What you can growwith extra light

Gardening through winter can be rewarding if you are prepared to go the extra mile and provide a bit of extra heat and supplementary lighting myself and PeterS have constructed lightboxes (different designs but similar results) it enables me to grow seeds and cuttings all year round which adds another dimension to gardening.My box is 4ft wide 2ft tall and 21" deep it has a heat mat at the base that operates on a thermostat in the box keeping the base heat at 20c, two white fire horticultural flourescent type lights plus a 1ft sqare block of led growlights are fitted in the top, the sides and back are 12mm perspex lined with foil to reflect the light, the front is open with a roll down cover to maintain the temp. at night, when cuttings become too tall they are placed on top of the unit benefitting from any residual heat, the whole unit is kept in the g/house which is run at 6-7c min any heat that escapes helps keep the ambient temperature on the plus side.

Led light block usig red and white led's favourable to growth.


Brugmansia cuttings and seedlings(some have flower buds)




Some on top of box,



Fuchsia cuttings,

 

Fantastic :thumb: I bet that's good for your spring sowing

 

Bloomin eck...how much did itcost to build that lot...and was if difficult to do?

Steve...

 

That looks really good!

Can you show us some pictures of the box itself? Designs/plans etc?

Thanks

Steve

 

That looks really cool, at the moment I am living in London and so using a BudBox to grow indoors all year round as i have no garden!, I am using a 600W lamp and a small heater but i think yours is so much more aesthetically pleasing!

 

Blimey do those red & blue LEDs really work? (silly question, obviously ...).

I fancy some of that ... and presumably they use the best part of not very much electricity?

 

Yep-very Saturday night fever, it`d get me into action too. This forcing of plants-any problems? Never tried it myself-tried a bit of verbal coercion but the blighters do as they please.

How much did all that cost you Walnut?

 

Thats Brilliant Wallnut, Will you leave the flowers on the Brugs ? Im Also interested in how much it costs to run...

 

I will answer Kirsten on the led lights, the lights work vitually no heat very cheap to run,the down side initially expensive they are catching on and prices will hopefully come down,they need to be very close to the plants I have suspended this unit on chains so I can raise and lower it depending on plant growth,still assessing its pro's and con's.
It was easy to build basically the bottom is a wooden tray 2"deep in each corner there's a wooden upright with cross pieces at the top so in effect it's like a wooden fishtank the sides and back were filled in using 12mm perspex the lights are fitted to the top frame the spaces between them again filled in with perspex this was made using stuff that I already had, in the tray a 18mm slab of polystyrene was placed for insullation on top of this a heat mat or you can use a soil warming cable linked to a thermostat neither of these are cheap,the lighting is not cheap I use whitefire which is a high intensity fluorescent light specially for growing total wattage 300w, you can use envirolights or ordinary daylight fluorescents (PeterS uses these and has worked out the wattage)the led's are on test but Imanaged last year without them,I run the lights on a timer for 12hrs a day.I would reckon on todays prices £200.Difficult to work out the running costs 300wattsfor 12hrs each day the heat matt on most of the time when the temp in the g/house is low in the day time not on so much when the g/house temp increases.
Young Daisy the flowers will develope but will be nowhere as good as the summer ones so once I have checked the colour will probably take them off.

 

Brilliant Walnut - I love those red and blue lights. What wattage are the LED's in total, and how much do they contribute compared to the white lights.



I took this picture a couple of days ago. It is not in my light box as the Pelargoniums at the back are left overs from the summer and have never been in the light box. But the others are cuttings that were taken in November in the box. In front of the white Pelargoniums are some red Salvia splendens - the summer bedding plants that councils so like! And the purple ones are Salvia leucantha, which has just come into flower.

At first I cut all the flowers off, thinking that they were using up the strength of the plants, but then I thought - who cares! Last year I sowed some Salvia coccinea seeds in November and they started to flower in the box at the start of January. They have flowered virtually ever since with the odd flower on them even now. They got too big for the box early last year, and have spent most of the year outside.

The recent plants are also getting too big now - so I have had to put them on the house windowsills. This has allowed the box to be freed up for some early seeds.

 

Hi Peter, the total wattage for the block of led's is 14w I think they are about £30-33 now I got them off a supplier on e-bay,you have some good results ,like you I am not to worried about them flowering the plants are strong enough tostand a few flowers and it's a bit of winter cheer,the problem with the plants growing too tall I have made some of the top cover removeable and some of the cuttings grow through the top into natural light,never enough room some of my seeds I start in a propagator (parked in a spare bedroom) they get transfered into the box to grow them on.Just to reiterate on cost young daisy I try to keep costs down but appart from cycling(and ellie) it is my main hobby so would rather spend my money on gardening than boozing or driving round in a car.

 

Walnut - Thanks for the info. Are you growing Brugs and Dats in your box? Having taken cuttings, I am about to start on some seeds - and I have some of your seeds, do you think they would make good candidates?

Daisee - my box is a bit smaller than Walnuts. It is 42 ins by 16 ins with up to 20 ins height. The size was designed to accomodate a growbag tray, with a bit of finger room left over. I did some research on the light level, which is of course key. And decided that three, standard three foot long fluorescent tubes (90 watts in all) gave enough light, when enclosed in a light reflecting box. I also have a large (two seed tray) propogator that fits inside the box, and uses 22 watts.

In all it uses 112 watts running for 14 hours a day (on a time switch), which equals 1.57 Kwh per day. I pay 14.27 p per Kwh, so it costs me £6.71 per month. As Walnut says that's not a lot as a major hobby. The box itself cost about £60 to make - at least half was the cost of the three lights. That excludes the propogator, of course. I have to add that my box is inside the house, so the propogator is often at 80F. The 112 watts simply adds to the house heat, so is not wasted.

As far as flowering is concerned, my thoughts are that if you take cuttings of a plant that is flowering, you are taking a clone. So the cutting is also in a flowering state, as it contains the same hormones. As it grows it may lose those hormones and cease flowering till the normal influences of size, age, day length, heat etc bring it back to its flowering stage in the normal way. If you take cuttings of a plant that is not flowering, there is no reason to believe that it will start flowering quickly.

 

Yes Peter seeds started in the propagator are transfered to the light box for growing on.