Kitchen Garden Forum

It's a bit too late but today I finally received my LED growing lights! Immediately jumped up and installed them in the window sill to give my plants more light hours. After all, tomato, pepper, melon and cucumber needs a lot of light.

I was adviced to keep them as close to the plants as possible, so I have put them up at about 20" above the window sill. This way all plants have some space to grow before putting them outside.

Anyone has more advice on growing lights? And even more important... Do I have to watch out for UV-rays on my skin or something while using them?

Blimey Elmigo!

Disco comes to mind! I tried to replace my old grow light but totally confused with the colour spectrums needed? I would be grateful if you could share your knowledge!

Red growing lights are effective to promote growth in plants and blue lights are to strengthen the plants. Plants need both and some need one more than the other, so there are growing lights with 2 red + 1 blue but also 3 red + 1 blue and even 4 red + 1 blue and others too. This basically means each blue light has [x] red lights. It depends on the plant you want to grow which you need. The combinations may even affect growth and flowering periods but I'm not that much of an expert.

For my window sill I used full spectrum lights. This is the easiest, savest and quickest way out, without too much knowledge needed. The light has red and blue mixed, which shows as purple or pink even (imagine mixing red and blue paint). I was adviced to place the lights as close to the plants as possible. The further away the lights are, the more light gets spilled and will not reach the plants. I placed mine at about 20" above the window sill so the plants have some space to grow.

I still haven't figured out whether the UV-rays are harmful to your skin or something...

Cheers Elmigo! That will help for next year! Now it is not all cloudy & dull I am just rotating the pots on the shelf in the front of the south facing window sill, with a lower bottom heat in the propagator as the most precious tomatoes & stuff have true leaves & looking strong & healthy! (Including the 2 passionfruit)!

There is a massive green house system (think in Kent) being set up for growing tomatoes, when asked about lights (red & Blue) they were switched on using his phone.

Are they expensive Elmigo?

I just use lights with a regular light switch, and they were about €7,- for each bar (4 bars = €28,-). That's about £6,50 for a bar (4 bars for £26,-) that has a length of 19 and a half inches or 50 centimeters. It does the job quite well but I don't think they are strong enough to replace full sunlight. I was lucky to buy them for wholesale pricing though, because I need them for my store and all the plants in it. I paid half the price.

Currently giving my plants two and a half extra hours of sunlight each day. When the sun goes down or the weather is very cloudy I immediately turn on the lights to extend daytime for the plants, but I think it might be better to give them more. About 16 hours of sunlight and 6 hours of darkness should be perfect for most like tomato/cucumber/kiwano/melon, they need a lot...