advice needed on building grow-light shelves

[freemotion]

I know there are opinions and lots of experience out there! Limber up those typing fingers, please!!!

So I am ready to start my grow-light shelves, I have all the materials. But I just realized that I have no idea how much distance to put between the top and bottom.

I have a shop light that hangs on chains, so the height will be adjustable as the plants grow. Stuff I've read online says to keep the light 6" from the plants.

What I need to know from people experienced with this is: How big will tomato plants, etc, grown this way get in 8 weeks? How about 12 weeks if I get an earlier start next year? Have you found your own shelves to be too close together or too far apart?

I am looking at the little seed starting pots, but know also that many of the plants will likely be transplanted into bigger pots as they grow.

Also, how wide/long in comparison to the shoplight? It is a standard two-bulb unit, four feet long.

I want to build this once and be done forever. Except to add more shelves as I get better at it each season. My plan is to make it as a sort of open box with the light hung in the top, and cover the sides with clear plastic sheeting to keep the cats out, and to have the "front" covered with very clear plastic held on with velcro so that I can easily get in to water and adjust the lights and let in some air.

The boxes will be made to stack. I may use them for greening up barley sprouts next winter.

 

[ticks]

I have one, the light is in a "box" about 1.5 feet above the plants. I can snap a pic of it if you want.

 

[freemotion]

That'd be cool. I am very visual.

 

[ticks]

That'd be cool. I am very visual.

now I gotta find the camera.

 

[farmerlor]

Most wondrous husband built me a grow room in the furnace room. This works out well as there's a drain in that room. My shelves are about three feet apart and the regular ol' fluorescent lights are on chains so I can move them from 10 inches high to 2 feet high. The lights are on timers so they're going off automatically at night which allows the plants to rest and thicken. He also covered the wood shelves with vinyl stick on tile so that they're water proof. I have a little heater in the room to keep it at about 80 degrees and I even have a cool hose and waterer attached to the water supply so I can water without hauling water back and forth from the bathroom.

 

[ticks]

Mine is small, But I use it for starting plants.
it's big enough for me.

Is this what you mean?

 

[freemotion]

Cool, Ticks, did you make that? Yes, it is what I meant, only bigger, as my light is bigger and has chains.

But not as big as farmerlor's!!!! A whole ROOM!!! Hmmmm..... HMMMMM..... Guess what is gonna happen to my upstairs bathroom... Except the hose

Do you ever need to put the lights up all the way to the top? And how wide are the shelves, meaning, how wide an area can the lights cover?

By the way, farmerlor, I have some more pork on the stove right now with your cream of mushroom soup simmering. DH and I are both drooling in anticipation!

 

[patandchickens]

My tomatoes are usually, what, something on the order of 8-10" high (maximum) when they're ready to transplant (that's including pot height). It will vary according to your style of doing things though.

I usually keep the lights more like 2" above the top leaves, could not get away with 6". (Well, if I had more lights, probably, but not with my setup).

You know what, though, if plants get too tall for indoors yet outdoors isn't quite warm enough, just put 'em in a cold frame for a few days or week, or put them outdoors in the daytime and in garage at night, that sort of thing. If worst came to worst you can always rig a separate light area for the tall ones... although I have never had to do this, nor has my mother who's been starting *lots* of veg and flower seeds in the basement for like 50 years now, so I do not think it's very likely you'd have to do it either

My own setup is not tiered, it is just shoplights suspended from traytables set atop a card table in the basement, not very photogenic

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[freemotion]

Pat, I don't have a "style of doing things" yet!!

Appreciate your input, my design is starting to take shape, and is a little shorter now.

My basement loves to grow mold, and seeds started there in the past grew mold before seedlings!! Eww! So I need something I can put in the house, that I can also cat-proof.

Anyone want to suggest a width, how wide an area the light can handle?

 

[ticks]

ACtually my grandpa made that for me when I was in the 6th grade and OBSESSED with plants. Now I use it for gardening. Right now I am growing "pheasant food" aka sunflowers.