Cheap Growing Lights Work
After a rough winter, I wanted to get a head start on my spring plants. I had seen some nice examples of grow lights, but I wanted to do something on the cheap.
Simple, yet effective. With a few items you have around the house you can build your growing lights.
My idea was to use some existing fluorescent shop lamps as grow lamps. These along with a couple of old boards, broom handle and shelf supports yielded the cheap growing lights that I was looking for. Total cost: $0 (all the parts I had on hand)
The end product consists of some OSB which I propped up and secured with a few 2x4's. The metal bracked were installed, anchoring them in the 2x4's and broomstick screwed tightly in between the brackets. I made sure to leave plenty of space between the base and broomstrick. This allowed me to move the grow lights up as the seedlings grew. They should almost touch the blubs (see image below).
Now cheap is nice, but its still needs to work. The initial research that I had done lead me to believe that the setup would provided the light my new seedlings would need. No, you don't need to buy any special fluorescent light bulbs. The standard bulbs will work just fine in your grow system. To get the most out of the system, I would recommend tying it into a timer. Ideally, you will want to give new seedlings about 16 hrs. of light a day. Keep the bulbs close to the plants as this will prevent them from getting "leggy". Don't worry, the bulbs won't generate enough heat to damage the plants.
A few seedling responding well. This was welcomed encouragement!
In the end, the only problem I had with my bare bones, on the cheap glowing light system was that it worked to well! By mid-April I had more seedlings than I knew what to do with. I'll be setting it up again next year as it provides some sanity and a little green after a long winter.
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