grow plants indoors, but produces much smaller plants and is generally considered to be far inferior to both metal halide and high pressure sodium lights. Fluorescent lights are most often used with seedlings or clones, as the light produced is gentler on fragile plants.
In the Caddy there are both metal halide and high pressure sodium bulbs. The metal halide bulb is much larger and will be used for the vegetative stage of plant growth. Metal halide bulbs produce strong light in the blue and white spectrum which effectively mimics a typical summers day. The high pressure sodium bulb produces strong light in the red spectrum which mimics the angle of the sun during fall. When you are ready to start flowering you will switch from your metal halide to your high pressure sodium bulb.
You will then use your digital timer to switch the light cycle from 24 hours of constant light to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness, which tells your plants the days are shorter, the spectrum of light is changing, and its time to flower before it becomes winter.
It is a common myth that plants can't utilize more than 12 hours of light per day and require a dark period. It isn't true. Try to imagine a plant's growth cycle is similar to an animal, the more you feed it, the fatter and bigger it gets. If you never decided to switch to 12 hours of darkness your plants would continue to grow until they reached an unmanageable size!
We recommend you start the flowering stage, which is when you start the 12 hours of darkness, once your plants reach 10-18inches in height. During all stages of growth your light reflector should be around 5 inches from the growing tips of your plants. Since the reflector stays cool to the touch there is no risk of your plants burning. Move the reflector up to the top of the box as your plants continue to grow taller.
Hydroponics: Another advantage to indoor gardening is the use of hydroponics, which means growing without soil. Believe it or not, growing plants in water is very easy, and requires little effort to maintain proper nutrient and pH levels. Your Caddy comes with a standard hydroponic system, but if you wish to use soil, you may. However, you will see between a 100-400% increase in growth by avoiding the use of soil. The reason for this massive difference is your plants are constantly being provided all the nutrients, water, and trace elements needed to become large and healthy.
The reason plants grow large root structures is to stretch out through the soil searching for food and water sources. If you provide the necessary food and water in such great abundance, there is no need for such massive roots, and more energy is used to grow leaves and plant just how fast your plants will grow in our hydroponic system.
Hydroponic Garden's hydro system integrates both drip feed and ultrasonic technologies. This dual system ensures that if one feeding method fails the other will keep your plants growing healthy and reduce the possibility of wilting. Each hydroponic drip head has an adjustable water flow, so you can increase, decrease, or shut off entirely the water flow to the base of each plant. In addition our ultrasonic fogging system turns the water and nutrients in your reservoir into a 10 micron fog that helps increase root growth considerably.
On a side note, we always recommend customers use inorganic nutrients such as our Liquid Sun Nutrient & pH Set product, AGAINST these is the increased likelihood of your drip heads clogging. Organic buildup occurs rapidly, but is easy to clear by simply unscrewing the drip head and allowing the clog to be pushed out. If you chose to use heavy organics you should monitor your drip heads more carefully than when using organics. However even if a drip head did clog, your ultrasonic fogger alone can keep your roots growing at an unbelievable rate.
Operation and Maintenance:
Make sure your reservoir is filled about ¾ to the top with either distilled or tap water. Distilled water is preferable, but as long as your tap water is reasonably clean it will not be a problem. Do not let the water level get below 5 inches from the bottom of the reservoir, or your fogger and water pump may cease to function properly. Water changes should be performed every 1-2 weeks. This ensures the reservoir does not build up toxins and non beneficial elements.
Water changes can be performed by having someone hold the lid containing the netpots and roots, while another person dumps the water. Another easier water change method is to get a gravel filter from a fish store and suck the water from reservoir into a bucket or household drain. Whenever you do a water change make sure you add your nutrients and THEN test the pH of the water using the included pH testing kit. The waters pH should be slightly acidic, around 6.3, but a neutral pH such as 7 is fine as well. If you find your reservoirs pH is off then add the included pH UP or pH DOWN to neutralize your pH. Improper pH levels and overfeeding of nutrients are the most likely cause of unhealthy plants.
Remember it's always better to use fewer nutrients than too much. Also keep in mind as water evaporates, the water level goes down in remaining solution, so try to keep the water level somewhat consistent. Keeping up monitoring is not required. Many of our customers walk away from their hydro systems for weeks at a time, and everything perfectly fine. As long as you keep some water in your reservoir, your plants will grow quite well, even with little to no additional care.
Plant Lifecycle: It is difficult to give an exact description of your plants growth rate and lifecycle, since the difference species of plants that can be grown varies greatly.
You can start your plants either from seeds or clones. They should be allowed to grow in the germination and/or vegetative plant stages until they reach about 12-18 inches in height. Also make sure that roots are visible coming from the bottom of your netpots. At this point, you will switch from the vegetative to the flowering stage by changing the photoperiod, as described in the lighting section. During the flowering stage of growth your plants will continue to flower.
Gender Identification: Some people find it necessary to remove male plants to eliminate pollination because female plants are often the ones that produce prized buds and flowers. In order to remove the male plants first you must sex your plants. This is only necessary if starting from seeds, since all clones will be the same sex as the parental donor. First, get a magnifying glass and look at where your stem branches off into new growing tips. With males you can see they have a more bulbous, almost nut-shaped growth, which clusters together at the base of the nodes and tips of the growing terminals. Females on the other hand have tiny white or yellow hairs, known as pistils, protruding.
If you want to figure out which plants are male and which are female early on, then get a small black plastic bag or something similar that is lightproof, and a plastic coated twisty tie. Select a plant that you would like to sex and choose a growing tip. Take the paper bag, place it over the top of the selected tip and seal with the twisty tie. Then, to simulate the flowering phase, simply remove the bag after the 12hr dark period, and replace when the 12hr day cycle ends. After 7-10 days the growth-tip you covered should start showing signs of its gender.
Cloning:
Cloning can be a difficult and tricky procedure; however this guide should help eliminate some of your hurdles. To start take a clone from a mother plant while still in the vegetative phase. Use a sharp knife or razor blade and cut a 3inch or so branch from the base of the mother plant at a 45 degree angle. Make sure there are a few leaves on the new clone so it can absorb enough light to take root.
Now at this point, you can take the cut end of your new clone or stick it directly into the 2inch neoprene plug so that the stem of the plant fits snuggly in the small hole in the middle and is deep enough that the cut portion of the stem is at least ½ ways down the length of the netpot. Make sure the fogger unit is on and the area under the netpot is filled with a heavy fog. This will aid in faster root development. See Cloning chamber
Note: Some people have greater success by putting a cloning gel on the cut part of the stem, or by dipping the cut part in nutrients such as Liquid Sun Nutrient Set. This is unnecessary, but could be beneficial.
During the next 48 hours your plant may wilt, but this is normal as the clone is being placed under a great deal of stress by being cut. If the plant is still wilted after 5 days then odds are it won't take root and grow, so it can be discarded. Also, if you notice dead leaves you should pull them off and keep any dead matter out of the way. It is also recommended you perform Foliar Feeding which means you spray your clones with water a few times a day to help them maintain proper moisture levels. You can place a drop or two of nutrients in your spray bottle as well, but don't go overboard. We also recommend Spray and Grow for foliar feeding.
If all goes well you should see roots forming and your clones should stay upright and begin to grow at an increased rate. After your clones have roots going through the netpots they can be moved to our 14 Plant HydroFlora System by placing the 2inch netpot inside of the 3inch one included in our System.
Drying: Your basil or other plants can easily be dried with our full size Caddy Simply remove the lighting system and 6 inch ducting, and hang your plants upside down from the S-hook located at the top of your Caddy. Then turn on both the side fan and 250 CFM inline cooling fan to quickly dry your plants. We highly recommend you keep your carbon filter on to reduce the smell produced from drying plants. Keep in mind that this method of drying is only suitable for leaves, flowers, and plants. Veggies such as tomatoes will not dry adequately unless placed in an oven or by doing a sun-drying method.
