Your Ultimate Gardening Guide.
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Materials:
Total cost under $200
What lights are you using? I have a set of lights but they seem to produce way more heat than usable light? If I put the lights closer, they burn the seedlings, if I move them too far away, the seedlings get leggy.
Nothing fancy - T8 LED tubes, cool daylight (6500K). IIRC some are Philips corepro 865, some are Osram equivalent - I used whatever I had left from installing new lights in garage. Brands you recognize, but their value product lines.
Are those as good as "real" grow lights? Hell no. Do they get me 80% there for 20-30% of the price? They sure do!
I certainly don't have "grow lights" which is why I think I'm having the heat issue. I am certainly in the camp of getting 80% there for a fraction of the price!
Thanks for the reply!
LEDs might emit much more energy as light compared to incandescent lights, but that light will get absorbed by plants and surrounding and will eventually end up mostly as heat, no matter what light you have. This rack has 24x18W = 432W worth of lights, which is equivalent of a small space heater running on low.
2 of those racks in a small room in the basement is enough for me to have 24C (75F) in that room while the rest of the basement is closer to 12C (45F). The fanciest of growlights may have saved me 1-2C, or not.
When you're not growing seedling you could grow microgreens.
Honestly that space is big enough to grown some veggies in containers
I don't care for microgreens at all, so it's going to be a storage rack.
This is beautiful, well done! When do they move outside? And when did you start the ones on each shelf?
Tomatoes are moving to greenhouse second half of next week - I don't expect temperatures outside to drop much below freezing after that, at least not beyond what an electric heater or two can salvage in an emergency. Peppers will have to wait until temperatures outside don't drop below 5C (40F) even during the night - it's going to be 6, maybe even 8 weeks. 6b zone..
All plants have been started within a couple of days 6-7 weeks ago.
Is the height of the lights adjustable or is that what you're using the bins for to raise the plants instead?
In my setup I have my lights on chains that I can raise or lower. It's honestly a pain. I end up just slipping a couple 2x4 pieces under the trays rather than bothering to move the lights.
Fixed height. Being able to adjust light distance per tray is better when you have different height plants on a single shelf. It's also less work when building it.
Nice! Do you have the total project cost handy by chance? Been looking to do something similar with some cheap baking racks.
I've added list of materials and total cost to the post.