Space-makers for Indoor Gardening- Fluorescent Lights and Home

• Posted by Howard Payne January 27, 2020 Filed in Health #ios  #free on itunes  #itunes  #app store  #apple  #PlantSpot  #plant app  18,729 views
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  Space-makers for Indoor Gardening- Fluorescent Lights and Home Greenhouses

   

  

   

     Whether you need an extra four feet of indoor gardening area, or an entire room, it can be acquired by installing fluorescent lights. Another way of adding space is to invest in a home greenhouse. Some preliminary pointers on a greenhouse setup are given later.

   

  FLUORESCENT LIGHTS

     Artificially lighted indoor gardens can be devised in closets, attics, and basements; in cabinets, bookcases, and planters; and in various kinds of lighted plant carts.

   

     With the possible exception of some orchids, geraniums, cacti, and other succulents, all house plants thrive and bloom under fluorescent lights. Bulbs, tubers, and cuttings root quickly. Seedlings too are easy to grow with this kind of illumination, which knows no short, cloudy, or rainy day.

   

     Plants placed directly under the lights grow symmetrically with never a turn, for they receive evenly balanced light from overhead. Incandescents (ordinary light bulbs) too can be useful, especially for giving green foliage plants some extra light. You will find more Plants info with this app. 

   

    Plants need properly balanced red and blue light rays to promote good growth and flowering. An initial light setup can be made from a pair of 40-watt, 48-inch fluorescent tubes, one cool white, the other warm white, in a standard industrial reflector. Do not use supplementary incandescent with fluorescent light; they give off too much heat and burn too much electricity.

   

     A pair of ordinary 40-watt fluorescents, with starters and a reflector, will cost less than $30. A reflector is necessary to throw the light onto the plants. The tubes and reflector should be suspended about eighteen inches from the plant table. Chain, rope, or wire may be used. Lights may be left on twelve to eighteen hours a day, the time depending on the type of plants being grown. Those that flower need more light than foliage kinds. Energy-conscious under-light gardeners report no adverse effects from 12-hour days. Certainly 14-hour days will grow almost any common house plant or herb under lights.

   

     Lights may be switched on and off manually, but it's best to let a timer do the job. Do not leave lights on continuously. In fact, if you do not have an automatic timer, it is better to leave the lights off when you go away for a weekend.

   

     Fluorescent light is the most efficient user of electrical energy -much better than incandescent. The cost of operating lighted shelves, tables, or even multilevel carts for plants is negligible considering the pleasure they give. Tubes last approximately a year, but quantity of light diminishes with age.