Remote Gardener

Although we grow the majority of our plants in our greenhouses we start them indoor under grow lights. We do this because it adds over a month to our growing season and our plants start in a controlled environment.

We use the fish tank to water the plants and it gives them an added nitrogen boost. The first light is really a small sun for these little plants. It can pump up to 120,000 lumens but we are using a dimmer bulb until the seeds start to break the surface.

The light is hung from the ceiling over the seed sprouts.

This shows several different methods for starting your seeds. On the far right you can see plants being started in rock wool, clay pellets and plastic mesh cups. The center shows plants being started in peat pots or paper cups. All of these will be moved directly into the hydroponic bottles. At left are several standard pots and potting soil.

These containers have the same variety of planting methods being used but they are starting under a Florescent Grow Light. This doesn't give off a lot of heat but the light is more than adequate to get the seedlings started.

The clay and rock wool pots contain vegetables like cucumbers, melons, peppers, egg plant and squash. All of the slow growing plants which need an extended growing season. These will be moved into the greenhouse hydroponic systems as soon as the roots begin showing outside the grow pots.

Those started in potting soil are filled with lettuces, radishes, onions and flowers. These will need to be moved into rain gutters as soon as they sprout. Usually I would start these directly in the rain gutters but I’m doing some additional experimenting this year.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Aquaponics, Hydroponic Pictures, Hydroponics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.