Can you grow tomatoes in baseent with 6owatt bulb?
The new florescent lights that only use 12 watts for a 60 watt output should be cheap to let on for `16 hours! My basemen is 65 all the time so I want to start some tomatoes there! Will one ulb grow the seedlings? What bulb is best bright white or what! Is it better to place it very close like a foot? Should a white surface b around the plans? Can leaving the light on 24 hours harm the plants? Does a black light give off any special light for plants?
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rainbowgardener
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- Location: TN/GA 7b
You are talking about starting seedlings to be planted out in the garden later or you are trying to grow to maturity and produce fruit indoors? Very different.
It seems like too early to start seedlings for transplant now, in PA. I experimented some times, if it is good to plant tomato seeds in Feb, wouldn't Jan be even better? For me at least, the answer is no. As they are getting bigger, they take up a lot of room and they need a lot of light. I always ended up with very long leggy plants that weren't thriving and were very vulnerable to being snapped in half in the process of trying to move them out.
One 60 watt bulb doesn't seem like enough light even for one tomato plant, at least once it gets going. And you do know they need to be very close to the light, just a few inches away? Some people do leave their lights on 24/7. To me that is ok for a couple days, if you happen to forget to turn the lights off (mine are not on timers and that has happened
) But I have tried leaving them on all the time and for me it seems like that stresses the plants. They like having the rest time and different processes go on in the dark than the light. On all the time, makes worse plants not better.
No 48 hrs in cold doesn't harden them off and back and forth is much worse, constantly stressing the plants with changes. In early spring, I do have plants that I put out in the daytime, and then bring in at night when the nights are too cold for them and they aren't finished hardening off. But the point of that isn't to keep changing the temps between warm and cold, it's to try and keep them more even, between warmish outdoors in the daytime and warmish inside at night with the thermostat low -- our house is set for 58 at night.
It seems like too early to start seedlings for transplant now, in PA. I experimented some times, if it is good to plant tomato seeds in Feb, wouldn't Jan be even better? For me at least, the answer is no. As they are getting bigger, they take up a lot of room and they need a lot of light. I always ended up with very long leggy plants that weren't thriving and were very vulnerable to being snapped in half in the process of trying to move them out.
One 60 watt bulb doesn't seem like enough light even for one tomato plant, at least once it gets going. And you do know they need to be very close to the light, just a few inches away? Some people do leave their lights on 24/7. To me that is ok for a couple days, if you happen to forget to turn the lights off (mine are not on timers and that has happened
) But I have tried leaving them on all the time and for me it seems like that stresses the plants. They like having the rest time and different processes go on in the dark than the light. On all the time, makes worse plants not better.No 48 hrs in cold doesn't harden them off and back and forth is much worse, constantly stressing the plants with changes. In early spring, I do have plants that I put out in the daytime, and then bring in at night when the nights are too cold for them and they aren't finished hardening off. But the point of that isn't to keep changing the temps between warm and cold, it's to try and keep them more even, between warmish outdoors in the daytime and warmish inside at night with the thermostat low -- our house is set for 58 at night.