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Blackhouse for All-Summer Flowering!

NPK

NPK

Active member
High y'all! Thought I'd share pics of this humble structure...

blackhouse.jpg


...which I'm using to force-flower my outdoors plants many months ahead of October. It's 8' x 5' x 5.5'; I built it with 2x3s and leftover panda plastic. It cost less than $50 and an afternoon of work. Here it is in action:

060307whatsinthere.jpg


I have to carry the plants in and out every morning and evening, and I admit the frequent stooping doesn't make my back too happy. Still, after just one month of use, this is what my Shits look like:

060407shit1.jpg


They're rapidly gaining weight and should be ready for harvest around the end of this month. Why wait until October? :biglaugh:

The Chem Ds will be ready to chop shortly, too:

060507chemd.jpg


If all goes well, the blackhouse will allow me to pull fully THREE extra harvests this outdoor season. And, because I can precisely control the photoperiod, the bud should be harder, tighter, and less leafy, more like indoor than outdoor stuff.

It's already making for an extremely productive season. :yes:
 
Z

zombo

Hey NPK,good job!
I like it,I like the idea of using the free outdoor lighting.
Thats a good idea :respect:
 
PhishHead

PhishHead

Member
Good work NPK. for $50 i think you got yourself a humble structure indeed. The girls seem happy as well. Nice construction you got there. Hope it works out for you :wave:
 
J

JeffSpicoli

awesome!!! way to take advantage of the prime season for the outdoor sun. Gonna have some niceeee buds im sure.
Id imagine youd be able to notice the difference, being able to get the longer amount of direct sunlight, instead of when it naturally flowers it gets less...
orrrrr?
 
NPK

NPK

Active member
jeffspicoli, if I understand you correctly, I think that if you flower under much more than 12 hours of light, your plants end up with too much leaf. I actually stuck some plants outside in early/mid March and am about to chop the last of 'em...it's a super-leafy Bogglegum, and I think it ended up that way because the days are too long to flower properly. See what I mean? Not too psyched to trim this....

060307bogglegum1.jpg


Hey Pumpkin, you're gonna give me blackhouse envy there!! For real though, that's a better design than what I pulled off; an architect I ain't. :biglaugh: Wish I'd read this thread before building mine. I also wish I'd made it bigger. Ah well--there's always next year, right?
 
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J

JeffSpicoli

it wasnt so much me talking about flowering with more than 12 hour days... But since they are more than 12 hour days, he is able to have more direct sunlight in his day... He is still using a 12/12 cycle, by using his blackbox... But durin the times that its out in the sun, he gets more direct sunlight, and more intense sun.... Where if they were to flower naturally, it would be later in the season, with less intense sun, and less direct sunlight (cause there is only 12 hours in the day later in season, so not as much opportunity for direct light)... whereas right now.. He can put em out during peak sunlight, and get a much more light intensive outdoor flowering cycle...

And good to know about the extra leafy buds.... I have some mothers that are just now startin to flower outside... But i think it just may be late enough, and not tooo early... This way ill be finishin roughly around mid to end of august... So hopefully i dont end up with some super leaf like you :p
 
G

Guest

NPK- What if you built a platform with wheels, and had your plants on it...instead of taking in and out single plants...you could could just roll out your crop and then roll it back in..
 
D

DJ_highst_

pumpkin2006 said:
Autoflowering tent; for your pleasure. It'll run ya $1400 and take 2 weeks to arrive; also the solar panel is optional and costs $300; all USD.

Might save your back in the long run :biglaugh:
Click to expand...


I am pretty sure that kit is $4,900 not $1,400, I have talked to the owner of the company on the phone a few times. Cool guy, they are located in Humbolt and will come out and install it and give tech support too.

NPK- I think that the reason you have more leaf on the spring harvest plants is bc they are kinda confused and are going slowly going back into reveg while they are still prodcing flowers. I had several plants that I put outside for spring harvest this year and had a similar problem with the ones I put out later in the spring. The ones that I put out in late Jan/ early Feb flowered just like they would in the fall, but if you let them go for a long time or put out in late spring, they slowly get really leafy as the plant struggles to get back into veg. Your tent should eliminate that probem. I love the fact that our climate in Cali alows us to do spring harvest relatively easily. Good luck with your set-up. peace_highst
 
NPK

NPK

Active member
JeffSpicoli, now I see what you mean--the light intensity thing is an excellent point, one I hadn't thought of. Seems totally possible that you could harvest tighter buds earlier in the season.

Green, another friend made that same suggestion. It sure sounds appealing, but unfortunately there isn't space to roll everyone in at once--plus there's a 2" curb the cart would have to jump. Next time (there will be a next time, just not sure whether it'll be this year or next!) I'm going to do a PVC pipe-type structure shaped like the one Pumpkin linked to. (Another excellent model is in Lord Benis' Outdoor Hydro thread.) My next blackhouse will have more headroom and for SURE a larger entry! My entry is only 2' wide and 4' high. With the larger Shits I literally have to back in and pull the plants behind me so the branches don't break off. This part was retardedly planned, I have to admit.

Yeah Highst, I think you're right about the revegging. I put the Bogglegums out to flower with some Strawberry Coughs back in mid-March, and they started flowering kind of late--maybe in early April? The SCs turned out mostly pretty well, but the Bogglegums just never really kicked properly into flowering. I ended up chopping off all the green leaf I could and putting the rest in the freezer for hash; would've been a hunt for the pistils among the leaves. I'm not complaining though, because I got lots of clones, some of which are going outside in a day or two. The Bogglegums cloned really quickly and easily. (And yeah, we're TOTALLY lucky to live where an early harvest is possible. Only one out of about a million reasons this is a grower's paradise!)

Speaking of clones, it'd be fun to try a sea of green outside. Stick some clones in a tub and give 'em 12 hours of light right off the bat. It'd be easy to lightproof with something really small. I'd love to see that. :chin:
 
J

JeffSpicoli

NPK said:
J
Speaking of clones, it'd be fun to try a sea of green outside. Stick some clones in a tub and give 'em 12 hours of light right off the bat. It'd be easy to lightproof with something really small. I'd love to see that. :chin:
Click to expand...

well since you mentioned it, ill give it a shot... I have 3 1 week vegged clones that i just put outside yesterday. sfv og, 818 og, ghost cut og.
Ill prolly start coverin em up right now, rather than lettin em veg any bigger...
This way i can really get any idea of how much stretch there is :joint:
 
S

Sad247summer

Member
Yeah it is definitley $4500+ for the growbot.
As it is said on the Bot forum "It is such a waste to spend the best sunlight of the season growing leaves and stems".
I love to see growers using outdoor photoperiod manipulation automated or not. Schaweet plants good growing!!!
 
D

DJ_highst_

Sad247summer said:
Yeah it is definitley $4500+ for the growbot.
As it is said on the Bot forum "It is such a waste to spend the best sunlight of the season growing leaves and stems".
I love to see growers using outdoor photoperiod manipulation automated or not. Schaweet plants good growing!!!
Click to expand...


heh bro, how ya been havent seen ya on the boards in bit, you only pop in for the light dep thread eh, lol. How is your light dep tent doing, I thought I remember you had something built in the other thread we had going a while back. I will try to link it, we had a good thread going, there was some good info being shared.

I agree mid-summer light dep is sick and if you get a good one going I think it is the ultimate way to grow. My dream is a climate control greenhouse with light dep capabilites, with maybe some coco drip lines, lol, wow I am stoned what a dreamer, but that would be killer.

keep up the good work NPK, I want to see how this light dep works out for you. We need a light dep sub forum or sticky in the outdoor grow or greenhouse forum. More people need to hear about this as a grow option, I think it could really help people in some situations.
 
NPK

NPK

Active member
Yikes, $4500 is a lotta lettuce, even if a lotta lettuce is what you're growing! I'm going to take a squint at the growbot just the same, maybe grab an idea or two. I'm going to do a quonset-hut-shaped dealie like that next time around. It would be so simple to put together: the only part I'm stuck on is how to create a stable enough base, because the structure would ultimately reside on a concrete patio. Can't drive rebar posts into that surface.

Jeffspicoli, cool! You oughta start a thread--that'd be a fun read. Nice genes, too. :yes: I have a bunch of Bogglegum clones and would like to do this, but I don't have any room right now. Maybe when the blackhouse empties out a little. :chin: Got all summer long to try!

Good point about the humidity, andyo. That could be a problem in a plastic-enclosed space. I've already had my "fun" with pm. I should make some small vent holes....

Thank'ee, sad247summer! I sure agree with that quote. :biglaugh:

Thanks for the props Highst. I am very excited about this, and am surprised more people don't do it. I definitely would have tried something like this much sooner if only it had occurred to me. There's just so much potential to work with more strains outside and achieve literally three or four times the yield you otherwise would have. You can have a freakin' perpetual outdoor grow for as long as half the year!! By the end of October, I will have had plants outside in some stage of grow for eight months. Granted, I live in the climate for that, but still.

My skunks are putting on weight so fast now, it's amazing to see. I put them outside on April 18 and started using the blackhouse around May 5. They're really starting to ripen up. I think I'll be able to take at least three or four of them by the end of the month. They really like the bigs pots of coco, too.
 
J

JeffSpicoli

in terms of the humidity worry....
Would something like those Silica gel packs/dehumidifier packs work?
toss a couple large bags in there, and itd prolly keep the moisture level down...
but i have no idea really...
Seems like a possibility?
 
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