Alright, late post but trying this again

So last semesters adventures were conducted at school and in the spare room at my apartment.  This term those conditions juat don't work. So I have sold the box light and the LED setup after having conducted my little experiment. So now I'm going to try to do this in the storage room off my apartments balcony. It's semi-outdoors, as in the room has no heat but seems to be inuslated, since the temp doesn't seem to fluxuate as quick as the outdoors does.

So I built a table to hold the plants,

Table is a fairly simple design, I had some MDF in the closet I needed to use anyway so this made sense.  Table is assembled with no glue or fastners for those of us that are nerds like that.

Approx size is 42" x 24" x 30"

Quick update: I think the fluorescent tube setup has won. I've had to raise it 3 times.

Just another post for comparison

no measurements or anything but for visual comparison compared to yesterday's post

Not looking good for the high tech

Sherwood Forest it musht be!

(the spelling was intentional) So we are over a month into this little project and although the plants at school are 22 days behind the planting of the first setup, the long tube florescents are winning by a long shot. The LED setup is working, but certainly not a super grower.

8" tomatoes? no way....

So here we are several weeks I believe into this indoor growing session and it's time for an update. I am now operating, if you want to stretch to call it that, 3 different setups. The setup here is at home, using 2 standard CFL's like you get at any hardware store, except the package claims 6500Kelvin; well into the range of sunlight. At the University I have an LED setup over a small container with tomatoes and cucumber, then above the shelf that's under I have a shelf built with a window box containing a variety of seeds lit by a standard 2x T12 shop lamp using daylight bulbs.

After transplanting part of the crop into a larger window box I found the plants I moved to be doing well. I was surprised to find the roots of the tomatoes and the peppers to have taken over most of the pots they were in. The tomatoes as you can see have flourished and grown considerably since they started as seeds one at almost 8" and the rest between 6-7".


The cilantro on the other hand I have not transplanted but I did thin it out some to give the rest more room to grow. Although I fear the cilantro may not be doing so well. One plant has given up completely and many of the others have yellowed quite a bit. From what I read online it could several things. Not enough light, soil too cold for nutrient pickup, soil lacking enough nitrogen, or santa clause isn't someing to town. I don't think that lack of moisture is an issue, I water the plants nearly daily and the cilantro about every other or every couple days, as per previous information of the plant not liking the water a little here and a little there. Guess time will tell, I would assume since I used potting soil that tends to be high in nitrogen maybe it has to do with temperature. (apt stays around 68-70)The Basil is having somewhat of the same issue. The plants are strong and sturdy, smell good and have sprouted their second leaves but I notice a strong yellowing tenge in these as well.

At least the peppers seem to be doing ok. I have thinned most the plantings to encourage growth and prevent over crowding. The peppers may be a little close but I'm hoping this will encourage root growth toward the front and back of the box.

I'm thinking it is about time to start some kind of matrix to track productivity, and hopefully next week I can get the light meter to measure these lights.

Update on growth at the school

My plants at school are taking off like wildfire. I'm starting to think the fluorescent fixture here putting out a greater quantity of light is making a difference. At first appearance the LED plants are lagging some behind the others above, this may prove the LED's to be ineffective, but...time will tell

We have sprouts!

So as expected these buggers are growing. Setup here at school has cucumbers and lettuce gettin after it already. It's been 3 days since I planted these and the cucumbers are broad leafed and a little over an inch tall. Although the cucumbers under the LED's have sprouted they are slower than the fluorescent setup. I think I may have planted it a day later but even then it's a little behind.



No pictures yet but the tomatoes at home are about 6" tall and thriving. Basil is starting it's second set of leaves. Cilantro looks sickly, but from what I read that seems common. I'll get them transplanted this week.