For those not familiar with Sure To Grow, allow me to enlighten. Plastic bottles are recycled and reconstituted into a growing medium that is Sure To Grow (STG). The medium feels light and fluffy. You can purchase it in any form factor that you need: sheets, blocks, loose-fill, and pre-formed cones for net pots (2″ seedling pucks up to 10″ for 2-gallon buckets).

In contrast to other mediums, raw materials are not utilized in the creation of Sure to Grow. Reduce, recycle, and reuse. Plastic bottles feed Sure To Grow. However, the tradeoff of utilizing raw, virgin ingredients which can be reused vs. waste products which would otherwise be thrown away—-I choose the medium from waste recycled products.

Why is it a great growing medium?

One of the single most important and hard-learned benefits of Sure to Grow—-plant resiliency. During the 2 years that I’ve been using Sure To Grow, I’ve had root rot occur twice. The roots started in STG popped back almost instantly. No other medium that I tried worked this well.

The reason why this occurred is that the roots were protected in the bubble that is Sure To Grow. With Hygromite (diatomaceous earth) and Hydroton (clay pebbles), root rot affected the roots up to the root ball. With Sure To Grow, root rot stopped at the medium. After trimming the foliage and affected roots, roots took 4x as long to restore with Hygromite and Hydroton than with Sure To Grow.

With STG, the entire plant didn’t have to start rerooting from scratch. The new rooting started right from the edge of the medium. BAM! Almost. . .insta-re-rooting.

Here we have a couple of pics of plants that suffered from root rot.  These shots are after 1 week and 2 weeks, respectively, from Sure to Grow in Current Culture H2O’s 4XL system.

Transplantability. Say you start your plant in dirt, or any other medium and you want to change it up. You can repot your plant into STG. You carve out a suitable cavern inside STG and insert your plant.

Transplant from dirt? Impossible, you say! Possible, says I. Sure To Grow functions as a micro-filter. Wash away what soil that you can, carve out a suitable pocket—without permeating the medium’s shell—and you have a nice home for your previously soil-based plant. The soil will not flow out of the STG to muck up your growing system. Except for the normal transplant adjustment, the plants take to it like ducks to water.

“

How to improve it?

STG cannot support larger, heavier plants on its own. Unless there is a stiffer superstructure around the medium (i.e. net basket, tomato cage, etc.), a heavy plant will topple in this medium. As plants grow larger, their root structure will firmly hold them in place. I don’t know that it’s possible, but a denser, heavier Sure To Grow would solve this.

Conclusion

For me, perfect growing materials utilize waste from other processes. Compost from kitchen scraps, manure from animals, and garden beds from old railroad ties are all perfect. So is Sure To Grow. Recycled plastic bottles transformed into a growing medium. Awesome!

No virgin rocks or wooly sheep were hurt in the writing of this article.

Happy Gardening!

Curtis

There are a lot of CO2 generators on the market, varying by capacity. Connecting either a propane or natural gas line, a generator burns gas to produce CO2. When the burner is on, CO2 is generated. When it’s off, not.

Controlling this with an electronic CO2 controller will avoid wasting gas and create the exact environment of your choice.

Alternatives to using a gas-burning CO2 generator include the yeast/sugar soda bottle method (very imprecise) or a CO2 tank with a CO2 regulator.

Hydro Innovations’ MiniGEN is a compact CO2 generator and comes in at 6″x7″x10″. It’s small and adorable. Like Pikachu, small packages can generate powerful results.

Included accessories

– AC adapter
– 2 small screw hooks to screw into the top of the MiniGEN (for hanging)
– 2 worm-gear hose clamps for the water-cooling hose bibs
– 2 mounting screws for mounting the unit against a wall or wooden support
– 12-foot gas line with regulator for your propane tank

Setup & Installation

– Connect the included gas hose to the MiniGEN and a propane tank.

– Either hang the MiniGEN via its included screw hooks (good metal ones, too!) or flush-mount the unit against a wall. I opted to use ratcheting rope hooks with the screw hooks, but standard light chains would be fine.

– Plug the AC adapter into the MiniGEN and then into your CO2 controller.

– Slide the water hoses onto the hose bibs. The water hoses slide easily onto the front hose bibs for the MiniGEN. Cinch down the connections with the included worm-gear clamps and you’re good to go. I only wish that all of Hydro Innovations’ gear used these hose bibs. Easy on and easy off.

– For added measure and because I am paranoid, I teflon-taped the MiniGEN water hose bibs. As a former Boy Scout, I believe that added safety breeds security. No exception here—albeit the directions specifically state that these measures are not required.

Operation

Once everything is connected, your CO2 controller takes care of the MiniGEN.

The MiniGEN does have an on/off switch. Prior to walking away from your installation, ensure that you turn this on. The switch proves very handy when working around in your grow room. No need to waste CO2 with your grow chamber open—flip the switch to ‘Off.’

One exception to using a CO2 controller. If you are using CO2 as a natural pest-killer (around 10,000 PPM), you won’t use a CO2 controller. OR, you’ll use one that allows you to specify 10,000 PPM as an acceptable level.

Not only will this eradicate all pests in your grow room, you may eradicate yourself if not careful. Show extreme prudence if you attempt this sort of CO2 application.

Performance

Once connected, the MiniGEN takes a few clicks (of the electronic ignitor) to light the propane. I watched the CO2 controller. Two minutes later, the indicator crept from 500 PPM to 1500 PPM CO2 and turned off the burner. The MiniGEN’s burner generates 1.5 cubic feet/hr of CO2.

My grow chamber is 4′ wide, 3′ deep, 7′ tall. I hung the MiniGEN slightly above my light reflector and laid the CO2 controller slightly beneath the plant bases—approximately 3 feet between the two. This way, I ensured that at least 1500 PPM CO2 flowed across all levels of the plant tops.

Heat

A common issue with CO2 generators is heat. Pure and simple, fire is burning the propane to generate your CO2. Fire = heat. What to do with it?

The good folks over at Hydro Innovations solve that problem with all of their CO2 generators by water-cooling the units. Using a water chiller and pump with the MiniGEN, my grow room sees no added heat—at all.

If you’re running the MiniGEN without the water cooling (which you can do), you will need to add some sort of environmental cooling (ala conventional air conditioning or via a Hydro Innovations IceBox setup).

Safety

For being such a small unit, the MiniGEN incorporates two cool safety features:

– The electronic ignitor turns on only when CO2 is to be generated. No pilot light. Not only does this eliminate an unnecessary active fire in your grow chamber, but it conserves gas.

– An anti-tip sensor will not allow the ignitor to trigger if the unit is not level. If the unforeseen happens and the MiniGEN falls down or tilts, the unit will not fire.

How to make it better?

For once, I’m stumped.

The only suggestion that I can offer is a visual indicator of propane flow. I have not run out of propane yet. When I do, the only indicator will be the constant clicking of the MiniGEN’s ignitor. If I’m on an extended trip, this might last several days.

A visual indicator of either the flame or the gas (flowing/not flowing) might work well. However, on the MiniGEN itself, this would be less than ideal because you would need to open your grow room to see the indicator. Instead, the included 12′ propane hose should be substituted for one with a flow indicator on the tank side.

Other than that, this is a simple, perfect little beast.

Conclusion

If you have a grow room on the medium to small size (10′ x 10′ x 10′ or smaller) or otherwise don’t need super-fast CO2 flow, the MiniGEN is YOUR CO2 generator.

Simple. Cool. Efficient. Safe. Enough said.

Happy Gardening,

Curtis

Unless you want to sit in front of your plants and breathe sweet nothings onto your plants, you need to artificially add CO2.  Indoor gardens love a carbon dioxide concentration of 1500 PPM.

Under the rarest of occurrences, you can boost that to 10,000 PPM for 15 minutes to kill all crawling critters molesting your plants.  Be careful with this application and know thoroughly what you are doing.  Such high CO2 concentrations will kill you.

There are currently two ways to add CO2 to an environment:
1)  Get a CO2 tank and CO2 regulator to maintain a consistent PPM.
2)  Use a CO2 generator to burn propane and separate the CO2 from the propane with the assistance of an electric monitor or regulator to control the on/off of the CO2 generator.

Hydro Innovations’ CO2 Monitor fits the bill.

The CO2 Monitor is a perfect example of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).  Plug in the monitor, connect your choice of CO2 generators, wait a few seconds for the monitor to boot up, and you’re ready to roll.  I would recommend placing the monitor at the opposite corner from your generator to ensure a minimum application of CO2 to all corners of your grow room.

The monitor defaults to maintaining the environment at 1500 PPM of CO2.  It starts your CO2 generator at 1300 PPM and shuts it off at 1500 PPM.
Here we have what’s included in the package.
– 1 A/C adapter for the CO2 Monitor itself
– CO2 Monitor with power cable for your CO2 generator

You can mount the monitor to the wall for easy reading.  For myself, I set the CO2 Monitor down in a corner of my grow room, opposite my CO2 generator.

I have the CO2 Monitor connected to the same timer as my grow light.  Plants don’t really require much CO2 during lights-out, so any generated with the lights out is a waste.

Fancier CO2 Monitors (read:  more expensive) can fine-tune the PPMs in your grow room.  Really, you don’t have to.  KISS is good for you.  On at 1300.  Off at 1500.  Easy.

My only suggestion for improvement to the monitor is to incorporate its own power supply into the plug, which also powers the generator.  However, this would require some tricky electrical engineering to power the monitor and not power your CO2 generator. This would eliminate the extra AC cable.

Simple partner for your CO2 generator. Get it. Connect it. And forget about it.

Happy Gardening!
Curtis

Please note: blog posts are the opinions of independent growers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Urban Garden Magazine or its affiliates.

Gel2Root from SupaPlants come in packs of 6, although some retailers will sell them individually. Each clear plastic cup contains Gel2Root rooting gel and a foil top to contain the medium’s moisture.

You pierce the foil, insert your cutting, and walk away. Some days/weeks later, voila, a rooted clone. Simple, no? Pretty close.

Any new cloning methods that I test will not be used with easy-to-clone or fast-to-thrive plants. I see no need to switch methods unless I’m having problems. This is where I leveraged the Gel2Root cups.

I chose 2 difficult-to-clone plants: a strawberry variety and Cuban mint (mojito-lovers rejoice!). With my GH RapidRooters, the best cuttings from the Cuban mint died before they could thrive. Failing Cuban mint turns black quickly. Easy indicator.

Of the strawberries, only 1 of 3 rooted. However, it rooted well. So well, in fact, that the roots almost sucked dry the canopy before I noticed that it was time to transplant it.

The real benefit of this medium is that it is maintenance-free. No need to water a block or plug. No need to use rooting hormone or rooting powder. In fact, using these additives stunts the effectiveness of the gel.

In the case of Gel2Root, the mint thrived in the medium and rooted after 8 days. The strawberry took 3 weeks. In both cases, I needed to do nothing else. I kept both plants inside my humidity dome, atop my seedling tray.

Words of advice when using this medium:

• Make the foil insertion hole as small as you can to avoid medium evaporation. If the hole allows too much evaporation of the medium, your cutting will be air-exposed and not root. Of the 6 cuttings I tested, this occurred in 1 of them.
• Don’t insert more than 2 cuttings per gel cup. While you can attempt 3 (as per instructions), each cutting’s canopy may overshadow the others.

I won’t use Gel2Root for all of my cuttings. However, when my main clone methods generate no results or if I need maintenance-free cloning, I will roll with the Gel.

Embrace your Clear Side!
- Curtis

Please note: blog posts are the opinions of independent growers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or experiences of Urban Garden Magazine or its affiliates.

Below are some pictures of the way to PROPERLY install the ChillKing/IceBox combo—unlike what I had done previously.  Take note of the new hoses and worm-gear clamps used to secure everything.  Your local hardware store will stock a variety of typically cheap hoses.  The hoses from Hydro Innovations are industrial quality and tailored to their cooling and CO2 generator systems—-perfect diameter, inner and outer.  The most significant differences between HI’s hoses and the average water hoses are HI’s superior insulation and kink-resistance.  The vinyl black hoses kink and have no insulation.  Bad for chilling.

Removing my old hoses, I prepped the complete re-hosing by drilling through my garage wall.  With a quality hose setup, I removed all of the hack-job connectors which I previously utilized (see Chillaxing with Hydro Innovations, part 1).  The entire system is powered by an 1850 GPH submersible water pump sitting in my water reservoir.

After teflon-taping all hose bibs, because I am paranoid about leaks, I connected all of the hoses and cinched them with worm clamps.  From the ChillKing, we feed the cold hose into the first of two IceBoxes, then to the second IceBox.

GROWER BASIC DATA

What’s the starting pH, EC and source of your water?
pH: 7.1 (adjusted that to 6.1). 150-175 PPM Municipal tap water.

What’s your normal cloning method? How many days does it usually take for your clones to root?
About 10 days, depending on the plant, with my GH Rapid Rooters.

What were the min/max temperatures of your cloning environment?
Internal (cloner) water temp: 70/90°F (before putting on 15/15 minute timer for water pump); 72-75°F with the pump timer. External environment: 70-82°F.

Which cloning product(s) did you use? Did you use any other nutrients/additives in the cloning process?
EZ-Clone, Roots Oregonism, Clonex and Schultz Root Hormones.

FEEDBACK

Did the EZ-CLONE root cuttings quicker? If so, how much quicker?
Yes, 4 days quicker.

Was the EZ-CLONE easy to set up and use?
Yes.

Were the instructions adequate?
Yes.

Did the cuttings go limp in the EZ-CLONE? Any observations over the first few hours?
No. Normally, all of my cuttings will go limp initially. NOT the case with the EZ-Clone. My cuttings stayed strong with minimal stress.

How vigorous (or otherwise) was the root development? Did the roots look healthy? Airy? Nice and white? How prolific were they?
Nice and white roots. For me, the unusual results were that most of the roots sprouted from within the cracks of the rooting collar.

What did you transfer the clones into? Soil/hydro? What sort of system? Media?
Hydroton in an ebb & flow system.

What base nutrients did you use to grow the clone on?
BC Boost and BC Grow.

What lighting did you use (for rooting and for early veg)?
600 MH.

Did the clones take easily to their new veg environment? Any signs of transplant shock?
Yes, they did. There were some initial signs of transplant shock, but those passed.

How do the regular cuttings compare with the EZ-CLONE cuttings in veg?
No real differences.

Did you take any steps to harden the cuttings up? If so, what?
Yes. Sprayed with a mixture of Superthrive and Vita- Grow Anti-Wilt to encourage rooting.

SUMMARY

What do you think of the EZ-CLONE’s build quality? Is it built to last?
Outstanding build quality. The lip running around the unit’s base was a good idea. This kept the water spray flowing back into the unit’s reservoir.

What maintenance did the clones require inside the EZ-CLONE?
Needed to spray the clones with some nutrient foliar spray.

Do you think the EZ-CLONE is good value for money?
Yes, because it allows for relatively care-free cloning. It does pretty well, but so do my beloved GH Rapid Rooters, a seedling tray, and a humidity dome. For commercial growers, this unit is a must-have.

CURTIS RATES THE EZ-CLONE: 97%

For additional grow reports on this product, click here.
To read Curtis’s blog posts, click here.

The winter time is when indoor gardening shines. Bright lights, CO2, and enclosed spaces all make for a potentially hot environment for any plant. Some plants thrive in hot environments. Most do not. Winter is when the outdoor ambient temperatures help reduce, depending on your location, the effect of those heat factors.

Winter is one season in four. For the rest of the seasons, you may need to cool your environment. If you don’t, you risk lower yields and heat stressing your plants. Or, you must limit yourself to hot-thriving species.

Two kinds of cooling exist today for grow rooms: ambient air cooling and liquid water cooling. Ambient air cooling requires an air conditioner and ventilation to exhaust the hot air from the grow room. Water cooling requires the same and focuses on providing a cold solution near the heat source (typically, the grow light). Where air cooling pushes cold air to every aspect of the grow area, water cooling targets just the heat-producing areas of your grow area (typically, your light and reflector).

Let’s talk about Hydro Innovations’ ChillKing & Ice Box. The ChillKing is Hydro Innovation’s liquid chiller solution. I received both the 1/2 HP ChillKing and Ice Box at the beginning of the summer growing season.

Ideal temps for indoor gardening are an ambient 72-75 degrees Fahrenheit. Every grow room maintains different ambient temperatures. My grow room, in the summer, runs as hot as 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Talk about plant heat stress.

That was, until I installed a 1/2 HP ChillKing and a 6″ IceBox from Hydro Innovations.

Hydro Innovations offers their ChillKing in 1/2 HP through industrial-engorging 10 HP. The IceBox is available in 6″ ducting and 8″ ducting sizes.

The ChillKing is a essentially an air conditioner with liquid cooling plumbing for the water path. On the side of the ChillKing is an electronic temperature control which will power on the unit—thus cooling—when the water flowing through its input/output flows in above the temperature set by you.

The 1/2 ChillKing can either be mounted through a wall or window sill (as with traditional window A/C units). I used an 1800 gph submersible pump and 35 gal water reservoir for my cooling. With the ChillKing, I believe that you could use an even smaller water reservoir (25 gals even) for chilling–depending on your lighting setup. The cold water response from the ChillKing is near flash-instant, from hot water to cold.

This unit is completely different from the cheap plastic units currently available. The ChillKing is built like a brick s***house. Not a single cheap component. Metal components throughout and metal hose connectors.

My only suggestion for improvement for the ChillKing would be at the hose-connections.  Instead of screw-on, fixed hose connectors on the unit, I would like to see garden-hose free-spinning connectors or even quick-connectors.  Without this, once you connect your water lines, you may be twisting the entire hose to manipulate it onto its receiving connectors (water reservoir connection, pump connection, IceBox or Fresca Del Sol connections, etc…).  Depending on your setup, this can be a pain.

Add the IceBox.

With a 6″ IceBox and a 440CFM 6″ Can-Fan fan connected to my 600W light and reflector, the pair worked wonderfully! The temperature dropped dramatically from summer months scorching my grow chamber. My grow chamber dropped from 100 degrees F day / 85 degrees F night to 74 F day / 70 F night. Previous to installing this, I had to focus on temperature resilient and heat-thriving plants. After implementing this setup, the plant kingdom is my oyster and I will grow what I want.

However, the ChillKing & 6″ IceBox could not and cannot drop my grow chamber temperature below 68 degrees even with the light off (flowering darkness). If you’re a grower who needs to drop their lights-off flowering below that temperature (some growers would like to hit around 60 degrees F), I would recommend stepping up to an 8″ reflector and the 8″ IceBox for more CFM air flow.

Worm-gear clamps cinching the connections to the IceBox.

My only improvement suggestion for the IceBox is the same as for the ChillKing—quick connect connectors. I had to wrap tape around the input/output connectors and cinch the connections water-tight with small worm-gear clamps. Especially useful would be quick-connections which would also retain the water in the hose when removed from the IceBox. Otherwise, moving/reconfiguring the IceBox will lead to a watery mess.

The ChillKing and IceBox allowed me to increase my yields, avoid heat stress, AND expand the types of plants which I can grow. I will not return to a chiller-free setup.

In case you missed them, Hydro Innovations offered complete setup deals (chiller, hoses, IceBox, water reservoirs, and and everything you would need) across this past summer. Look for their current pricing and any promotions at: http://www.icehousedistribution.com/.

NOTE: please read Part 2 for the update, which corrects the set-up mistakes made here.

Please note: blog posts are the opinions of independent growers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Urban Garden Magazine or its affiliates.

As a cloning medium…

Cloning allows us to take the advanced age of a mother plant (ideally, just prior to flowering) and generate several, ready-to-go copies. You can then take those copies, vegetate them for a much shorter period of time, and push them right into flowering. Meanwhile, you’re growing more clone-able branches on your mother plant for another round of cuttings.

Sounds simple, no?

Well, it’s not. We all have our preferred methods for cloning. I’ve tried cloning in plastic cups with plain ol’ high-PPM, high-PH tap water. I’ve tried cloning in soil, in coco plugs, and even medium-less with an 8-cell Daisy Cloner. None of these cloning attempts came even close to the success of the Rapid Rooters in a seedling tray.

My new recipe? Dip my cuttings in Clonex, shove into Rapid Rooters, insert into seedling tray with a heating mat beneath and a humidity dome on top. Fin.

I’ve gone from a 50% rooting success rate of my cuttings to a 90% rooting success rate. Not only that, I’ve hastened the time for rooting. Previously, my cuttings in straight coco-fiber would take three weeks or longer to root—if at all. With the Rapid Rooters, I had root sprouts from 50% of my cuttings in 5 days. In 2 weeks, 90% of my cuttings had advanced, ready-to-plant root systems.

As a seed medium…

Rapid Rooters provide a great seed medium. Insert a seed or three into the pre-cut seed hole, insert into seedling tray, and wait. The RR’s nutrients will not burn your seeds and will accelerate their fledgling root systems beautifully.

As an added bonus, AeroGardeners can use Rapid Rooter plugs. You simply cut down the size of the RR plug, insert it into the AeroGarden plastic seed pod, and insert your seeds. Not only are they much cheaper than AeroGarden’s replacement grow sponges, but Rapid Rooters will rapidly root (pun intended) your seeds.

A good root system is the basis of a healthy plant. With GH’s Rapid Rooters, I saw not only success, but FAST success. My seed starts and cuttings have never been happier or more successful than in RR plugs.

Thank you General Hydroponics!

Has Curtis convinced you? Have you had your own love affair with a particular propagation method? Share!

I’ll be writing up my experiences with butting my head against brick walls (also known as “Aphid/Spider Mite Patrol” aka “The Endeavors of Bug Quixote”), new cloning and harvesting techniques, and every piece of hydroponics equipment upon which I can lay my hands.

I started gardening a long time ago.  Mostly, I do it to teach me patience.  You cannot rush Mother Nature. And, as impatient as I am, I find it a relaxing activity for me.

I moved more towards hydroponics and indoor gardening after my little boy’s baby shower.  We passed around unlabeled baby food jars, tasting each one, and guessing what they were.  When I tasted what was later disclosed as butternut squash, I decided that I couldn’t feed it to him—ever.  I make a killer butternut squash soup and this jar of orange gook was anything but butternut squash.

By trade, I’m a project manager for a large technology company.  By night, my MBA and tech geek background does me no good as I roll up my sleeves and play with water, nutrients, and all things green and growing.

GROWER BASIC DATA

What base nutrients did you use while testing this product?
GH 3-Part Flora Series

Do you grow indoors, outdoors, or in a greenhouse?
Indoors

What type of system do you use to grow your plants? (E.g. flood and drain table)
Drip

What type of growth media (if any) do you use to grow your plants?
Hydroton

What was the typical minimum temperature?
75-degrees F (24-degrees C)

What was the typical maximum temperature?
95-degrees F (35-degrees C)

What is your water source? (E.g. tap, rainwater, RO-machine)
Tap

What is the pH of your water? (With no nutrients or additives added)
7.0-8.1

What is the EC of your water? (With no nutrients or additives added)
150-170 PPM

FEEDBACK

Did you notice any increased fluctuations in pH while testing this product?
No

Did you use additional amounts of pH down to stabilize your nutrient pH while using this product?
No

Did you observe an increase in vigor for plants treated with Floralicious Plus?
Yes

Was there a noticeable difference the in the flavor and aroma of flowers on plants treated with Floralicious Plus?
Yes

Did you observe an increase in flower and fruit size and overall yield for plants treated with Floralicious Plus?
Yes

Did plants treated with Floralicious Plus seem to take up more water and nutrients?
Yes

SUMMARY

Are the manufacturer’s instructions clear and accurate?
Yes

Do you think this product represents good value for money?
Yes

Based on your experiences, do you have any hints and tips on getting the most out of this product?
Because of the viscosity of the product, use a dedicated dropper. (Product tends to stick to the doser.)

Would you use this product again?
Definitely

CURTIS RATES FLORALICIOUS PLUS: 80%

For additional grow reports on this product, click here.