Growing with Artificial Light  

Thank you for the info. Interesting about the seeds as I never knew this.
I will check it out. may take awhile as I have a ton of flats germinating.
Already getting heads popping out too :D I love this!
I understand about the heat. I just want to give the seeds the best environment to do their thing.
I heard that you people got a major dump of snow. We have sunny skies. Our crocuses, snow drops, daffodils and even the dandelions are blooming already. I noticed the snow drops early January.
Our winter was way too mild, especially for the Olympics not to mention the survival of the pine beetle.
Well, have fun germinating and thanks again for your response! Much appreciated.

I love seeing the seedlings popping out, too. It never grows old. I'm as excited now as I was the very first time I started seedlings indoors. I call them my "babies". I tell my husband, "I got 4 new babies today!" He thinks I'm nuts. He just doesn't get it and leaves all the gardening to me.

I have eight 4-foot-long fluorescent lamps, each having two tubes and that probably won't be enough for everything I'll be starting indoors. Last year, I didn't have this many lamps and had flats in every sunny window and under every lamp in the house. LOL This year, I'll have better control over the seedlings, amount of light, air circulation and temperature.

Yes, we sure did get dumped on this year! I feel like I'm in a horror movie about the snow that never stopped. Even on days when we don't "officially" get snow, many of them have flurries. Normally, we get less than a foot for the season but, this year, we've had almost eight feet. I hope I never see another year like this one.

If I can find anything that lists the different seedlings and how much light each one needs, I'll let you know as soon as I can.

Thank you. Yes the snow that you're getting is rather extreme. Stay warm & safe.
I call them my babies too. Lol. I get a lot of pleasure out of it also.
I have the four foot grow lights as well.
I have more babies today too. Seems each day, something more is coming through.
Sounds like you are going to have fun! Enjoy and thank you for your comment.

Evrwonder....great advice from Mentalward..but I tend to strike a Happy medium, most do well with 12 hours, sorta consistent with the daylight hours you are striking right now!

I couldn't justify buying a heating mat...so my potting bench has wire mesh over it, so when re-potting, the dirt falls thru to trays below...SO...I went to the local Thrift Store, where I bought an Electric blanket for $2.00...laid it over the metal mesh (for safety -fire..just in case) turned it on low...and if the low setting is above 72-75, just slightly raise the trays...works great, and cheap on power.

Marti........if you get any more SNOW...the only thing you will be growing this year is SNOWDROPS...and ICEPLANTS! LOL!

If I was smarter, Marti...I would know how to upload the pics..of daffodils blooming, they just opened yesterday! Happy Dirty Fingers, ladies..and Cheers!

Snowdrops are very pretty but I need COLOR!!! The weather gurus are now telling us we could see more snow next week on Monday/Tuesday and again on Thursday. Sigh!

I'm going outside soon and poking some colorful silk flowers in the snow at the end of our driveway. I know my neighbors will get a kick out of them.

Lol! mentalward; Good idea about the silk flowers. Great way to life spirits in cold winter weather. Have you got more snow yet?
perga; I have ben going for twelve hours, approximately. never any less. Seems to be doing great! I have more lights to set up however, which should help regarding the space factor. Then I will have more light space to fill up :D Yaaa!

No more snow... yet. We're supposed to get more snow tomorrow night through Thursday night, though. They're saying "snow" but I'm hoping it's more like snow showers. The temps have been above freezing every day for about a week now and our unpaved road is extremely wet, not frozen anymore. I'm hoping that whatever snow we get won't accumulate.

If we do get more snow on the ground, I'm going to have to think about "planting" plastic veggies!

I am hoping that for your sake, you do not get anymore snow on the growing. I have a hunch that plastic vegies would be lacking in nutrition and taste but would also be hard to chew much less digest.
The week end has passed now. How are you making out with the weather? Any baby plants sprouting yet?

Thank you savypat. I am going to be doing further research here this week.
I really enjoy starting my own seeds.
Everything in the flower gardens are either from seed, division or cuttings.
As for vegies, I like to start my own tomatoes but also purchase a couple seedlings. We seed most of our own vegetable garden. It is very large and will be larger this year. Hopefully to resale.
I thoroughly enjoy harvest but also collecting seeds. It is a lot of fun for me but I can understand your point of view as it can be a lot of work when we could so easily just go buy the seedlings.
Thanks again for your response.

Sweet! Thanks Steve and thank you for your response as well. Your lens is intersting and loved the pictures too. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for your response. The halogens are useful but scare me so I use the florescent light fixtures with grow tubes. Works pretty good. I leave my lights on for twelve to fourteen hours until the seedlings are almost ready to plant out. I harden them off first. I can see the reasoning for leaving the lights on constant until the seeds sprout.