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| Going to give the winter light garden a real push this year. I've started a set of Red Robin's and Minibels to grow indoors. They're thriving so far. I give the plants a shake now and again to aid in pollination. Depending how these go I may try a larger variety.
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| Hope you can sustain the temperatures they need to fruit. |
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| what kind of lights and power consumption and area of grow can you accomplish. I wonder what you expect to be the cost of electricity for the winter. did you grow the plants outdoors when small. or did you grow them completely under the lights. what about soil and are they hydroponic etc. You say nothing about your grow to make it interesting at least not so far. lets get some facts out there on the table. what are you doing and what are your plans. I would grow or start plants outdoors in pots then bring them indoors under lights. are you using big watts like 1000 watt grow lights or are you able to use cool new light diodes. I forget the names of all this stuff. do you have a room or just a small table top. how bright are the lights. how many hours do you leave them on. I think 24 hours is good. there is no growth without light so may as well leave it on. everything I think it just guessing. I have no idea how to do it correctly. You are the expert so teach us. lets have all the details not just a teaser. what is the room temperature going to be set at. how many plants in what size pots etc. |
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| I did Minibel and Mohamed last winter. Too difficult to bring to fruiting, while nice experiment I like my time off gardening better. |
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| They're currently under two 2' 2 lamp T5 fixtures (not HO, 28w tubes) on the little shelf I have them on, and there are three clamp on brooder lamps with CFLs (equiv. to 100w incandescent... not sure what the actual CFL wattage is) supplementing some side lighting. I doubt the energy usage for this addition is excessive. My regular light shelf has two shop lights, two HO t5 2 bulb fixtures, and 1 4 bulb HO fixture. My main light shelf is running year round with either seedlings or nursing the orchids we almost killed in the main house back to health. These guys have never seen natural light. I started them under T12 shop lights supplemented by a brooder lamp with a CFL (adds some heat to encourage the seedlings to grow as well as supplemental light, the shop lights run very cool). Then when they out grew that shelf they moved to a different shelf with t5 HO lights (54w tubes). They moved to their current spot off my main light shelf when they outgrew that shelf. Started in 6 pack seed starting cells, transplanted them to the solo cups once they outgrew those. I'm feeding them every other watering with a diluted 10-10-10 mix in their water. So far, they've been flowering like mad and setting fruit extremely well. Much better than I expected it to go. I was not expecting this many flowers this quickly. |
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| Oh, and this is in my basement, and I believe (I need to check the timer) I have a 16h on 8h off schedule. I'm far from an expert. I've started seedlings, overwintered other plants, and grew some things like lettuce and chard. I'm learning by trail and error. entirely possible that I'm going to find this entire attempt to be one big error ;) |
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