Indoor winter gardening

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White_Hydrangea Aurora, CO(Zone 5a) Sep 24, 2006

I'd like to start a small setup in the garage this winter, partly so I can grow some things like lettuce to eat during the winter, and partly to start seeds in late winter so I can transplant them in the garden when it finally gets warm. Give them a leg up, so to speak.

Does anyone have anything like this? Grow lights, shelves, etc.? What do you do and where do you get the stuff?

Thanks.

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nataraj Middletown, CA Sep 26, 2006

I don't have any recent experience with this, but I did notice this site http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/accessory/lights.shtml , which has quite a wide selection of lighting supplies and good comparisons of the various types. I do know that lettuces can be grown with less light than alot of plants, though good lighting will usually produce more nutrition plants. Check out the grow light guide link on the first page of the link listed above.

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tabasco Cincinnati (Anderson, OH(Zone 6a) Sep 26, 2006


Hi, White_hydrangea--

I don't have a lot of experience with indoor growing, either, but I know lots of DGers use 48 inch shop lights from Home Depot and Lowes. They are very inexpensive and then they use regular florescent (not the super expensive 'grow') light bulbs--maybe one 'warm' and one 'cool' bulb in each fixture.

Then they 'fix' the shop lights to the shelving units you can buy at Home Depot, too, (watch for sales on these) with chains so they can be adjusted. To start out for seed starting, they are generally very close (like 3 inches) then raised as the plants grow.

This way is a lot cheaper than mail ordering special stuff but not as elegant. Of course, it depends on what you want to grow, how hardy it is, whether your garage is heated at all, etc., etc.

There are several good threads with directions on how to make low cost growing racks with tubing, etc. Probably found in the propagation forum. Weezingreens had great pictures of her basement seed starting operation, as I recall.

I am going to set up some shelves in our garage for some tender perennials I want to bring in. I am not sure how much light they will need, but I want to try to save them---mandevilla, bleeding heart vine, elephant ears, amaryllis, etc.

I might be able to grow some lettuce, too. Last year I started a 'mesclun' mix from seed under lights but most of my seed sowing was done using the winter sowing method outdoors.

This was my shop-light light set-up for my Amaryllis last year.

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