Using industrial chemicals in enclosed spaces where plants (that will be consumed by humans) and workers inhabit is very short sighted. To me it seems this stems from the hydroponic industry that tries to keep the entire indoor grow space as sterile as possible. When growing plants, being sterile isn't the first thing that comes to mind. We are talking about growing plants after all. Plants by design are not sterile, and are not deigned to be grown in a sterile environment.
Before considering your options for cleaning your indoor grow room a proper IPM program should be put into place. Using a robust selection of predators in your soil, including nematodes, rove beetles, hypoaspis miles, etc.. will help the overall health of your indoor garden. Using foliar sprays of plant extracts, oils, etc.. can also help to inhibit molds, diseases, and pests. Once you have this in check, trying to be sterile isn't all that important. To put it into perspective, when I sweep my grow room floors I pick up any mulch, or leaves and throw them right back on top of my pots. This would be unheard of in a hydroponic grow where due to lack of natural predators these things would be vectors and possibly pose issues to the plants. But in a no-till living soil grow that has a health family of predators they will use these leaves and mulch as food and a habitat to live.
Now that you have your grow room in balance you can worry about how to naturally clean it. The number one product I personally use, and have used for almost 10 years is orange oil. Orange is used for many things including paint stripper, degreasers, and cleaners. It is extremely acidic and when mixed properly it will kill pretty much anything it touches. It is highly effective on insects, mold spores, and bacteria. There is no need to wear a respirator when spraying, and no issues with being in an enclosed space when spraying. The best side benefit of it is that it smells so fucking good when you are spraying it. Your entire room will smell like fresh squeezed orange juice when done.
I have experimented with orange oil for many years. I ran tests one summer where I caught ticks, fleas, spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, ants, and a few other critters. I would mix different concentrations of orange oil to see their effectiveness on said critters. After much experimenting I landed on what worked well to kill these larger size insects. I then would mix different concentrations and try to see how well those concentrations would clean different residues in grow rooms. If you couple this information with tests that have already been done about knocking out bacteria, fungal spores, etc.. then you can come up with a concentration that is a superb cleaner, bacterial killer, fungal spore killer, and even pest egg killer.
That being said, if you spray orange oil on your plants your plants they will be dead as fuck! Do not spray orange oil on your plants ever. Orange oil is phytotoxic to plants.
Use the following mixture to keep your grow room clean, pest, and disease free.
Use a 1 quart spray bottle:
- Add 2 to 3 ounces of orange oil
- Fill the rest of the water bottle with water
This spray formula can be multiplied to be used in gallon sprayers, or even up to 5 gallon sprayers.
when using this spray you will want to shake the bottle every minute or so. The orange oil will want to separate from the water, but with an occasional shake it will disperse through the water. This amount of orange oil will kill most anything it touches. The only thing I haven't had it kill was a mouse. It just makes them wet as shit and pissed off.
You can use this spray to wash wall, light fixtures(make sure the fixtures are unplugged and that you don't spray the bulbs), floors, equipment, etc.. It can also be used for spot spraying of pest issues like ants. It will knock ants down pretty much instantly. If you have ants in your pots don't spray this in your pots. You can however spray the floor, walls, and outside of the pots. This mix will also kill predators so keep that in mind. It does not discriminate when its comes to killing.
This is the only cleaner I have solely used for almost 10 years now. When used in conjunction with a proper IPM program you can easily straddle that line of running a natural organic grow inside a building all while producing a health family of predators insects to help keep your garden safe and guarded.
