With spring tentatively rolling it, some friends of mine and I started four flats of seeds in the basement underneath some cheap grow lights. That was a week ago on Sunday. As of this morning, all the seeds have spouted except for the flowers and several are over two inches high. The sunflowers are as tall as a chopstick!Here's what we planted, in no particular order:
- Lettuce
- Ground Cherries (Heirloom)
- Thai Basil (Heirloom)
- Zebra Tomatoes (Heirloom)
- Larkspur
- Red Sunflowers (Heirloom)
- Snap Peas (Heirloom)
- Columbine
- Zucchini
The Zebra Tomatoes, Red Sunflowers, and Ground Cherries came from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. The rest came from a local seed swap event, 3 packs for $1. Here's an overview of the setup, in case anyone is interested. I may do a post just on this since it's dirt cheap and highly effective.
- 2x Inexpensive 48" shop lights (like these)
- 4x Full spectrum fluorescent tubes (like these)
- 4x Burpee 72 cell mini-greenhouse (link, reusable!)
The lights are plugged into a surge strip, which is in turn plugged into a timer and then the wall outlet. The whole setup costs less than one high-end grow light and costs about as much to run. Further, it's caused my sprouts to shoot up in record time! I have the lights anchored to the ceiling using jute twine and a few screw eyes. This lets me raise the lights so that they are always about 4" above the top of the sprouts.
