Fluorescent Grow Lights – Inexpensive Grow Lights for the Home Gardener
If you are wanting to grow vegetables and tomatoes inside in the winter, or are simply wanting to get good lighting for the seedling you are starting this year, you may find that the sunlight you can get from a window is just not enough for the healthy growth that you're looking for. If your plants or seedlings have a leggy look, more than likely they are not getting enough light. The easiest way to solve this is to use grow lights. This article describes fluorescent grow lights, but one other popular choice is LED grow lights. You can learn more about those at this LED grow light review.
It's the dead of winter, and you want a fresh salad, but the ground is covered with snow. Or spring is just around the corner, and you want to get a jump on things by starting some of your less common varieties that you know you won't find in the local nurseries when the time comes to start planting that garden. These are just a couple of situations where you will consider an indoor garden or some type.
There are just a few things that are really necessary for creating an indoor gardening area. To start, you will need some dedicated space. This is not as difficult as it sounds. For those just starting some seeds, the seed companies sell little plastic greenhouses that are only a few square feet for starting a couple of dozen seeds, and you can go up as far as you want from there.
Of course the critical need is light. The temptation is to try putting the garden near a window, and while that is good it is almost surely not going to be enough.
And simply parking a conventional light source near your plants probably won't do the trick. The part of the light spectrum that plants need is different from the light from most home lighting which has been optimized for the human eye. In fact, the light needs of most plants varies somewhat over the life cycle of the plant. And for indoor situations, it is often the case that since artificial light is not as strong as sunlight, up to 12 to 18 hours of lighting is needed each day.
Artificial Grow Lights
The solution is to use grow lights. These lights are designed to generate the type of light that is needed by plants, and are also designed to deliver that light efficiently to the plants. For artificial lighting it is critical that the light source be as possible to the plants, and needs to be moved as the plants grow and mature to keep it close.
Incandescent Bulbs
Years ago the choice was incandescent grow lights. These often looked like miniature flood lights, but were limited in the amount of light they could deliver because incandescent is a fairly inefficient technology, which in practical terms , while it drives up the cost of the electricity used, more importantly it generates a lot of excess heat. This effectively limits how much lighting can be used before it just gets too hot for the plants.
Fluorescent Grow Lights
Over the years fluorescent lighting has become a lot more cost effective, and it really is the best choice these days for the home gardener. It is about twice as efficient as incandescent lighting, and it is more flexible in the shape and style of the bulbs. For years the most popular version were the long 40 tubes, usually paired in the traditional long reflector that was similar to the old overhead lights seen in kitchens or garages.
But there are some better choices for both the lights and the mounting schemes available today than the traditional long tube fluorescent grow lights alternatives like LED grow lights.
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