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I am growing mostly herbs indoors in containers in my dining room, under lights. I got most of the plants on 2/22 of this year, and I transplanted them into pots on 2/25 (basils) and 3/4 (all others). So it's been at least a month since transplant for all of them. I have 4 basils, 1 Thai basil, 1 Roman chamomile plant, 1 Dalmatian bellflower, and 2 English lavenders. It has been an odyssey with figuring out the lighting and various issues like fungus gnats, etc. but some of the plants are doing really great.

What the setup looks like:
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/IMG_0846.jpg[/img]

There is a total of 300 W of 5500-K fluorescent light in those lamps (1500 W incandescent equiv.), and there is a 105-W lightbulb (400 W equiv of incandescent) in the ceiling that is about 4 feet from the plants. The lights are on usually 12-14 hours a day. As you can imagine, this is really bright so after sunset I tend to put up screens so that it won't be so bright. (There are 2 screens that I just clip together with binder clips. So it is open on 2 sides.)
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/IMG_0853.jpg[/img]

This lavender plant grew 4.9 inches in height and 6 inches in width in a 6-week period!
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/lav2-4410.jpg[/img]

This mint is kind of sprawly so it didn't really grow that much in height, but if you measure the 'length' of those long leaves, it grew 7.6 inches in width in 6 weeks!
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/mint3-4410.jpg[/img]

This mint grew 6.1 inches in height and 1.9 inches in width in 6 weeks.
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/mint2-4410.jpg[/img]
The mints always did well in this setup, but they do better if they are not directly under the lights.

Basically, the lavenders & mints are doing really great... all the mints and lavenders grew between 2 and 7.6 inches in 6 weeks. And both the lavender plants are putting out what looks like pre-flowers, that haven't opened yet. Each plant has 8 or 9 of these pre-flowers on it. I don't know if they will actually open... I was surprised that they looked like they would flower at all, given that I don't really have the 'red' spectrum light on in there.

The basils are doing okay, but they were a lot smaller plants to start with when I got them...they are all about 4 inches high now. They are not growing very fast, so I am still trying to tweak out their ideal conditions to help them do better.
This basil grew 1 inch in height in a month's time... In general the basils grew between a quarter inch and one inch in a month.
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/basil3-4410.jpg[/img]

My Roman chamomile is kind of sickly... I am not sure what to do about it, although it could be a myriad of causes, because of all the issues I've had up to this point. It didn't really grow, although I've had it for 6 weeks.
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/cham-4410.jpg[/img]

The Dalmatian bellflower was blooming when I got it and has since quit blooming and part of the underneath of the plant has dried out and died. The part that is left looks OK, but I'm not really sure what to do about this one either.
[img]https://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj40/evensong7/dalm-4410.jpg[/img]

Anyway these are my plants, and I thought I'd share. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

No particular thoughts, but it is all looking great! Terrific job. I grow lavender from seed, but it doesn't grow nearly that fast for me.

Hey rainbowgardener, emerald has the same kind of multi-headed lamps as yours!

Looking super, emerald! And I like the tall clay pots.

2 thoughts that crossed my mind:
(1) Basil might need warmer temperature than the others.
(2) You could try putting an incandescent light bulb in one of the upper sockets.
(3) You could put the basil and probably the lavender near the incandescent to take advantage of the heat. (The lavender is looking great as is, but I doubt it'll mind the extra heat.) Try giving the chamomile extra warmth too.
(4) Oh, wait, did I say 2 thoughts? Did you know that the perennial Roman chamomile is different from German chamomile which is the one usually used for tea? The annual German chamomile flowers have that apple-like scent. I actually didn't like the smell of Roman chamomile flowers.
(5) Might as well add another thought -- I think the growing tips of the mints could be pinched now since they're doing so well.

rainbowgardener wrote:No particular thoughts, but it is all looking great! Terrific job. I grow lavender from seed, but it doesn't grow nearly that fast for me.

Thanks Rainbow! I need to re-try seed starting at some point... maybe in a month or so.

applestar wrote:Hey rainbowgardener, emerald has the same kind of multi-headed lamps as yours!
(4) Oh, wait, did I say 2 thoughts? Did you know that the perennial Roman chamomile is different from German chamomile which is the one usually used for tea? The annual German chamomile flowers have that apple-like scent. I actually didn't like the smell of Roman chamomile flowers.
(5) Might as well add another thought -- I think the growing tips of the mints could be pinched now since they're doing so well.

(4) I knew the R. cham is different from the G. cham, but the R. is the only kind I could get in a plant locally... We'll see. If I wanted G. cham, I think I would have to start it from a seed.
(5) Growing tips of mints... So what does that really mean? I have also read things about pinching off parts of the plants, or that kind of thing about basil, but I am not sure that I really understood what that means.

You pinch off the top growth. You can pich lower and it'll branch off twice in most cases. With basil, anytime you pinch it off you get two new shoots. You can help increase the size of the plant that way.

I am too lazy to post pictures (lol), but here is an update:

My basil plants have improved a lot. I have finally figured out the correct watering schedule for them, and they have become a lot greener, and in the past several days, have just burst out with tons of new sets of leaves. So they are looking good.

My chamomile has recently started doing a lot better too. It is growing vertically and has new green leaves. When I ran my hand over it today I could smell the apple-like smell, which is the first time I was able to smell that since I had the plant.

My lavenders have been flowering for a while now. I guess they think it is summer, lol.