On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 20:47:28 +0000, Chris ] wrote:

What about growing things indoors?
I'm primarily interested in veg.
It's no good sowing seeds outdoors now.
But if I left fluorescent lights on, what are the possibilities?
It might be extravagant and wasteful of energy.
But leaving that aside for a moment, what could be done?
Consider an indoor room, with central heating on during the day,
and fluorescent lights on - either permanently - or just during the day.
Does any of this make sense - or is it a stupid idea?

No, it's not a stupid idea but it depends on what you want to grow
and whether it is worth the expense. The latter mostly arises from
electricity to power the light.

Fluorescent light doesn't consume so much but would really only
illuminate a small area of canopy and that rather weakly - but
certainly enough to bring on seedlings etc.

It sounds as though you want to produce a crop of veg however and I
think that would probably require a couple of 400W halide lamps
powered up for a goodly number of hours every day and these consume
rather a lot of electricity.

I would only really consider it for fresh herbs which, in these dark
winter months you would otherwise have to buy in the supermarket eg.
basil and such like. But even then I suspect that it would probably be
cheaper to get them from the supermarket unless you particularly
enjoyed a herb or variety which is unobtainable thence.

People up and down the country are at the present maintaining indoor
"grow rooms" - but what they are growing is unmentionable in polite
and sensible company.

Growing hydroponically would be the best way forward as you can give
the plant optimum conditions with hardly any effort on it's part (It
hardly has to do any work at all). The pace of growth and maturing is
therefore exceptional.

*Assisted* light and warmth in a well lit conservatory is a more
feasible proposition. Methinks.

Respect

Hussein