December 30, 2011 journal

The new six band flower series light has been installed in the second tent, however, both tents are sitting idle awaiting the tomato and pepper seedlings. I estimate it will be at least three or four weeks before the seedlings are large enough to be transplanted into autopots.

Slowly but surely I have been replacing all of the fluorescent lights with LEDs, and the addition of the new six band light allowed me to replace the 125 watt fluorescent light in the grow chamber with the 90 watt red/blue that I had been using in one of the tents.

The only remaining fluorescent light is the six tube Pioneer T5 light in the grow chamber. When it becomes necessary to replace the tubes in that light, I will purchase a large LED rather than replace the tubes. At that point, I will finally be gardening using strictly LED lighting

The above photo shows Fordhook Giant chard that has been growing under the LED for about a week. Even at this stage I can tell that there is an improvement over using the 125 CFL light.