Growlights: Building the Perfect Grow-Box

I bought my first light early this year, then got a 2nd, then a 3rd last week and a light meter shortly after that and it adds a whole new dimension to gardening.

Now I've got something like a 265 x 70mm square pot capacity I'm thinking about trying out some spare seeds for various plants in advance to check out how they respond to artificial lighting.

 

Excellent Scrungee. You will soon find, if you haven't already, that seeds grow well under lights - but the problem comes afterwards. Where on earth do you put all those young potted up plants?

Currently I am growing cuttings. Some are doing well - Brugmansia and Leonotis. But others have virtually all died - Iochroma, Duranta and Streptosolen. I knew that it wasn't the right time of year for the last three, but in the process of cutting the plants back for winter I had a lot of cutting material.

 

In case it helps I don't think of it like that.

I use light either to keep things on tick-over (stop them becoming dormant), or to make things actively grow.

Just now I have some Alocasia, Colocasia that I want to keep going, and some Ginger and Canna that I bought cheap in Jungle Plants sale as "little bits of corm" and those I want to actively grow over the winter.

For me its just a question of how much light, and heat, I give them. If they grow faster than I want then I reduce light (and maybe heat, although in the main I don't give them a lot of that - anything that gets big enough that it needs potting on, during the winter, is stealing space from another potential plant! So alive, progressing, and not growing too big is my aim)

 

Hiya folks.

Well, despite my complete confusion as to what will suit me best, following a phone call to those 3CH folks, I've decided on this I would have opted for this but they don't do shipping on it, and the nearest to me is over sixty miles away.

This is all new to me, so it may well take a while (if ever ) to get optimum results.

Cheers...Freddy

 

That's only just the reflector - isn't it cheaper overall to buy it as a package together with the 4 x 125w lamps like this http://www.3ch.co.uk/grow-lights/fl...-cfl-125watt-reflector-package/prod_1231.html for only £30 more, rather than get them separately for £60 (4 @ £15 each?), or do you already have some?

 

Ahh my mistake. I have actually bought the package

 

Good. There I was worrying that you'd end up paying about £30 extra + another P&P charge if getting them seperately.

 

Whoooops, somehow I've ended up purchasing 2 light meters from Amazon.(Same one as Kristens). In order to send this back to the seller in USA, it will cost me £4.42 in p&p. To send it to someone in the UK it'll cost £2.70 (1st ) or £2 .20 (2nd). I would rather sell it to someone on GC - anyone interested? Total = £10.95 plus p&p?
Jenny

 

I saw a program the other day on sky and the guy built his own grow box out of old wood put a ground sheet down then loads of grass cuttings then topped it up with soil and stuck a perspex lid on and he was growing really well, lettuce and everything. I may of missed an item in there but can't remember what it was. I'm contemplating on doing something like this to grow my own veg and salad stuff.

 

That sounds more like a Hot Bed Matthew, have a look at this thread,

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/ziggys-west-bay-dorset-veg-plot.31341/

 

There was a programme on a couple of weeks ago where an old greenhouse was being rebuilt . They used hotbeds to raise pineapples . I think it was in the 1600's so pineapples must have been very very rare and expensive.

 

I've nearly finished my new box. This is it with the light about halfway down (those supporting battens can be either raised or lowered), and is without either the Mylar covering to the side walls or white polythene 'bathtub' lining to the base.



Three thermostatically controlled propagators will fit underneath and seeds will start going in within the next few days. Another box will be going underneath this setup with my 2 smaller T5 lights which can be set at different heights.

The size of the base is 1.2 x 0.7 metres.

 

can't wait to see it in action Scrungee. Where are you going to keep it?
Jenny

 

I'll start with my first batch of (giant) onion seeds, but there's also mini-bush tomatoes, chillis, and lots of very early salad/leafy sort of stuff.

I've built it high enough to have the option of putting my smaller T5 sides vertically around the sides to really get things shifting.

 

Almost finished:



If that looks a bit skew whiff it's probably because it's above my homebrew fermenters. That's a roll of aluminium tape in the box and one of the best purchases I made from Aldi/Lidl/wherever because it's ideal for sealing joints.

For anybody wondering why I used white melamine faced hardboard when it's going to be covered with Mylar, it's because the double sided sticky tape I use for fixing Mylar sticks to it better than plain hardboard.

It seems quite warm inside with the lights on, so I'll use one of my thermometers with 'external' sensors to monitor the temperature inside in conjunction with propagator thermometers at lower level in the soil.