Finally got some time to get this posted. I have two tomato plants I pulled from the outdoor garden in October, and two new plants I started indoors about three weeks ago. There are some other miscellaneous house plants such as cactus and orchids thrown in the mix. I also threw in some kale, lettuce, and spinach seeds which have spent their whole life under the SS. The two outdoor plants suffered from lack of light for a couple months, but they have seen new growth since I hung the SS at the beginning of December. Initially they took a little bit of leaf burn from the new light, but seem to have adjusted now. Here's the whole operation:
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A new bracket for hanging the light is on the list of things to do. Here's how it looks now (obviously not optimal).
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Here's a closer look at the three week old toms. One is a super cherry variety, and the other is a beefsteak I believe. They both have really crinkled leaves for some reason.
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Here are the new lettuce and spinach seedlings. They were planted on 2 Jan and are coming up nicely.
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Here's a closer look at the toms I pulled from outside. The plant in the green pot was recently moved from a bucket. Both have given me about 5 cherry tomatoes. I'm unsure exactly which variety of cherry tom they are.
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The room is about 4.5'x4'x4' with the light 3' from the ground. The light is on a timer for 10 hours a day, and I run a fan to strengthen the plants every couple days. I water with fertilized aquarium water and tap water as needed. I'll try to post updates every two weeks.
I think you're going to want a taller room and some shelving/boxes/etc to keep the tops of all of the plants near the same level at about 18-24 inches below the light.
YMMV...
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
I'll have to see if I can come up with anything to get the light closer to the plants. Thanks for the tip. Here are a few new shots taken on Jan 25th. The plants from outside have taken a turn for the worse, so they'll be leaving soon. I moved some of the lettuce and spinach around a little. They seem to be doing really well. I'll try to get some new shots up this weekend.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
Well the tomatoes survived the winter. They are back outside now. Here are my last pics from mid April. Overall, the lettuce and spinach grew really really well, but I couldn't get the tomatoes to thrive. Both are in the same dirt, so I don't really know what to make of that. I did manage to get a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes over the past few months though. They definitely did better than windowsill toms usually do in the winter.