Keeping your grow room clean is vital to the health of your plants. Especially if you are growing crop after crop. Not properly cleaning your grow room can leave your plants open to pests, disease, pathogens and mould. I think you’d feel pretty silly if your plants died for the sake of you not bothering to clean. Growing indoors is primarily popular because the grower has so much control over the growing environment. This means not only being able to manage the temperature, humidity and light but also the sterility and cleanliness of the space. As with any space, there are different levels of cleaning that need to be done. This includes everything from cleaning little bits daily to large cleans after each grow cycle. Once you know exactly what you’re doing cleaning is easy. However, to make sure you don’t miss anything important, here is a little breakdown of how to keep your grow room lovely and clean.
The Before Clean
It is vitally important that the space is sparkling clean before you introduce your crop. It doesn’t matter if the space hasn’t been used before or if it’s a brand new grow tent right out of the box. If the grow tent is new then you just need to give it a good wipe down. It won’t have been exposed to any potential mould or pests from previous plants but we want to make sure there is no chance of anything sneaky living on the surfaces. If your grow tent has been used before there is a much more rigorous process to go through.
Experts recommend the use of insect bombs, hydrogen peroxide and bleach to ensure there is no chance of contamination.
Bug Bomb
This should be pretty self-explanatory but we will go through it regardless. If you have already had plants in your grow room there is a chance that something snuck in and laid some eggs. Even if they didn’t have time to hatch while your last crop was growing, they may be ready to burst forth just in time to give your brand new babies the full face-hugger treatment. If you had trouble with bugs in your last crop you just want to make sure there is no trace of them left. Once you’ve killed any bugs make sure to completely remove any trace of them from the room as insect corpses can attract more pests.
Hydrogen Peroxide
This stuff is just amazing for wiping out any germs that may be lurking in the grow room. Simply give the whole space a good wipe down and it will massively reduce your chances of a mould or disease issue.
Bleach
Bleach is another one that is just great for completely laying waste to anything that might be lying in wait for your new crop. You don’t need a lot, maybe a tablespoon for every four litres of water. Pop on some gloves, maybe some eyewear, and sponge down every surface in the grow space. Leave it for a few minutes to really let it go to town, then dry everything with a cloth.
The During Clean
Once everything is sparkling and your plants are in you will just need to perform basic maintenance to ensure your plants stay safe and happy. There are a few things you should be doing every day, but then you just need to focus on the weekly and monthly cleans.
Daily
Just have a look at the plants to make sure they are happy. Checking daily will reduce the likelihood of your plants getting an infection or disease that goes beyond saving. While doing this just get rid of any dead leaves, dust, and anything that looks like it might start decomposing.
If there are any water spills just clean them up straight away, bugs love laying their eggs in stagnant water.
Keep the space excess dirt and dust-free, just make sure it stays nice and tidy.
Weekly
Clean out the trays and equipment to make sure they aren’t getting mouldy. This keeps everything sterile and reduces the chance of external infection. Just soak everything in a hydrogen peroxide solution.
Check that your filters are working, if you miss a broken air filter and the flow stops this could be a disaster for your crops.
Clean all of your pumps and other water systems to ensure that algae don’t start growing. This could block up and break your watering system and potentially kill your plants.
Check the surfaces for any sign of mould, this means checking behind reflective surfaces, lights and anything that could hide the beginnings of an issue.
Monthly
The monthly checks are super important because if you don’t carry them out you may as well not bother growing at all.
Check your whole space for mould. If there is something growing and you don’t catch it in your monthly inspection your plants could be destroyed within days.
Replace all of your air filters to keep them fresh. Air filters are so-called because they filter the crap out of the air, and that crap has to go somewhere. If you don’t change them they will become clogged and will snuff our your air circulation.
Clean your lights, this is something you can do more often but do it at least once a month. Over time grime and nonsense will build up on the glass and just reduce the amount of light getting to your precious babies.
Finally, just sterilise everything. The full deep sterilisation of the space should remove the risks of infection and disease for your plants. This is a vital stage of the monthly cleaning process.
It is important that you try your hardest to stick to a routine so that you don’t forget any aspect of the cleaning process. Make sure you space out your pots, keep it all consistently tidy and even maybe make yourself a checklist to ensure you don’t miss anything. Keep your space clean, keep your plants happy.
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