I now realize the light is too strong, I have to keep my plants 3 feet from the light, or the PAR is in the too strong range (inhibits photosynthesis above 1000). I am sending in an order for the 575 watt - this is a nice sensible size for my 3 x 9 foot garden, plus the 575watt lamp has a 20,000+ hour lifespan, so even better.

Hi

Sounds great. What I use is a 4 ft by 4 ft box 2 ft tall with the lid holding 12 compact florescent lights of 13 watts each. All surfaces are painted bright high gloss white. This seems to work better than aluminum foil. I have grown peppers, tomatoes, spinach as starts, sweet potatoes for well rooted slips, squash, kumquat trees, lettuce, beets, broccoli, cabbage, and snap peas starts. This has enable me to be picking peppers and tomatoes 1 month before our last frost planting date of April 7. I buy the bulbs when they are on sale for as low a $1 each. Some are daylight others are warm white which I mix. When I have completed this system, I hope to have up to 500 bulbs growing greens through out the winter. Since each bulb puts out 13 watts of heat with 13% of this heat in the visible light spectrum I will be able to grow greens and heat my house with the same watts. It would only take from 5 to 15 of your light setup to heat my house, perhaps yours. Growing under light is fantastic and cost effective and a lot of fun. Below is a picture of the setup around February of 2012.

Here is the 12-29-2012 box setup with peppers and parsley growing in the background. My seed grown Meiwa kumquat is in front.

some pics

An at distance picture of me inside the hot box

Here is another system that works great on a 13 watt compact florescent bulb. PICTURE 1

PICTURE 2. This shows the individual components. a 5 gal. bucket with a hardy Chicago fig showing 13 weeks growth at 1 in per week. followed by a 5 gal. bucket with the bottom removed and lined with aluminum foil placed right side up on the soil surface as in picture 1 above. And last a 7 gal bucket with the sides and bottom lined with aluminium foil and fitted with a lamp style fixture and compact florescent bulb which is paced over the tree as shown in picture 1 .

very cute - and cool! thanks for making my day!

My fig tree went dormant and I am now chill hour--ing it. The double bucket grow light system is now being used on my Meiwa kumquat tree. The roots of the kumquat tree are heated on top of my grow box which is filled with sweet peppers growing and flowering. See Photobucket pictures and explanation on how it works. Right click on the picture, then left click on "open link in new tab" to see the Photobucket disply of the other 6 pics in a new tab

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Putting reflectors on those CFL bulbs would make a world of difference! Also, using food tins exposes plants to a hormone similar to estrogen that is in the inner plastic sealant of wet food cans!

The grow box walls are now 3.5 feet tall to make room for my pepper plants. I moved transplanted the peppers from their 1 gallon food can to 5 gallon bucket. I also moved the box to my unheated 45 degree basement. between growing in the basement plus increasing it size it became necessary to add and additional 8 light bulbs to maintain 70-90 degree temperatures. click on the picture of the newly add light array to see my photo bucket display

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Different uses for bucket light growing system
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Seven_Six_Two none (My Page) on Sat, Feb 9, 13 at 22:11
Putting reflectors on those CFL bulbs would make a world of difference! Also, using food tins exposes plants to a hormone similar to estrogen that is in the inner plastic sealant of wet food cans!

You are absolutely correct about reflectors. They would help and I will be using bucket light as you see in my last post.

The chemical you are referring to is BPA. I was totaly unaware of this and i Thank you for bringing this up to me. The bad news is that it is in pop bottle, bottled water, medicine bottles, water cooler container, plastic rap in the fresh( meat, pastry, vegetable, and fruit packaging.. Its in milk cartons and jugs. This includes soy.almond coconut, and rice beverages. as you brought up cans of processed food. More bad news, BPA is BAD FOR HUMANS, More bad news their are serious health risks connected to BPA.

Now for the GOOD news. living organism rid them selves of BPA farly quickly. I dont want to be harvesting green from plants in the tin, but the plants grown in tins as starts will clear them selve of much of the BPA. i'LL NEED TO DO A LOT MORE RESEARCH TO MAKE SURE i GOT THIS RIGHT AND MAKE ADJUSTMENT TO MY GROWING TECHNICS. cAPs BUTTON STicks

What I don't want in my house is a light the gives off UV rays. What I don't need is a light who's bulbs cost an arm and a leg. My plants grow great under T8 daylight bulbs and that's what I'll stick to

Posted by dowlinggram 3 (My Page) on Mon, Apr 8, 13 at 10:25
What I don't want in my house is a light the gives off UV rays. What I don't need is a light who's bulbs cost an arm and a leg. My plants grow great under T8 daylight bulbs and that's what I'll stick to.

I set my organic farmer customer with T-8's also "cost effective" I however use CFL's because they work much better in my setup. What I dont use Are as follows halogen, mercury vapor, high-pressure sodium, metal halide. They are all to big and bulky and often to hot. LED's are the best but are too expensive right now.

See below what a 13 watt CFL can do in a 5 gallon foil lined bucket click on the pic to open photobucket album, then use left and right arrows to see all

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MEIWA KUMQUAT TREE GROWN FROM SEED

these are the lighting bucket that work well. click on picture then use left and right arrows

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HARDY CHICAGO FIG-growing 1 inch per week

below is the 4 ft by 4 ft enclosed box that works very well. Click to open then arrows

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the link below gets you 8 mp picture album in picasa

Here is a link that might be useful: https://plus.google.com/photos/111099372377958308731/albums/profile/5862762593941435714?banner=pwa

Overdrive, what are you using lumenmax reflector are you using?

Thanks

This post was edited by resiak on Wed, Apr 17, 13 at 13:50

Yes, the lumenmax was tested by the aquarium discussion forum and is an excellent reasonably priced reflector.