Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Cost to start plants

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cost to start plants
  • Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:21:54 -0500

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 07:33:51 -0500, you wrote:

>
>I was wondering if anyone ever compared the cost to start plants indoors
>with lights verses heat for a greenhouse?
>

I haven't made an actual comparison because we don't heat our hoophouse,
but starting plants indoors with lights (fluorescent lights; not fancy
plant lights) just *must* cost less. Our electric bill doesn't jump
noticeably when I'm using the plant lights. Maybe it costs us $2, probably
less, per month for the use of the lights.

I use ordinary, cheap 40 watt fluorescent light bulbs (cool white, or warm
white, or the all-purpose one whose exact name I forget - whichever I can
find in the hardware store) in ordinary cheap shoplight fixtures. I grow
beautiful, stocky, healthy seedlings under those lights. We keep the
lights on 16 hours per day (using timers). The lights are on chains, so I
can raise them as the plants grow. The lights are kept just a couple of
inches above the plants.

I use six 4' light fixtures. Under those six 4' fixtures, I can get at
most 12 flats full of 6-cell packs (which is what I use), with each flat
having 48 cells, or a total of 576 plants. If I used smaller cells,
obviously I could have more plants at once.

We don't have a cellar in our house; these are in my living room so my
space is limited. Because I'm a home gardener rather than a market farmer
(although a serious home gardener), and because the plants are staggered
(not all at once, with lettuce, for example, being outdoors while tomatoes
are still in the house), that's plenty of plants for me. If you have a
cellar, you're in great shape for growing lots and lots of seedlings.

When I used to live in a house with a cellar, we built several tables of
sawhorses and plywood. I used Perma-Nest trays (which I have now, too)
which last many years and do not leak.

HTH,
Pat

-- Northern Pennsylvania

Good planets are hard to find; let's take care of
the one we have.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page