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Well today I sucessfully finished my Germination Box. Its very simple, just a large T.V. box with a hole near the bottom for a heater, and a large hole on the side covered with plastic for light. I managed to maintain good temperature but I don't know what I am going to do about light. There is no good spots for my box to be placed in a full sunlight area. So I plan to flood the box with lights. What are the best lights to use? Fluoresent, Incondesent, Flood light, Grow light, or just a simple desk lamp. I have a small desk fluoresent light, if I use that would it help to place tinfoil around the box to make it brighter?

4/4/2005 8:07:22 PM

Montoursville, PA

You need no lights in the box. The instant you have emegence get the plants out of the germination box and under good light.

Basically you are in the box only three to five days. You will have first true leaf in three or four more days. At this point you head for the patch and the cold frame in full natural light.

4/4/2005 11:43:55 PM

Do you need to put the seedlings in temps around 80'F or is that just for germinating the seed?

4/5/2005 4:03:14 PM

Montoursville, PA

No you want to get them into bright light about fifteen or more hours a day and kept just damp while they push up your first true leaf. They get leggy if you keep them in to warm of a location without adequate light. Even in the best light they grow like the dickens. Get into the cold frame with good natural light and added light if you wish as soon as possible. Your added light could be as simple as a shop light to get a few degrees of warmth at night. Lay the light away from the emerging vine and it will reach or grow towards the light.

Often the vine wants to grow up before it comes down to earth. A lot of us use crossed sticks to guide but not force it. I think it is best to let it find it's own lay. Then you can start making a "V" trench and start to bury the vine when it comes down to earth. Bury only a few inches but to bury it is best. Leave the leading two or three leaves and vine on top the ground until it grows out a foot or so and then bury some more vine. Keep using crossed sticks to protect it from wind damage. This will take care of the first three or four weeks. When secondaries begin to show use the same management. Guide them first burry them a day or so later.

4/5/2005 4:50:11 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

If you use any lights other than big monster professional
grow lights, you will want to keep the leaves within about
2 inches of the lights. I use the cooler burning flourescent
tubes just for this purpose.

Light intensity falls off "to the square" of the distance
from the light. So if your light source is twice as far away,
the light reaching the seeding is 1/4 as strong.

4/5/2005 5:25:13 PM

Thanks for the tips and answers guys. Just as I was reading an idea struck me. I am building a fairly large cold frame. I also have a couple of fluorescent lights (the big ones that hang off cielings). There around 4 to 4 1/2 feet long. If I hang them on the top of my cold frames that should generate a lot of heat and should generate enough light for the plants. Hope that works.

4/5/2005 9:36:27 PM

I just thought of something about transplanting seedlings. This is a bit off topic and a little out there, but what if you were to plant seedlings side by side maybe 2 or 3 feet apart and have them grow opposite ways. You know how the seedling begins to fall to the earth, it almost always goes to the first or second true leaf (can't remember which one at the moment I think its the second true leaf). But anyways if you planted them side by side to grow in the opposite direction would this work. Or would the roots fight each other or something else. I thought of this because if I have two plants close to each other and won't get tangled up vines, I won't have to have electric cords everwhere and other things going to my plants, which I would have a hard time with. I don't know if this is a wierd question but eh its worth asking.

4/5/2005 9:48:14 PM

C N Y

okay, my beliefs are as follows:
heat rises, so the only heat your plants will get from the flourescents will be from the absorption of the light because they are a darker color. not much to speak of.
i think you should at least put in a couple of incandescent
(regular, like 40-60 watt) light bulbs NOT near the plants and have a very small fan blowing the moderate heat around.
i'm talking oscillating desk fan here. once the plants are IN the ground, you do not WANT to have light on them during the day AND the night because this will interfere with the plants' growth habit--it will be confused and not grow at a normal pace. a small heater fan on low might be an even better idea, probably on during the night ONLY....
YOU CAN USE the 4' flourescent fixtures for your seedlings when they sprout! get a few screweyes: bolts, basically with
a hole in the non-threaded end. screw them into the rafters above wherever you are gonna set up your lights and seedlings.....they must be screwed-in sideways!!!
space two of them, each one directly above where the end of your light will be, (about 4-5 feet apart) above the area, which is a table or workbench. screw them in, very far. use some strong cord, like 1/4-inch boating cord or similar; attach one piece, about 10 feet long for now, to one end of the light fixture...the same on the other end of it.

4/6/2005 7:15:03 PM

C N Y

use about FOUR knots to secure it!!!thread your cords throught the screweyes. holding the cords taut at about eye-level, with your light fixture on the table, tie two or three knots in the cords, at the same time, together! to keep them together under all circumstances. you have now a "Y".
here's the fun part:
you will have to now determine where to secure the cord
once you pull real hard on it to raise the light fixture
to the desired level for suspending over your seedlings.
all you have to do is get a general idea of where the cord needs to be attached to something in the ceiling to make this possible.
once you do, tie additional knots in the cords at the same
points about six inches apart---make about 6-8 knots, for the height adjustment of the lights...you are making simple knots in two cords at once, as hitch-points to be noosed around a screw you will put into the rafter above the point at which
the knots are tied into the cord(s). it is just like flying a kite, and attaching the string to a fencepost to secure it so you don't have to control it anymore. weird, i know...
but, man, it works! if you do this, please practice raising and lowering, hitching and un-hitching the cord(s), as it CAN be very dangerous to the seedlings unless careful.

4/6/2005 7:15:11 PM

C N Y

okay, in re-reading the first post i made, i recall that
i myself have had lights IN THE so-called cold frames i used, to supply the gentle heat to prevent freezing, but they were NOT there to supply the seedlings with their
light to grow by. eric

4/6/2005 7:39:14 PM