A New Method

Last year, you may remember that I started a lot of seeds in a portable greenhouse that I had gotten.  I was using a grow light but since it could not hang from the top of the greenhouse, I mounted it vertically behind.  That really didn't work as the plants were stretching to find the light and did not grow short, squat, and healthy.

This year I am trying something different.  All of the blogs that I have read about starting seeds say that the light source needs to be right over top.  So I modified the lighting quite a bit.  The greenhouse has four shelves, so I got  eight extension cords and daylight colored 75 watt CFL bulbs and set up each shelf like the picture.  I put some broccoli seeds in little containers that were growing (rather unsuccessfully on the window) and put them in there.  As you may be able to see, the plants look very good.  Like the other set up, the lights are on a timer and get 14 hours of light.  I can see a difference already.

My gardening app told me that this weekend was the time to start celery seeds for a fall planting.  So I put in another bulb (you can see a small portion of it in the lower left hand corner of the picture) and put the celery seeds in seed starter right under it.  It will be interesting to see how they do.  This is kind of a trial run for the seed starting "season" that I anticipate for next year.