For max growth the tubes should be within inches of the tops of the plants,
I'm not too worried about it since I don't need to mass produce herbs. I'm
going to fix the lights and have an adjustable shelf to raise the plants to
the light, this is easier than dealing with the cords from the lights as you
raise and lower them.

"John Savage" wrote in message
om...
"Phil Williamson" writes:
Now we're talking! I was planning on taking a shelf from the bookcase
and
putting some 30 watt tubes in there. Problem with those things are is
that
the max intensity of the tubes drops off after a few inches away. Sounds
like the CF's are doing the trick nicely for you. Maybe I could some how
rig my shelf so has a few CF bulbs at different heights for each of the
herbs.

If you are going to use ordinary tubular fluro lights, they need to be
adjustable in height so that they can be maintained almost touching the
foliage of the plants. I learnt this from discussions on other newsgroups
and have not tried it myself. I expect similar thing would apply to CFs.

Or you can place the plants on a stand of adjustable height, whichever is
easier to built.
--
John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)