Great! Happy December, everyone. For Muffy and OldMansd…our basement has zero windows. Total darkness but I used to grow very sturdy seedlings for our extremely short frost-free season. Here’s what I used. I got two shop lights….cheap and available at hardware stores. They have two long florescent tubes (bulbs) each. Now with the advent of LEDs….which I’m in love with….this data might change. I used to run with one regular florescent tube and one garden ( “warm” light spectrum) tube. The special tubes were expensive but they have not yet burned out. [they are fragile tho] At this point, some LED options might be better, depending on which type of lights you use. I’ve found the extra expense of LEDs have been very worth it.
And yes, Muffy…..around here, the term “a grow” means illegal marijuana cultivation – usually indoors since …well, the aforementioned short frost-free season. Refers to the other RockyMt “high”…not just our altitude. 🙁 Wrecks the rented houses if they don’t ventilate for the HIGH levels of moisture needed for those plants. People [who are not from here] pack in thousands of plants sometimes. Rather big, bad connections with these folks too. Scary. And giving the rest of us ordinary GARDENERS a bad rep.
Hey OldMansd, is that aluminum foil? If so, that’s the next thing I’d mention. Seedlings do better with a lot of light. I put down aluminum foil on the table surface and also hung sheets of it down from the shop lights. Encased the tiny things in reflected light ‘box’.
The OTHER tip is to make sure they don’t ever have to STRETCH to reach the light. I set the light [hung shop lites on chains so I could adjust them constantly] so that the tallest plant is just BARELY not touching the light. With florescent or LED there won’t be the heat that other lights produce, but don’t let them touch anyway. If there is any other plants [in other containers] that are shorter, put something under their containers to boost them up to the level of the light as well. What you really don’t want is tall, weak and spindly seedlings. And they will stretch within a couple days so watch them. They are infants that need daily care. But only takes just a few minutes….depending on how many you have. I do enjoy hovering over my babies. LOL
One more tip on keeping them sturdy, not spindly: a fan. Outside they would be growing strong cell walls cuz of being buffeted [esp. on our mt.] by winds. Occasionally blow an oscillating fan across the babies. Doesn’t have to be all the time but daily for a while.
You don’t have to get this complicated but…this is my method. Good strong seedlings will have a better chance of growing into mature plants. Like humans, they need care but also need a bit of adversity to make them strong.
OldMtWoman ….maybe we should have got this into a different thread?