Kitchen Garden Forum

I am thinking about starting some of my vegetable seeds off early (January) this year indoors using a grow light kit, I am led to believe that blue spectrum light is best for this sort of thing. Grow kits are widely available and Envirolites seem to be the new big thing but they are really expensive. Has anybody tried starting seeds off just using an ordinary fluorescent light (i.e from B&Q) which is a lot cheaper or are the special grow lights essential for this sort of thing? Thank you

Dear Whimsical Kitten, a warm welcome to the forum.

I don't think fluoresent lights will do the same job, i might be wrong, but i'm sure someone else will tell us.

Hi Whimsical Kitten,
Having started your plants off in January have you thought it through as to where and when you are going to plant out these plants?
JB.

Whimsical Kitten

Welcome to the forum.

I have never used grow lights, and like, I suspect, most other forum members, never will. As you have no doubt seen, the technical stuff is HERE.

We gardeners are always too keen to get started early. This is about the time of the year when there are a lot of forum posts about problems with early propagated seedlings. Johnboy's suggestion is worthy of some serious thought - you need to calculate when conditions will be suitable for planting out and work back from there. Otherwise you may well end up with expensively produced, unusable plants. Try a forum search on "leggy seedlings" and you'll see what a common theme this is.

My advice would be: bide your time and save your money. Later crops almost always catch up with early ones and often overtake them.

There was a thread on the subject I started last year.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4949&hilit=envirolite

I am impatient and enjoyed using them in the propagator. I have a well insulated heated greenhouse that things go in next. I regard my gardening as a hobby as well a way of getting superior produce and as such accept there is some cost involved. I do try and save wherever I can to fund indulgencies such as this. Having said that I am not switching anything on until the last weekend in January this year when I shall sow Aubergines, Tomatoes, Cabbage Primo, Cauliflower Snowball, Basil, Parsley and Lettuce.

Well i have four lots of flower seed that went into my propagator yesterday.
And will be starting Broad bean and peas of in pots in the greenhouse at the end of the month.

Apologies Whimsical Kitten I forgot to answer the question.
I don't think standard strip lights are much good but you can buy tubes with the correct light spectrum. I think they are also quite expensive. My original idea was to try and make a lid for my propagator out of the hood with built in lights from an abandoned fish tank, after all the weed grows in fish tanks. I couldn't get any advice on the idea and when I decided to have a go anyway the lights had stopped working so that experiment never happened.
OH - what flowers have you sown? I so far have just Sweet Peas planned for a week after startup.

I am led to believe that blue spectrum light is best for this sort of thing. Grow kits are widely available and Envirolites seem to be the new big thing but they are really expensive.

lighting can be cataegorised by its colour temperature. Common tungsten lighting produces a warm reddy/orange light -and daylight mainly blue (although it is redder at sunrise and sunset).

So, if your envirolite is to mimic the sun - then it makes sense that you need a blue light.

There is a quick and cheap ways to do make your own envirolite.....John Lewis and home base sell blue (daylight mimicking) lightbulbs - you can also get them online - see here for examples. http://tinyurl.com/6wnuol

All you'll need is a standard light fitting - perhaps an anglepoise lamp and fit in the blue bulbs. The main problem will be heat. Tungsten lights get very hot - be careful not no scorch those seedlings!

Fluorescents are tricky - cheap ones have a green component to them. Professional lighting directors can get them in red or blue. But they can be expensive.

If you try it out do let us know the results.
hope that helps

UrbanFox

Dear Geoff, i have sown Aconitum ready for stratification, two types of Althaea (hollyhock) and some Antirrhinum.

And before anyone asks, no i don't sow my seeds in alphabetical order.

Hi OH.
With your Aconitum the stratification should be done before the sowing.
Could your please explain what you mean?
JB.

Morning Johnboy, it's just the way i go about stratification, in the propagator for a fortnight, then a cold spell in the freezer, outside or inside the fridge for about a month, then in the propagator again.

I find this gives excellent results with the most difficult of seeds.
But as i said, it's just how i go about it.

Hi OH,
Thank you for the explanation. Do you actually sow the seeds or simply place them in the warm environment?
As a retired professional Propagator I am always keenly interested in all forms of propagation.
JB.

Yes Johnboy, i do actually sow the seeds in compost, in quarter trays topped with vermiculite.
I have often thought about sowing them just in vermiculite and pricking them out as they germinate, the reason behind this being, as some germinate over a few weeks period, i was wondering if it would be less disturbance to the other seeds whilst pricking out.

Don't know if you have any thoughts on this Johnboy.

I bought an Envirolite kit last year - a lamp, a reflector and hangars. I used it in my conservatory and suspended it above two trays of seeds. It looked impressive but my seedlings - aubergine, tomato, french beans - were all as leggy as usual. Where did I go wrong?

Hi OH,
I put all my seeds for stratification in horticultural grit/small vermiculite mix 50:50 into small polythene bags and seal them. they are then put into old half gallon plastic ice cream container with a lid and a rock on the top. I then put them out into the old nursery to take the winter weather.
I do nothing until the end of February and irrespective if they have germinated or not I then sow the seeds on top of a standard seed tray or half tray half filled with MP compost sow the seeds on top of the compost and then add a layer of horticultural grit/Vermiculite again 50:50. Unless heat is called for I simply let nature take it's own course.
I have some Frau Dagmar Hastrup and some Roserie de la Hay Roses to grow this year. I must confess that most of the seeds I grow on the Decorative side are either shrubs or trees now as I buy-in most other flower plants.
I have some Lily scales on the go, about 15 different varieties. This is not really for me but for a great friend and they are going well. I probably will keep a few plants back for me.
Apart from that I do not sow anything before the begining of March.
This is because I have lost so much in the past I find it best to be a tad late rather than a tad early and quite honestly I am getting too old to do much now.
JB.