This is filled with complications though, since the thing gets close to freezing every night, and if I’m not careful, up to 125 degrees every sunny day! Hoping for an early season of fresh tomatoes, I’ve killed 36 of the poor plants so far. It might be fair to call me Kevin the [plant] Ripper!

I’m starting to think that fluorescent was the way to go, since HID lights are fairly hot and must be kept 18-24″ from the plant, while fluorescent lights can almost touch them. Sadly, I spent $200 on the thing, and am too cheap to switch over now :).

I hope you do a post sometime on your greenhouse. I have had no luck with the thing, and would love to learn what I’m doing wrong. No one in town or at work has one besides me, so I don’t have anyone to discuss it with. *Waaaaaaah*

Kevin: Mmm, guru-level knowledge you won’t find here just yet. Check back in a decade or two! For now, it’s just me typing away about whatever I’m up to… IN ANY CASE, I have the same stretching problem with lettuce and brassicas when I start them indoors all the way to transplant time. I figure it’s not enough light intensity. I don’t actually do that much entirely inside, just this super-early stuff, so my experience with artifical light growing is very limited. When you’re trying to grow to maturity indoors, I don’t think it’s DIFFICULT, but it’s definitely a whole other area than working in the field. You probably need a good BOOK! ;)

Most of my seedlings start getting sun by March/April, so half their life in pots is mostly out in sunlight. And later in the season, I start lettuce and brassicas just to germination indoors (it’s too hot in the uncooled greenhouse, especially to start lettuce), but I put ‘em out right after that. I don’t get significant stretching then, so with the all-indoor stuff, it’s probably a lot to do with light levels.

I’ve looked quite a bit at the 400W and 1000W metal halide set-ups (I’m still sticking to fluorescents for now)… One thing I noticed is that there are two recommended coverages. Like, for the 400W, I have a HydroFarm Agrosun booklet that shows 8′x8′ coverage, but discovered that that’s for supplemental light. The 400W coverage is actually only 4′x4′ for a primary light source. How’s yours set up?

diva:, Yep, this batch should be out in the hoophouse around the second week of March!

With lettuce, chard, and cole plants (broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts) the seedlings become extremely leggy, often 3″ tall without any true leaves. Does this happen to you and do you know how to stop it? I can’t imagine that they aren’t getting enough light, but who knows.

It didn’t happen with the tomato, pepper, or spinach seedlings.

I’m hoping you have guru farmer knowledge!