grow lights

[Simon05]

I am going to start my seedlings off next year indoors, but do you need grow lamps which are expensive or can you use ordinary bulbs? just done a search found the information needed

[Simon05]

[elvis2003]

not sure,we never use any lamps and they do great

[Squash64]

I start all my seeds off in a heated propagator but I don't use lights.
What sort of seeds are you going to sow?

[Simon05]

I start all my seeds off in a heated propagator but I don't use lights.
What sort of seeds are you going to sow?

I will sowing tomatoes, peppers and chilis.

[Squash64]

I grow tomatoes, chillies and peppers too and they do really well without lights.  Are you going to use a heated propagator?  I suppose it isn't really essential but I get such good results that I always use it.

[Simon05]

thanks for the tips, yep it will be a heated propagator

[GodfreyRob]

You may already know this:

Heated propators are great but when the seedlings are up you need to get them out quick (especially early in the year) as the temperature needed to germinate some seeds is far too high for normal growth with the relatively low light levels in the early months. Leaving them in results in tall, straggly plants that never give good yields.

Getting them out of the propagator is easy but this then means that you will need to put tender plants (aubergines, chiilis, peppers, toms, etc) somewhere warm enough to grow away safetly - i.e. a heated greenhouse.  This can be really expensive unless you can just heat part of the greenhouse and use lots of bubblewrap or similar for extra insulation.

[Squash64]

I do have a heated greenhouse, but this winter I also have a heated porch.  I keep the heater on the lowest possible setting but because the porch is small and double-glazed, it stays at about 60 degrees.

I check the propagator twice a day for newly germinated seeds then take them out of it straight away. 

I might sow my chilli seeds earlier than I usually do, then put them in the porch.

[Vinlander]

Lamps can be useful but (since thrift has been mentioned) they give out more heat than light - even fluorescents and LEDs do.

The good thing is that if your setup is within a larger growing area then the whole area will benefit from the waste heat - so it's not as expensive as it seems.

If you take advantage of the best offers you will find that compact fluorescents can now be considerably cheaper per watt than strip lights - £2 for two 20W bulbs compared with £4 for a 40W tube - and that's if you already have the fitting.

The following is for committed techies only:

Aquarium fluorescents come with a ballast/controller box on trailing leads - so I have been experimenting with putting this under an unheated propagator (not enclosed though - it would overheat) with the lamp above so most of the heat is put to use.

There is a serious risk of a water/electrics hazard - so:

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME UNLESS YOU HAVE GENUINE QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE COVERING BOTH ELECTRICS AND ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS IN DAMP CONDITIONS.

However I'm surprised nobody has produced a commercial solution along these lines - it's not rocket science - though making it entirely foolproof might give the space programme a run for its money.

An LED solution would be safer - the lamps could be within the propagator - and especially easy if the converter was so efficient (transformerless) that it wasn't worth moving into the danger zone.

[tim]

Lights can help a lot with eg Lettuce - see with (right) & without...........