A Little About Me
As an aspiring gardener who’s only recently picked the hobby up in the past couple years, I’ve learned that the cold climate of northern Canada can make outdoor gardening very challenging. The season starts late and it’s over in the blink of an eye. 2 Years ago, when my first season of growing peppers on my condo balcony came to a close, I was so disappointed – my plants had just started to produce decent habaneros and jalapenos and I was already taking them inside at night in fear of frost. Tending to my crappy little balcony garden brought me great joy and relaxation, and I decided then and there to look into indoor gardening in order to transform this seasonal hobby into a year-round pursuit.
Though gardening has only recently captivated me, electronics have always been a passion of mine, and indoor growing is a great combination of these two hobbies for me. I love new technology, and right now, LED grow lights are the new tech for indoor growing. While indoor growing is not particularly new, there’s still a great deal of uncertainty regarding some of its core elements. A few examples are:
- What colour temperature is best for growing?
- Are different colour temperatures better for different stages of growth (e.g.- vegetative vs. flowering phase)?
- Are full-spectrum LEDs better than red and blue LEDs?
- What intensity of light is optimal for growing?
- What’s the optimal lighting schedule for plant growth?
And these are just for the lights – never mind all the bullshit involved with different types of hydroponics, nutrients, pruning methods, etc. Having all these variables appeals to me though, and thus far, I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with different approaches and techniques. When you manage to get everything dialed in just right (or at least in the ballpark), the results are very rewarding. Seeing your plants grow like crazy and produce fruit is such wonderful, tangible proof that you’re doing something right, but the quest to perfect the process is never ending. Something can always be improved on, and finding and implementing these improvements is what I intend to focus on in this blog.
Goals
Ultimately, my goals are:
- To share my experience with others who are passionate about this hobby. I encourage you to leave a comment or send an email if you’d like to offer a suggestion, ask a question, or just shoot the shit.
- To learn as I go, and help others learn as well, whether it’s derived from mistakes or successes.
- To do some comparative testing in order to improve my methods and document this information in a somewhat-scientific manner (cut me some slack on this part).
- Provide information on indoor growing that is not focused on marijuana, but on veggies and other plants instead. There’s sort of a stigma attached to indoor gardening and hydroponics (every time somebody sees my setup, I hear the same jokes about getting “busted” for my pepper farm), and I’d like to try to lessen this. Though marijuana legalization seems imminent here in Canada now, I’ll only be growing and discussing garden veggies until (if and when) it’s actually 100% legal to grow the other stuff.
- Have fun with this project and make life a little less stressful.
Thanks for visiting!