I live in Las Vegas, and for a long time i've been wanting to try growing some full size vegetables in my house over the winter. I do have a garden in my back yard with four 4'x8' raised beds, but it can get down to 20 degrees here (with snow) in December and January. So during the cold season, growing Summer veggies like peppers, tomatoes, and basil indoors during the winter is the only option for me.
Since I had limited space in my house, I figured i'd pull out the wire shelving in one of my 2'x6' closets and hang an 8 tube fluorescent light in there (Quantum BadBoy T5). I screwed two hooks into the ceiling and hung it using two ropes with ratchets at the bottom so I can easily move the light up and down as needed. This closet was too small to use a light that generates high heat like an HID. There would also be no way to vent that type of heat properly without cutting holes in my wall or ceiling, so an HID was not an option. Since the closet was already painted white inside, I decided not to go through the hassle of trying to hang mylar.
I'll be growing primarily tomatoes and peppers using soil. The tomatoes will be grown in these 5 gallon buckets. I'll drill holes at the bottom of the top bucket, then insert it into another bucket so it's able to drain. For peppers, i'll put them in smaller containers, maybe 2-3 gallon. They'll sit all around the tomato buckets along with some basil.
As for the tubes in the fixture, there are four cool 6400k tubes, and four warm 2900k tubes. This should provide a good balace of foliage and flowers. I thought about using all 6400k at first, then switching to all 2900k for flowering.. but we'll see how this goes first.
According to the Quantum Horticulture site (they make the bulbs i'm using), here are the stats for the bulbs:
Bloom Bulb - 93.5 Lumen / per Watt for 2900 Kelvin
Grow Bulb - 88.Lumen / per Watt 6500 Kelvin
High Lumen Maintenance: 90% over 10,000 hours
The bulbs are 54 watts each, so that gives me 20196 Lumens from the Bloom bulbs, and 19008 Lumens from the Grow bulbs, which is a total of 39204 lumens for the entire fixture. The closet is 2'x6' and the fixture is 2'x4'. That gives me a total of:
-4900.5 lumens per square foot directly under the 2'x4' light
or
-3267 lumens per square foot across the entire 2'x6' closet.
For the growing method on the tomatoes, i'll be setting up a "scrog" which means "screen of green". I'll put a grid with 4.5" squares across the entire closet, about 2ft up from the edge of the buckets. Once the tomatoes start hitting the grid, i'll train the branches outward along the bottom of the grid for maximum light exposure.
So that's about it. I'll post my log here and we'll see what I can grow with 432 watts of fluorescent tubes
Since I had limited space in my house, I figured i'd pull out the wire shelving in one of my 2'x6' closets and hang an 8 tube fluorescent light in there (Quantum BadBoy T5). I screwed two hooks into the ceiling and hung it using two ropes with ratchets at the bottom so I can easily move the light up and down as needed. This closet was too small to use a light that generates high heat like an HID. There would also be no way to vent that type of heat properly without cutting holes in my wall or ceiling, so an HID was not an option. Since the closet was already painted white inside, I decided not to go through the hassle of trying to hang mylar.
I'll be growing primarily tomatoes and peppers using soil. The tomatoes will be grown in these 5 gallon buckets. I'll drill holes at the bottom of the top bucket, then insert it into another bucket so it's able to drain. For peppers, i'll put them in smaller containers, maybe 2-3 gallon. They'll sit all around the tomato buckets along with some basil.
As for the tubes in the fixture, there are four cool 6400k tubes, and four warm 2900k tubes. This should provide a good balace of foliage and flowers. I thought about using all 6400k at first, then switching to all 2900k for flowering.. but we'll see how this goes first.
According to the Quantum Horticulture site (they make the bulbs i'm using), here are the stats for the bulbs:
Bloom Bulb - 93.5 Lumen / per Watt for 2900 Kelvin
Grow Bulb - 88.Lumen / per Watt 6500 Kelvin
High Lumen Maintenance: 90% over 10,000 hours
The bulbs are 54 watts each, so that gives me 20196 Lumens from the Bloom bulbs, and 19008 Lumens from the Grow bulbs, which is a total of 39204 lumens for the entire fixture. The closet is 2'x6' and the fixture is 2'x4'. That gives me a total of:
-4900.5 lumens per square foot directly under the 2'x4' light
or
-3267 lumens per square foot across the entire 2'x6' closet.
For the growing method on the tomatoes, i'll be setting up a "scrog" which means "screen of green". I'll put a grid with 4.5" squares across the entire closet, about 2ft up from the edge of the buckets. Once the tomatoes start hitting the grid, i'll train the branches outward along the bottom of the grid for maximum light exposure.
So that's about it. I'll post my log here and we'll see what I can grow with 432 watts of fluorescent tubes
