dgk said:

I have several types of heirloom tomato seeds

Hope you started these a few weeks ago.

as well as some peas,

You can direct-sow peas.

onions,

From seed???

spinach,

You can direct-sow these, also.

etc. I haven't done too well with store bought plants
in the past, I think because the soil is pretty clayish. There's a lot
of sun but not completely sunny because of overhanging trees.

For most veggies, you'll need full sun (at least 6 hours per day).


I used a tray (around 3' by 1') from a local store that uses some kind
of peat moss disks with an indentation to insert a seed. A total of 55
seeds went in. It's moist and now I wait for the seeds to germinate.

The first question is what kind of lighting to get. From what I read,
full spectrum fluorescent tubes are probably the best, I guess a four
foot fixture? T12 or one of the newer formats?

Flourescent lighting is probably the worst. But, it's probably the cheapest. If
that's what you use, make sure to keep the lights close, and I mean close, to
the plants. Raising the lights as they grow.


I'll need some way to control the height of the fixture but I can rig
up something. There are some prefab systems at the local store but
they start around $150 which seems way too much for something so
basic.

There's also reflector types of bulbs like this:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

but I can't see those providing the coverage that the fluorescent can.

No experience with those, sorry. Tho, I'm sure the results would probably be
about the same as a flourescent light.


Finally, I'm planning on using some former lawn areas for more growing
range, and I think I'll need to hit the whole area with a lot of peat
moss.

Why do you think that?

I will probably also try to use the weed block stuff (black
material).

Any comments welcome.

What was your geographical location again?

Remember, peas and spinach are cool-season veggies. As soon as it gets warm,
they're done (tho New Zealand spinach will thrive in the summer - it's also not
really spinach).

--

Eggs

Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.