My Experience Growing Under Grow Lights
Have you ever started seeds indoors, followed all of the steps for packing in potting soil, planting the seeds at the required depths, followed a watering schedule, and wondered what you were doing wrong? I finally discovered the missing link to all of my indoor growing problems: grow lights. This was my first year using grow lights to start our seeds indoors, and it changed my entire world. I finally have plants that look like the kind you purchase at the local greenhouse or plant nursery. They’re healthy, vivacious, and large. I kind of can’t believe that I grew these! I haven’t had plants look this good since I grew them in our reclaimed glass greenhouse years and years ago. What I have come to learn is that adequate light is everything to our plants.
The last two photos above show my plants about three weeks ago. The first is from a couple of days ago. They’ve grown that much in a relatively short amount of time! We decided to make the leap and purchase a set of grow lights for our indoor starts. This was something that my parents did over at the farm as well, starting some of our flowers for the field inside. We added a polycarbonate greenhouse to the farm this year, where our flowers are growing now, but in January it’s just too cold in southeast Iowa for greenhouse growing, unless you have a way to heat it.
I’ve always put off purchasing grow lights due to the expense. Purchasing them in person at the store, like a home improvement store, can be really intimidating and expensive. We were able to find them on Amazon for a much better price, and I am sure there are other places to find them more inexpensively. We decided to go with smaller lights because we don’t have much to start for our garden now that we live in town. Kyle brought in a wire shelving unit from the garage, and we placed it in our sunroom, which receives light from south, east, and west facing windows, and has a skylight. So there is a lot of light happening in this room!
In years past, I have always tried to move my plants around the house to whichever window was receiving intense direct sunlight at that time. Most often, it’s recommended to use a south-facing window, as they receive the best sunlight. But, to be honest, winter lighting is just not enough for plants that are started super early in the season, at least 10-14 weeks before the last frost date. This tends to result in leggy, wiry plants. It’s one of the most common problems for first-time and even experienced growers. You can learn how to fix leggy seedlings in my post here.
how to use grow lights:
There are several different types of lights that you can use, you certainly do not have to use the same kind that we have to be successful. Plenty of the master gardeners I’ve met for my county have used standard incandescent shop lights to grow plants, and it works for them! We use LED lights because my husband likes to use the most energy efficient products that we can; eventually we would like to run our home on solar power. Fluorescents work better than incandescent lights, LED lights need to have both red and blue wavelengths to work properly.
When it comes to color and intensity of the lights, it really depends upon what you are growing. Houseplants that need less light can handle the low lighting of incandescent lightbulbs. For sun-loving plants, like most things grown in the vegetable garden, you’ll want something stronger like HID or LEDs.
Install your grow lights so that they are at least 4 inches above your plants top leaves. This will be approximately 4 inches above the surface of the soil before they germinate, or sprout. You will want a system in place that allows you to continually raise them over time as the plants grow taller.
Timing out your lights really depends upon your preferences. Most sources recommend anywhere from 8-16 hours of light per day. We tend to round out around 12 hours per day, from 7am to 7pm, give or take. This is when we wake up in the morning and before heading up for bed at night. By following a schedule that’s easy to remember like that, I haven’t had a night yet where I forget to shut the lights off! Plants need a rest from growing, too.
A few other things that I recommend when using grow lights is allowing room between plants, as the strong lights can help to kill off any mold or bacteria that may be growing. You might also want to think about installing a fan or placing plants near a window that can allow for air circulation.
Overall, I am incredibly happy and satisfied with our lights. They are the perfect size for us, and the results have been so wonderful in comparison to years past. This is truly what my indoor starts have been missing! Our grow lights have also given me the confidence to start some types of plants indoors that I was always too afraid to before, or that I had tried in the past but was unsuccessful with. This includes some more unique varieties of cauliflower such as Veronica (a Romanesco type) and flowers like stock and China asters. They’ve all done really well! It makes me giddy with excitement that I may be able to finally add these more difficult plants to my garden this year, and I hope to continue experimenting with more fussy seeds next year. For now, my plant rack space is maxed out!
If you need it again, you can purchase the same grow lights I am using HERE.
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xoxo Kayla
