No, it's not enough light for that area to grow most plants. I would go with at least four of those bulbs for that size shelf. I use even more light than that on my grow benches. The type of reflectors you use will also make a difference. You will want to be able to direct the light down onto your plants and not be scattered everywhere.

For simply germinating seeds, you need little to no light (depending on the type of plant), but I don't think that's what you have in mind.

Ok, thanks Brandon. I didn't realize how much light these little seedlings need. Would it work to use two, 6500k, 40watt, 3300 lumen, CFLs per shelf?

Each of my grow bench shelves are twice as big as your shelf, and I use 6 T-12 bulbs per shelf (that gives me about 15,000 lumens per shelf). So, yes, if you had the right kind of reflectors (to give fairly uniform light over the entire shelf), you'd be fine with just two of the larger bulbs.

Note that not all lumens are equal when it comes lamps for growing plants, but for our purposes (with the bulbs you specified) using that measure should give us enough to go on.

Ok, cool! Thanks again!

I use 4 T12s per shelf using 2 "lights of america" shop light fixtures per shelf which seems to work fine altough they are the specific plant and aquarium rated tubes(I have a variety of all top 3 brands. Phillips, GE, and Sylvania). My shelves are also 4ft by about 18 and the back side thats towards the wall has foil with the reflective side facing the plants. Rather than use CFLs it would work a lot better if you can find some 2 foot fixure or multiple fixtures that would hold 4 to 6 24" plant/aquarium lights. I pondered the idea of having a smaller 2 foot unit like yours when I started running out of room on my 4 foot shelf but after trying to research fixtures and bulbs I found it difficult to find this sized light fixtures in local stores. I could order them and pay a lot for shipping but not readily easily found in my local stores. I could find plenty of 4 foot and 18 inch lights and fixtures but not 24 so I just ended up getting a 2nd 4 foot mini green house. I suppose thats for the better since I still have another 4 feet length worth of shelving to expand even more in the future :) and I can fit 4 trays on each shelf