As I got my seedlings prepared and my plants are needing light as California has experienced overcast, cold weather, a lot of fog and rain, I knew that I need to get them light.
Taking them out and getting acclimated to sunlight is one thing but plants need 16 hours of light, so I decided that I wanted to research lighting to grow my vegetables and plants.
And get them ready by March/April when they are tall enough to be transplanted into bigger pots and prepare for the spring and summer.
Having spent so much on soil, fertilizer and many pots and metal stakes, needless to say, I spent more than I was expecting. But knowing that this investment for my vegetables and plants is worth it because they can be reused.
So, I started reading up on grow lights and watching plenty of videos and the truth is, you’re going to get a lot of different recommendations. There are some who swear by using red grow lights, blue grow lights, white grow lights.
Some who use the older T12 lighting fixtures to those who use T8 or the more harder to find, T5’s. And there are those who spent quite a bit on a LED setup.
After comparing prices at Lowes and Home Depot (and noticing the T8’s fixtures I wanted at Lowes were sold out), I decided to go to Home Depot and get the under $16 Lithonia Lighting 2-Light White T8 Fluorescent Residential Shop Light x2 and T8 with Phillips Daylight Deluxe 6500K bulbs (two pack sets) x2. Also, wanting to try LED and testing a 4000 Lumens, 4000K LED light, I wanted to give the Commercial Electric 42 in. 150-Watt Brushed Nickel Integrated LED Shop Light a try.
Being the fiscally conservative person that I am and not wanting to invest in a good large width resin or steel storage rack, I decided that my plants are fine sitting on the garage cement floor. And having owned a lot of umbrella and light stands for photography that are rarely utilized, I decided to use these along with two mic stands to hold each light.
And they work perfectly for my needs. I can easily make them lower or higher as my vegetable plants grow.
But we’ll see how things go in the next few weeks and see if these plants react well to the lighting.
And as of February 8, 2017, I have now upgraded to a four grow light system and it’s working out perfectly as the germination is now working much more effectively and vegetables are growing much better!
