Heat beating tips for your indoor gardenÂ
Today we talk about heat beating tips for your indoor garden plants. Summer has come and it is an exciting thing for an outdoor gardener. But indoor gardeners will not be happy with the summer heat. One of the major problems for the indoor gardeners is the footprint of their heat from the grow lights. In this article, we are going to discuss heat beating tips for your indoor garden. Though you are a new indoor gardener or if you have space which is established, this article will be useful to learn effective ways to cool grow room.
Excess amount of heat in your indoor grow room is never good for your plants. It will not only put extra pressure on your plants but also reduces the plant quality which will, in turn, have an impact on the final plant. This can be more relevant to the gardeners who are specialized in growing culinary or aromatic herbs where good production of oil is the main thing to get the aromas or flavors which are perfect. Moreover, if you are raising the plants which really love cool climatic conditions, such as lettuce or species which are new to high altitudes, then you will need to take maximum care in terms of problems which are caused due to heat.
Grow lights, though they produce intensity and quality of light which is required for a plant to grow healthy, they are also a source of maximum heat production. If you will not deal with the heat emitted from grow lights by making use of ventilation or air conditioners, then there would be a rapid rise in temperatures.
Indoor gardeners should make use of hygrometer or thermometer for the measurements of temperature and relative humidity of the indoor garden. Make sure that you are not resetting the temperature or relative humidity on a daily basis so that you will be able to see troughs and peaks over the past day.
If the temperature of your grow room is 26°C or more than that, and you are not providing the room with more amount of carbon dioxide than needed, then it means that your indoor garden is excessively hot. Your plants may not die but their quality gets affected. Cuttings which are taken from the same parent plant and grown in varied temperatures will smell and taste like different plants.
Read: Guide for Homemade Fungicides.
Tips to beat the heat:
- Improvement in the exchange of air:
Turn over your extraction fans and input fans to make the indoor environment cooler, bring more fresh air inside, remove the excess heat from your garden. The speed controller of a fan which is controlled thermostatically can make this happen for you in an automatic way, rather than you to turn the dials manually. Always remember to get the input air from the available coolest places. Few gardeners will make use of an air conditioner in order to cool their input air mainly at the time of summer.
2. Lessen the strength of nutrients:
As it is very hot, your plants will intake more water which will, in turn, force them to take excess nutrients. This will result in toxic issues. To avoid this, you will have to dilute the solution of nutrients by 20% with pure water. Make sure that it is kept well agitated with the air-stone an air-pump.
3. Improvement in the movement of air:
Make use of the oscillating fans in order to allow the air to move freely in your grow room mainly the air which is in between the lights and canopy of the plant.
4. Improvement in humidity:
If there is a decrease in the relative humidity to below 60% and all the plants in your indoor garden are in a vegetative mode or less than 40% when in the flowering stage, making use of a humidifier will have a major effect of cooling on your plants.
5. Switch-off few lights or make them dim:
Increasing your lights will not help in the removal of heat from your grow room. So better try turning-off almost half of the grow lights or you can also use them by making them dim.
6. Cool your nutrients:
Plants will be able to tolerate high temperatures of air. They can tolerate up to
32°C to 38°C, if the nutrients are cooled up to 18°C. The gardeners will make use of a pump for the circulation of the nutrient solution across an aquarium chiller.
7. Usage of air-cooled reflectors:
Hoods which are air-cooled like Blockbuster will let the indoor gardeners take off half of the heat which is generated by lamp prior to its entrance into their garden. Usage of the insulated duct will be better for the improvement in efficiency.
8. Put lights on at nights:
If you are working on the short-day plants which need only 12 hours of lights in a day, then you can keep your lights turned on at nights. This will not only reduce the cost of electricity but also lowers the ambient temperatures making it easier for you.
8.Seal up your indoor garden:
Providing ventilation to the indoor garden at the time of summer will not work for the gardeners. The gardeners have to cover or seal their grow room by making use of an air conditioner or by addition of carbon dioxide by making use of a tank which is connected to a regulator.
9. Careful watering:
To maintain an indoor garden in summer, you will need to have a perfect water schedule. It is always suggested not to overwater your plants. Most of the indoor plants die because of this mistake. But at the time of summer, plants will need to be soaked thoroughly. The watering should be done deep and also slow. A little amount of water should be watered at a time. If you are rotting your roots, then your plants will die eventually.
10. Monitoring the indoor plants:
You should make it a habit to test the level of moisture in your indoor plants frequently than you normally do. The best method is to check by touching the soil and start watering when the soil is dry. You can also get a moisture meter for testing your plants but you cannot depend on them completely. If you are placing your plants near air-conditioners, they will get dried more rapidly as they suffer from lack of humidity.
11. Do not re-pot your plants:
Good maintenance of plants will need repotting rootbound plants whenever required. Make sure that you are not picking a hot day for doing this. It is very stressful to repot your plants. roots and leaves will be trimmed or sometimes they can even get damaged. The indoor plants will not be able to handle overstress.Â
12. Clean maintenance:
It is not a good idea to prune, but make sure that you are cleaning dying or yellowing leaves or even flowers. The leaves which have been dropped will get piled up on the soil making a home for pests mainly the fungus gnats.
That’s all folks about “Heat Beating Tips for Indoor Garden”.
Read: Techniques of Garden Soil Sterilization.