Grow lights, heaters etc, on a budget

Sunday May 18th

http://www.merristwood.ac.uk/NewsEvents/Events/MerristWoodSummerShow.aspx#.UuuQhRB_tTQ

Can't remember how much the tickets were last time, we got some freebies as a friend works there

 

Might put that in the calendar, ta

 

Thanks @clueless1

The sickly spider plant (leaves almost white) really enjoyed a couple of days in there - now the outer edges of the leaves have darkened nicely.

Tomorrow is begonia sowing day - not sure if I should do the dichondra too, or if its too early

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Better off getting them from Amazon - mine arrived in only a couple of days, and were less than £20 each including P&P

 

Well, the grow cupboard has been moved to its new home as a bird cage stand, and the first 'proper' residents have been installed:


Turned out to be a wee bit of a faff - a normal size seed tray would fit in, but there was only room for one and quite a bit of unused space all around it; so, I decided to experiment with the 12-cell seed trays that I bought last year - I discovered if I cut the rim off all way around the top, that I could fit three side by side and two deep on the shelf.

Then came the problem of a lid to retain humidity - long story short, I cannibalised three clear plastic seed tray/propagator lids and sellotaped them together to form one big one that butts up right to the back of the cupboard, I then used three lolly sticks shoved through the plastic, with a ring of sellotape wound round the stick at the desired height to stop the lid sliding down too far, and put them along the back edge to stop if flopping down in the middle (you can just see them at the back). Fingers crossed that this will do the trick.

So far, the heater is attaining just over 27º (although it is really warm in our living room for some reason tonight)

EDIT - whether the begonias in these trays will come to anything or not remains to be seen as it was really a case of tapping the dusty wee seeds off a bit of A4 paper. How a plant can form from such a tiny wee speck is just incredible!

 

for tiny seed like begonias I put some dry silver sand in the packet, give it a good shake then it's easier to sprinkle out and get a reasonable idea of coverage. I agree it's amazing how such plants come from tiny grains.

 

I've just mentioned to Mrs C how the spider plant has continued to get greener even though its been out of the cupboard for four or five days - its almost as though the lights have given it a real kick start

Just hope my begonias come good

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@minki - These the ones I got from Amazon. Delivery was swift and no problems with mine

The trouble with LED's is that they are directional, so if only one out of the 225 LED's is wired in reverse, the whole circuit won't work, and worse still they would all 'look' as though they are wired properly.

Send them back (don't let on that you have opened one up though), and get them from Amazon.