Hydroponics Garden Blog

One of the benefits of growing indoors is having the ability to control the amount of lighting that your plants receive using hydroponic grow lights. Unfortunately, the lighting and it’s schedule is often one of the things that most newbie hydroponic growers don’t pay much attention to.

Here are a couple of tips that will hopefully get you on the right track.

Create Seasons With Your Lighting

After you plant your seedlings, you should give them the same amount of lighting that they would normally get naturally from the sun at the beginning of the grow season. Since the days are much shorter during the beginning of the grow season, you should keep your hydroponic grow lights turned on for about 12 hours per day. This will allow your plants to receive 12 hours of darkness too.

How Long Should The Lights Stay On The Plants During The Peak Season?

Think about it like this: During the peak outdoor grow season, there are about 15-16 hours of natural daylight. If you want your plants to grow at their peak ability, you should mimic these lighting conditions. Give your plants 15-16 hours of daylight and 7-8 hours of darkness.

How To Automatically Turn The Lights Off And On

You can buy a timer to schedule your lights so that they automatically turn off and on. This makes using the right amount of light as simple setting a timer! No more excuses!

How Far Should The Lights Be Away From The Plants

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of people make is not keeping the right distance between the light and the plant. If it’s too close, you will burn the plant. If it’s too far, it won’t be getting the full spectrum of light.

A good way to test weather or not the plant is too close is to put your hand directly above the top of the plant. If it’s too hot for your hand to site under all day, how do you think your plant will feel?

If it’s too far away, you should be able to tell just by looking. If the whole pot is not being hit with the light, it needs to be moved closer to the plant. You could also buy a light fixture that has a reflector that will spread the light out more evenly.

What Kind Of Hydroponic Grow Lights Produce The Most Beautiful Plants?

This is strictly my opinion, but I feel that HPS (High Pressure Sodium) lights are by far the best grow lights available. They may more expensive, but if you are serious about starting your own productive hydroponic garden, this is an investment worth making.

I hope you have taken something out of this post today. Hydroponic grow lights play a huge role in the success of your plants. Learning how to give them right amount of light at the right amount of times will prove crucial to growing beautiful plants worth bragging about and showing off!

Through my years of maintaining multiple hydroponic gardens, I’ve seen many benefits of growing hydroponically, but I never would have thought that a hydroponics garden could be used to insulate a house or building!

Alyssa Danigelis, from Sustainable, a Discovery Channel blog focused on a clean and green world, published an article called “Hydroponics Comes Out of the Closet” that talks about how architects are working on plans to build the entire external wall of a building out of a massive hydroponics system.

Here is what she says about using the wall of hydroponics as insulation for a building:

“Not only does the system look nifty, but the plants would act as a unique insulation barrier, absorbing light and heat to keep the building cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Linsley says international engineering firm Arup was able to show that the system would indeed improve a building’s energy efficiency. Currently the team is constructing a small stand-alone prototype that I hope catches a developer’s eye. Eating strawberries grown on-premises at the end of a long work day? Sign me up!”

Read The Full Article

It’s amazing how human beings have the ability to come up with such wild ideas! Why can’t I be this creative? Oh well… I will just stick to what I’m good at… Growing plants!