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| I would like to keep a small indoor vegetable garden going through winter months. I live in the basement of my dad's house. The room I would like to grow plants in only has a small window (maybe 2 square feet). There are fluorescent lights in the ceiling that light up the room pretty well. I wonder if I got the right spectrum, could I grow potted veggies in my room? The other room does have a patio door which lets in lots of light, but it's also very drafty and never gets above 60F in the winter, which I don't think would be good for the plants (unless I got a heat mat, I guess). My room is a good 70F, as I'm a wimp with cold ;) I've been looking at tiered light shelves, but they're kind of expensive...the cheapest is about $300 and I would want several. http://www.gardeners.com/T-5-Light-Garden-3Tier/39-357,default,pd.html Even if I did a DIY kind, I'd still have to buy bulbs...I'd rather just buy the ceiling bulbs for the whole room and not mess with constructing stuff. I have plenty of shelves now such as bookshelves, desks, cabinets, etc...I figure if I just turn/rotate the plants on a regular basis, they could get enough light. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by Michael.Masztal none (My Page) on Sat, Jan 26, 13 at 19:36
| The ceiling lights would not work too well as plants need to be very close to fluorescent lights (within 3-4 inches) to benefit, so some T5 would be in order. For lettuces, a less expensive 4 tube T8 from W-M or Home Depot work well using the 6500K daylight bulbs. A raft or DWC are the easiest to manage. The other room that gets sun is a potential grow spot as some veggies/herbs (lettuce/ cilantro) like cooler temps but you may need to use an aquarium water heater to warm up the water a bit ~70-75 deg F. You can easily design/ build some light stands for cheap (under $20) using PVC pipe. |
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- Posted by vivid-dawn none (My Page) on Sun, Jan 27, 13 at 0:53
| So basically it's a "no". Hrmm. Guess I gotta go read more posts and do research on how to build me some shelves after all! Also, the water being heated. Is that water they sit in, or what I use to do daily watering? If it's just daily watering, I don't need an aquarium heater, just turn on 'hot' handle on tap water would work..? |
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