How to Grow Food Indoors

We decided to experiment a bit with growing food indoors.

Our setup:

• Four 27-Watt CFLs, each of which produce 1660 lumens of light output at a spectrum of 6500K (cool white light encourages plants to grow thick and stocky, as opposed to tall and spindly).
• We screwed the bulbs into a bathroom fixture; cut the end off an extension cord and wired it up
• We attached some metal flashing (from the hardware store) to the fixture to reflect the light downwards
• An automatic timer turns the lights on for 12 hours each day

The equipment cost around $60 in total, and took a couple of hours to set it up. The electicity costs us $2.25/month.

When the tomatoes start to produce, we'll move them under some "warm" bulbs with light spectrum of around 2700K (this encourages flowering and fruit production).

Here are some photos of our indoor garden:

• Day 4 - Just a bit of green starting to show:
  

• Day 4 - Arugula poking up:
  

• Day 4 - 4 x 27W Compact Fluorescent Bulbs; 6500K light spectrum; total of 6640 lumens:
  

• Day 4- View from the top. We used a cheap bathroom light fixture, and attached some metal flashing to direct the light downwards:
  

• Day 16 - Arugula, spinach and mixed lettuce:
  

• Day 25 - Spinach and lettuce in foreground; cilantro and basil in background:
  

• Day 36 - We transplanted to make more space for the crowded lettuce; tomatoes in left foreground were planted around day 15:
  

• Day 51 - Lettuce doing well:
  

• Day 51 - We ate the spinach (which didn't do well, as it likes it a bit cooler) to make room for the lettuce:
  

-- JasonHildebrand - 30 Mar 2007