I have had this indoor planting stand for a while now. I have been trying my hand at growing things. I have been failing miserably. If I was to follow that old addage where you need to keep a houseplant for a year before you can consider keeping a person for a year, I can marry just the good, strong bits of Katie. The rest will suffer for lack of attention.
Here is the lighting as I have had it. I have been using those cheap, $10 strip growlights from Walmart. I am having a terrible time with them, the bulbs only seem to last 2-3 months. They just keep burning out. I have ran 4-5 bulbs through this planter now since I set it up. It’s in a north window, so I am just augmenting the light, not really planning on providing all the needed light.
I am not sure if that is working. the plants don’t seem to be growing all that fast.
So, this weekend, I bit the bullet, and bought me a decent light fixture. Two 17 watt T8 bulbs in a 2 foot fixture. It’s $20 for the fixture, and $7 something x 2 for the bullbs. Not cheap, but I am looking at it for the long term investment. It’s designed to be hard-wired as a under-counter light or something.
Yeah, I want it on an extension cord. It says right on the inside of the light to wire the fixture OUTSIDE of the fixture. UH HUH, sorry, can’t do that. I gotta wire it up inside the fixture if I am to put a cord on it.
Hanging it was a bit of a challenge. The other lights are just zip-tied to the shelf. This light is too big and heavy. I dug around and found these nuts that I had picked up for my PakYak. They have a little hook on them to dig into wood. Well, this hook fits over the metal shelf quite well. Add a few washers underneith, and I can snug the light up almost tight to the shelf without having anything prodruding far into the shelf above.
I am thinking of putting a plexi cover over the fixture to keep any leaking water from watering the plants out of the top of the light fixture. So when I add that element, I will need to re-think the hanging of the light fixture.
Here is the finished light. The new light is the 2nd one down. You can see how much brighter the two 17 watt T8 bulbs are in relation to the single 20 watt T12 bulb. I am hoping that the bulbs last longer too. Part of the reason I am posting this, so I can look back at when I installed the lights.
I have noticed that my Stevia plant has grown more in the last couple of days since I added the light then it has in the month or so prior. I guess they just needed a bit more light, even it is a soft white light and not a growlight.
Also a reason you plants probably aren’t growing is, you’ve had them long enough that they need some fertilizer every month or two to grow and flower. and not to let them dry out to much. Yeah yeah I know, that would require that you water them at least several times a week in the winter cause the heat dry’s them out.