I used a similar set up my first year. Last year, I dedicated myself to a âgrow closetâ with a serious $500 budget. Hey, Iâm cheap, alright.
What I did was to space off an area about 6â x 5â and frame it in with insulation and drywall. I put pre-fab plastic shelves that I bought at Samâs Club on the two side wall and the back wall, giving me 12 48â growing shelves for $90. I adjusted the shelves so that each shelf was a little bigger than the one above it. 12â, 18â, 24â and the top shelf â for a total of 7â tall. That way, I could move flats to a taller shelf as the seedling got bigger, rather than messing around with adjusting the height of the lights.
One thing I discovered using a single light set up is that plants donât get enough light. They get leggy no matter what. So I did two things.
First, I learned a trick from a guy I used to know who grew some special plants in an aquarium in his apartment. I lined the walls with aluminum foil, shiny side out. Then, I glued more aluminum foil to sheets of carboard I cut off of boxes, and duct taped these to the sides of shelves. This maximized the reflected lights reaching the plants.
Second, I used multiple shop lights. I found that on the 18â and higher shelves, I could wedge in 2 sets of shop lights underneath each shelf â 4 fluorescent bulbs total. I already had six sets of shop lights, and I bought 12 more sets at $7.95 each at Menards. Bulbs cost me almost another $50. So, between the framing, the shelves, and the lights, I only spent about $400. And, this lets me have 48 flats of plants growing at any one time. Iâm doing a better job of scheduling my garden this year, so Iâm not going to end up with as much of a problem of having huge tomatoes hogging up all the shelves while it is still too cold to put them out.
And there are two tricks to really doing awesome on starting your own plants. One is to provide heat. Keep the temperature at least 75 during the day, and 65 at night. Warmer is better, and soil heat is mcuh better than using a space heater, especially on your seedling humidity domes.
The second is humidity. Before I had the grow closet, I used the top shelves in an old cabinet. For humidity, I put a 1 gallon bucket full of water in there, with an old dishrag to wick the water out of the bucket and into a nearby flat. I literally had a quart of evaporation every day in our very dry Iowa winter air. Now, I use a Goodwill purchased humidifier ($2) in the closet. Keeping your humidity over 60% will help seedlings get started, as well as discourage damping off surprisingly. Because the seedlings look more healthy, you will be less apt to over water and cause damping off.