How many square feet of area do you need to cover, and what shape is the area?

As far as cost goes the cheapest way is to get some daylight compact fluorescent light bulbs and put them in a tall lamp over the veggies. A reading style lamp that is designed to put light downward or directionally is good at getting strong light to a limited area. Some people recomend getting different types, like a daylight and a standard cfl bulb (since thats the only two options readily available at general purpose stores.)

There;s also some debate on whether you would be better off just keeping the light on all the time or if you should try to mimic day / night rhythms. Some people have had great success either way. Cacti and some other plants definitely need dark periods and some plants use dark periods to bloom, beyond that it's really anybodies guess.

I ended up going to Home Depot this evening and got this for $12. If it doesn't work, then it still was only $12 and not really a waste because I can always use more lighting. Especially in my closet. I am always scared that there will be monsters in there. Despite being nearly nineteen years old, I'm still scared of boogie-men in the closet. -_-

2 48" flourescent bulbs
"Cool White"
3200 lumens each
40 watts each
4100K temperature
Ballast that will hold both bulbs

They had some bulbs that were labeled as grow lights but they were only 13 watts and around 1000 lumens. I am not sure, but I think that the more lumens, the better, right? The temperature on the grow lights was higher, at 6500K, so maybe the would have been better lights, but they were six times more expensive. I reasoned that having two possibly mediocre lights with 6x the lumens would probably be better than having one expensive light at 6x the price.

The area to be lit is about 4.5' x 8". The length will probably decrease to 3.5 or 4' once I move the plants into the new containers. The current ones have a small area to put dirt in but a wide rim, not being very space efficient. The new ones have a slightly smaller total diameter but a much bigger useable diameter, and are much deeper.

My local Home Depot only carries "plant and aquarium" lights that they sell as grow lights. I've asked around and it seems like they are good, but I have doubts as to whether they are as good as a real grow light. You should be able to get grow lights in the 4 foot size 40 watts. Are you sure the plant ones you saw weren't 15 watt 18 inch bulbs?

Using a 4 foot section is good. The cool whites should be good but I would have used a daylight and a warm white personally. I use that for general lighting because it seems to look better than any one bulb. As far as plant specific I don't know.

I'm a little over my head at this point being a newbie also.

The tubes you have are fine, with the possible limitation that they might not be intense enough to grow plants which are already 8" tall. Watch out for them stretching and consider adding another pair, ideally angled slightly one pair on each side of the plants. The common trick with borderline lights is to have the tubes almost touching the plants, but that stops working once the plants are more than a few inches tall because the bottom of the plants is so far from the light.

One 6500K tube plus one 3000K tube produces almost exactly the same spectrum as two 4100K tubes, so no problem there. The tubes you have are rather inefficient compared to the best available, this shouldn't be a problem since you are not paying for the electricity I'm guessing. Also I think they are T12s, about an inch and a half thick. Thinner tubes which produce the same light obviously produce a higher light intensity and so can be better for plants.

Svenna - not to be smart or anything - but wouldn't it be overall more cost and time effective if you took a horitculture couse as an elective.
Ths school pays for the lights, pots and soil and you get credit for it to boot!
Maybe too late for this semester but unless you are graduating - there IS next spring . . .
just an idea . .

"I live in a dormitory where the only window faces NNE. I've been growing some red bell peppers and cayenne peppers ----"

Sure, sure, you are growing only peppers! :-)

But serious, reflectors to bounce light back is very important in growing indoors under lights.

dcarch

Growing some
Herbs hey??