Beginner Gardening: How many seedlings can you start under a 4' grow light?, 1 by Ozark

Ozark wrote:
passiflora - Here's what I did last year, and it worked great.

I built a simple frame to hang three 2-bulb shop lights over a bench in my workshop, and I put the lights on a timer to burn 16 hours a day. The shop lights and the timer were pretty inexpensive at Lowe's.

We close off the heater vents in my workshop, which is part of our garage, so in winter it stays about 60 degrees in there. I think the cool temp helps grow sturdy plants, and I know you're in Florida, but I'd say raise your seedlings in the coolest room you have.

I started out by planting seeds in plastic egg cartons, then transplanted to seedling flats, then finally to 12-oz. plastic cups. I raised over 100 tomato, pepper, and tomatillo seedlings at once this way, and didn't lose any. I'll be planting again in this same rig about March 1.