Using Grow Lights for Indoor Plants
While using natural sunlight to grow your plants is optimal, there are some situations in which this isn’t feasible. For example, you might be growing a small trough of herbs in your apartment. Alternatively, you
While using natural sunlight to grow your plants is optimal, there are some situations in which this isn’t feasible. For example, you might be growing a small trough of herbs in your apartment. Alternatively, you may be attempting to grow a winter crop despite the darker, colder conditions. Cases like these can leave you with straggly, unhappy plants as they depend on sunlight. Instead, you can set up some indoor grow lights, often called sunlamps, to grow your plants in an effective manner.
Benefits of Artificial Grow lights
By choosing the right style of lamp, you will gain multiple rewards. Shop around, and pick a sunlamp that has been specifically designed to improve the growth rate of vegetation. After this, you can look forward to:
- Artificial light in the specific spectrum that optimises the growth potential of your vegetables, herbs and other plants
- Minimal excess heat loss, meaning you can light up your plants while keeping the overall temperature stable
- An environmentally friendly design which only consumes low amounts of electricity, saving you money as well
- A compact shape allowing you to fit more types of vegetables and herbs in a small interior space
- Proper safety features, allowing you to combine electrical gadgets and gardening without fear of accidents
This gives you the effects that you want with minimal hassle. Regardless of whether you’re growing your crop indoors or outdoors during the winter or summertime, these lights will offer optimal conditions in a range of environments. They also provide consistent light levels, giving your plants exactly what they require for the fastest growth rate possible.
Setting Up Your Lighting System
Of course to gain all of these benefits, you’ll also need to install your lamps in the right manner. This is a bit more complex than simply placing a bulb over your potted plants however. So you can get the most out of your grow lights, we have compiled a list of the best set up techniques below. While this is certainly not exhaustive, at the very least it will provide you with some solid foundations to getting the crop you desire in your home or greenhouse.
- First, choose the light that you’ll need. While you may think of all white light as the same, this cannot be further from the truth. Some plants have different reactions depending on the spectrum of light they are receiving. Thus, you’ll have to find out which models suit the crops you are growing.
- Start small and then adapt as needed. For example, you can start off purchasing a single light and then adding to the setup if you still haven’t reached the optimal growth rate. In this way, you won’t waste your money on equipment you really didn’t need in the first place. You also won’t have to deal with a more complicated setup than is necessary.
- Consider the distance from the bulbs to the top of your plants. This is very important because the heat generated by some grow lamp models will affect how your plant grows. The hotter they are, the further they have to be placed from the foliage. For example, fluorescents should be about 7 inches away.
- Set up a timer to turn the grow lights on and off. After all, your plants will still need to experience a period of night-time. The best ratio here is 18 hours on and 6 hours off, placing your crops into a routine that is as natural as possible. If you don’t have a timer, simply switch the grow lights on and off when you wake up and when you go to bed instead.