No, 12 watts isnt gonna be enough. The effective footprint of that light is way too small for the plants you have. Its enough for one small plant and even then, it wont grow much.

The best (and most expensive) LED lights produce 300 lumens per watt. 12 times that is 3600 lumens. The intensity of the sun in summer is about 100 000 lumens per square meter or 10000 lumens per square foot. Plus the sun illuminates plants top to bottom with the same intensity. This gives you an idea.

LED lights have advanced leaps and bounds in the last few years, but are still way overpriced and ineffective for growing when compared to the classic metal halide and high pressure sodium lights. Thats why you never see a greenhouse tomato/cucumber/pepper/ etc grower using LED lights. The long term savings arent worth the high purchase price and weak performance.

What you need is a 400 watt metal halide at minimum. I run a 1000w metal halide and a 1000w high pressure sodium light in my basement and grow food all winter long. The metal halide puts out 115000 lumens and the high pressure sodium puts out 140000 lumens, both penetrate canopy up to about an effective distance of 30-32 inches.

A real capable grow light will cost you 200$, theres no way around it. Or you can check craigslist for failed cannabis farmers selling their equipment for cheap. Either way, a brand new grow light for 40$ is the first hint that it wont grow things very well.

I have extensive experience growing under lights, trust me, anything other than a MH or HPS will only frustrate your efforts. Once you see how plants grow under these lights, youll never stop growing indoors :)

Khaled

Metal halide lights are overkill and mondo 'spensivo for your application. If you can afford them, and you have the space, electrical capacity, and knowledge to handle heating and venting issues, that's fine, if you want.

If not, get as many T8 or T5 fluorescent fixtures as you can fit into the space you have. 2 32W minumum bulbs will keep them alive over winter, but you would need more if you want them to flower as well. I'm not really sure how many, but 4 bulbs at a minimum I would think.

Look for narrow profile fixtures. Lowe's carries some T8 fixtures that are less than 3" wide, but they are direct wire so you would have to wire in a plug (rated for 600A applications). Home Despot can order narrow profile fixtures in for you for T5 lighting, they run about twice the cost (bulbs and fixtures) as T8s. I don't know if those come prewired with a plug or if they are direct wire. You may need to wire in a plug for those as well. I'm also not sure what a T5 ballast requires in the way of voltage- you'd have to check the ballast on the fixture.

In either case, buy your bulbs in packages of 10 or 12 - the cost of bulbs is about half compared to buying them in pairs.

I can't advise you re LEDs. I know very little about LEDs.

This post was edited by zensojourner on Mon, Nov 24, 14 at 19:31