illsstep
Member
I'm starting a crop of basil indoors from seed to see how well I can control the heat, humidity, etc. in the grow area I set up.
I don't grow weed myself, but I'm very interested in gardening under artificial light (mostly as a way to keep growing during the winter months). I learned quickly that marijuana growers are the ones to learn from if you want to know about growing under lights; most other gardening communities use lights for seed starting and little else. That's partly why I'm posting this here - I figured this community might appreciate it more.
The grow area:
Since I don't have to worry about odors, and this is in a main room of my apartment, I went with a more open design rather than a tent. It is 3'x3' and uses a Sun System 315 LEC. Ventilation was a bit trickier due to the open design; I settled on a couple window fans drawing air up out of the growing area (and deflected away at an angle) as well as an intake/oscillating fan for air movement.
I built stadium-style risers to go under the light, to help even out the intensity across the whole light footprint. It doesn't fully mitigate the lower light intensities at the edges/corners, but it helps.
This growing area was built primarily for 5.5" pots. I plan to use it mostly to grow on rooted cuttings before planting them outdoors, and that size pot has been (and should continue to be) sufficient. If I need to grow something larger I can remove the risers.
The clearance under the light will allow me to grow plants up to about 2 feet tall, taking pot size into account, which is more than enough for most of what I grow (and will be enough for basil).
I use a 4-bulb 2-foot high output t5 for my propagation. Two remaining cuttings are still in the dome - an Andromeda and a lacecap hydrangea - and both of them have already shown some root growth. It is the first Andromeda I've managed to root, which I'm excited about. The rest of my rooted cuttings from this season are already growing outdoors. I had 50 cuttings root, of multiple types of flowering shrubs including hydrangeas (all types), weigela, forsythia, own-root roses, barberry, azalea, and multiple things that I actually can't identify. I'll keep growing them and try to figure it out when they get bigger.
The rest of the cells in the dome are basil seeds. They should germinate in about a week.
I'll be growing in a bark-based medium for the excellent aeration it provides the root zone, and fertilizing with Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, a water-soluble fertilizer, in low doses with every watering (the structure of the growing medium I am using calls for frequent watering, owing to its excellent drainage).
There is room for 35 pots; I will see how many of those can remain to the end of the grow without overcrowding becoming an issue.
I don't grow weed myself, but I'm very interested in gardening under artificial light (mostly as a way to keep growing during the winter months). I learned quickly that marijuana growers are the ones to learn from if you want to know about growing under lights; most other gardening communities use lights for seed starting and little else. That's partly why I'm posting this here - I figured this community might appreciate it more.
The grow area:
Since I don't have to worry about odors, and this is in a main room of my apartment, I went with a more open design rather than a tent. It is 3'x3' and uses a Sun System 315 LEC. Ventilation was a bit trickier due to the open design; I settled on a couple window fans drawing air up out of the growing area (and deflected away at an angle) as well as an intake/oscillating fan for air movement.
I built stadium-style risers to go under the light, to help even out the intensity across the whole light footprint. It doesn't fully mitigate the lower light intensities at the edges/corners, but it helps.
This growing area was built primarily for 5.5" pots. I plan to use it mostly to grow on rooted cuttings before planting them outdoors, and that size pot has been (and should continue to be) sufficient. If I need to grow something larger I can remove the risers.
The clearance under the light will allow me to grow plants up to about 2 feet tall, taking pot size into account, which is more than enough for most of what I grow (and will be enough for basil).
I use a 4-bulb 2-foot high output t5 for my propagation. Two remaining cuttings are still in the dome - an Andromeda and a lacecap hydrangea - and both of them have already shown some root growth. It is the first Andromeda I've managed to root, which I'm excited about. The rest of my rooted cuttings from this season are already growing outdoors. I had 50 cuttings root, of multiple types of flowering shrubs including hydrangeas (all types), weigela, forsythia, own-root roses, barberry, azalea, and multiple things that I actually can't identify. I'll keep growing them and try to figure it out when they get bigger.
The rest of the cells in the dome are basil seeds. They should germinate in about a week.
I'll be growing in a bark-based medium for the excellent aeration it provides the root zone, and fertilizing with Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, a water-soluble fertilizer, in low doses with every watering (the structure of the growing medium I am using calls for frequent watering, owing to its excellent drainage).
There is room for 35 pots; I will see how many of those can remain to the end of the grow without overcrowding becoming an issue.
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