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Help with growing under lights

9 years ago

My family had a greenhouse but it has become damaged. There is not enough time to repair before winter so I was planning on moving the plants to my basement for the winter (stays around 55 degrees). It is a combination of different plants - from orchids, lemon tree, succulents, etc. Some fairly large.

I have a large basement but no significant natural light - What would be the best lights to put up - I just need to maintain them over winter. Grow lights are very confusing.

Thanks

Comments (5)

  • 9 years ago

    Depending on how many you have, some shoplight T8s (perhaps supplemented with a couple of inexpensive LED fixtures) could work.

    I have some larger tropicals (including a couple of plumerias, some citrus etc.) that are maintained pretty well at the fringes of T8/T4 light stands with overhead lighting from LEDs.

  • 9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    For a makeshift solution, I'd also say some T8 "shop lights" or strip lighting would be a good place to start. These are available at local "home improvement" big box stores for good prices. I'm moving some of my winter "crops" to a part of my basement this year, and some strips will be going as basic lighting. That will work for "survival" or "maintenance" lighting form most plants.

    I use a mix of cool white (4000K-4100K), warm white (2700K-3000K), and "daylight" (6000K-6500K) lamps (bulbs), about 2 cool whites for every 1 warm white and 1 daylight. I use a 4 tube fixture, or two 2 tube strips mounted right next to each other.

    Some reflective mylar on the ceiling, walls and maybe even the floor will help catch stray light and reflect it back to the plants and their leaves.

    Most LED "grow lights" are more for the "medical flowers" growing market. They are heavy on red light, with some blue in the mix. Red mostly promotes blooming, blue mostly promotes leaf and root growth. These lights can be good if you are trying to grow tomatoes or peppers indoors in the winter. For other things, they can be counter-productive or even harmful. I used a bunch of these on individual plants last winter. For tomatoes, sweet peppers and hot peppers, once I got the fertilizer caught up with the prolific fruiting, they worked great. I'll be growing more of these this year, with the "blurple" grow lights I have that didn't work out so well for the leafy herbs.

    For leafy herbs like basil and cilantro, the "blurple" LED grow lights aren't so good. If you want them to bolt right after the seed leaves emerge, these lights are great. If you are trying to grow leaves, there is way too much red in those lights for leafy herbs. For woody herbs like rosemary, sage and oregano, you may or may not get blooms, but you also won't get much leaf growth or stem growth. Some of mine barely survived the winter, others yellowed and died, and it wasn't from rotting roots, it was from lack of appropriate (sun) light.

    This year, I'm trying again with the leafy stuff, but this time, in addition to the T8 fluorescents, I'm supplementing leafy herbs with blue/white or blue/white/red light that is very heavy on the blue end of the spectrum. In the PAR-38 size, I'm using a multi-band blue/white "aquarium light", and in the smaller sizes (PAR30 and R16/R20), I'm having some LED "grow lights" custom made that are mostly blue with a just a touch of red (and white). I'll know in the spring how well this works out.

    Whatever light you use, it needs to be on a timer, running 12 hours a day or so, and it needs to be bright. It needs to be really, really bright for plants that need full sun. In my kitchen, the T8 fluorescent light is what most people call "really bright," "harsh" or "excessive." If I hang baskets/planter pots under that with herbs in them, those plants die from lack of light. Even with very bright "grow light" spotlights hung over each individual plant, some of them died last year from insufficient light (or inappropriate light spectrum, I'm hoping).

  • 9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Here are some expamples of lights I use to get plants through the winter. i summer all of these plants in full sun outdoors, so what they get in the winter is nothing compared to that.

    7' ficus Benjamina in a south facing window gets direct sun all day and has 3 four foot T8 shop lights overhead with 6500k tubes.

    These smaller plants in a makeshift grow shelf are actually putting out more growth than they did outside all summer.

    I painted cardboard white and attached it to the back and sides to keep the light in and used part of a dryer vent for the top. I have two clamp on 5000k 23w cfls that seem to do the trick.

  • 9 years ago

    Here's our set up for our orchids this is only half others outside until the cold starts. We are adding another light, which I believe is a LED light. Top light is a plant light T8 second is just a t5 and will be adding the LED at the bottom to hopefully not blind us. We keep the lights on a timer to help with Turing off and on. It's worked well so far.

    It's always nice to see how others work their setups to get better ideas

  • 9 years ago

    For grow lights, I would definitely recommend LED grow lights. I have been using them myself, and honestly I am happy I do.

    https://givelighttochili.blogspot.co.at/


    Here is my blog, where you can see how mine ones are performing..


    Emma

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