I found a use for my under cabinet lights...seeds

Letyourselfgo · 12-02-2013 5:58pm #1

I had been reading a bit about grow lights and I thought I'd give this a go first, if it turns out to be rubbish I'll make a proper one.
What I've done is taking the fluorescent under cabinet light from the other side of the kitchen and placed it beside another one next to the boiler. I planted the seeds on Friday night and as you can see a few of them are already going really well. One of them is a Zinnia and the other is from a cottage garden mix.

Doers anyone do sth similar or any ideas to improve it. The sunlight around my house is pretty hampered by surrounding trees.

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Heroditas · 12-02-2013 7:13pm

Fluorescent tubes certainly can do the trick. The colour of light isn't exactly right and you can get fluorescent tubes that match natural light much closer but certainly what you have is a great start!

muckyhands · 12-02-2013 7:44pm

Great idea.

If you had reflectors or something to reflect the light down it might help increase the light youre getting from the tubes.

Heroditas · 12-02-2013 9:10pm

muckyhands wrote: »

Great idea.

If you had reflectors or something to reflect the light down it might help increase the light youre getting from the tubes.

Some tinfoil would do the trick!

Letyourselfgo · 12-02-2013 9:19pm

Thanks for the suggestions. I knew they were the wrong tubes alright but kind of just want to make use of what I have first before sspending any money.
Tin foil sounds like a plan. Cheers

redser7 · 12-02-2013 10:02pm

Cool whites are what you need. I use a 5 foot twin tube fixture. Built a box round it with cheap hardboard painted matt white. Don't use tin foil, matt white is the best reflective surface.

kylith · 13-02-2013 8:25am

redser7 wrote: »

Cool whites are what you need. I use a 5 foot twin tube fixture. Built a box round it with cheap hardboard painted matt white. Don't use tin foil, matt white is the best reflective surface.

Some light blue plastic would help colour correct the bulbs.

Letyourselfgo · 17-02-2013 6:00pm

Thought I'd give an update.
I made no changes to the setup and this is 5 days on and there all doing really well. They were only planted 9 days ago and I think I can now call it a success, I had to re pot a few of them as they were hitting the under cabinet and bending slightly.

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I found a use for my under cabinet lights...seeds

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