I love it!

Using yer brain to improvise and use available "free" materials beats wasting hard earned money on that so called "speciality" grow equipment.

My grow setup uses those flourescent worklights also. And alluminum foil, plastic wrap, blue masking tape, scrap lumber, a fishtank aquarium, some egg cartons, an old lizard basking/heat stone, some old aluminum baking pans and some plastic cups. And it works great!

Jim

Looks like have the kids room painted. Now it is time to get busy making some babies.
Bruce

HA!!! Bruce... cracked me up..

Light set up looks great.

That's a heck of a setup! Counterweights! wow!!

I just have mine on a chain that I raise/lower. I am using 2 4' 2-bulb shop lights. I went looking for some t5-ho's yesterday and didn't find any at all at the local box store. The closest thing I found was t12-ho and the fixture was over $50 and the bulbs (only 1 option to choose from) didn't have any specs whatsoever as far as color temp, lumens, etc.. So, I just picked up the 2nd plain old t12 fixture/bulbs.

No counterweight, but there is 550 cord, which is quite possibly the best stuff ever.

this rig is a bit of a pain to raise/lower, but the cord is woven through in a single piece so it'll be easy to take down. either way it's level and movable which are the two important things to me =)

So far everything is doing fine - it's just 2 4' shop lights. two are grow bulbs and two are just daylight, all 40w. tomatoes are a bit leggy but i did that so that when i repot them shortly the roots will be a bit deeper.

that little space heater has a temp control on it so i just leave it at 75 and it goes on and off. circulates air and helped quit a bit for germination.

{{gwi:1159604}}

cheers!

-Rathos

Yeah, the counterweights were necessary because the two T-12's weigh in at over 30 lbs apiece. The entire rig weighs 80+ pounds! I got my T-5 from HTG via ebay. Not at all cheap, but the results are very noticeable.

Hey, Preston, glad I'm not the only one starting "late"! Nice setup (though I am a newbie, don't know what peppers need). I just got one of those "bakers rack" type greenhouses from OSJL (cardboard pots from them too, $2 for 50, and seed starting mex), started my sweets and hots today, tomatoes will be tomorrow. 11 weeks from now I hope to be planting too (not June like last year).

You're about two weeks behind me on the peppers (except the ones I re-started) and 2 days behind me on the tomatoes. :-) I usually plant out Memorial day weekend as well. Sometimes try to push it to the week before.

If I were you, I would be starting to feel really behind, but, the reality is, you'll be fine, no worries. But, with the weather warming up, it feels like Spring is here, I start getting anxious. haha!

Just hard to feel motivated to start seeds when it's snowing (last week)! I remember last year my tomatoes were leggy by the time I planted them (and had repotted 3 times), and I didn't start them til March 24. Of course, it was so wet I didn't plant out til mid-June!

I actually do feel like I waited too long with the peppers though - they were wimpy and slow to start last year. But I used my dad's cousin's fiance's uncle's greenhouse, and they didn't keep it warm enough at night, my house is 70 (bumped it up from 67) and I've got the plastic-covered greenhouse in a east-south-west facing bay window, so hopefully they'll do better here. I'll just have to move them to the greenhouse in early May after potting into 4" pots b/c I don't have the room in my house!

47 here today, may hit 60 mid-week!