Indoor tomato growing

[kurt]

Do not forget to monitor your oxygen/carbon dioxide exchanges in the daytime/night time.If you are in a enclosed small area without proper airflow exchanges it will affect growth.The exchanges alter between daylight/night time.

http://tomatosphere.org/teachers/gui...ants-and-light

[Timbales]

Thanks for the advice all. I will keep everyone posted on the success or failure.

[Timbales]

Just some stats on the lights. I have them on a 15 hour light 9 hour dark cycle. They are planted in 4 gallon pots. Hope these are not too small but was trying to keep in as small a space as possible to maximize the light coverage.

[Timbales]

Somebody asked what the lumens were on the 300 watt led I am using are. I finally found the answer. 5800-6000 lumens.

[saltmarsh]

Enjoy the ride Tim. I did the same thing back in 2009.

I have a south facing room with a bay window. I used 3 - 27 gallon homemade grow boxes with 2 Peron Sprayless tomatoes per box. The plants were over 17' long by the end of winter. No supplemental lighting. I pruned each plant to 2 stems.

Based on that experience I'd suggest using an oscillating fan to help with fruit set and buy a bottle of blossom set and a bottle of stop rot (prevents blossom end rot). Both should be available at home depot near the liquid fertilizers. Just follow label directions and the tomatoes should be happy.

It was a good learning experience. Don't expect to feed your family or friends and while you're waiting for yours to ripen, if you have an ALDI's in your area, look for when they start getting slicer tomatoes with a Product of Mexico label (tray pak - 3 large slicer tomatoes - 24 oz. for $.89). It's the closest thing I've found to homegrown. Remove the plastic and let them sit in the tray for a week on your kitchen counter. Claud

[Timbales]

Thanks for the advice. I usually just bury some calcium tablets in the soil to prevent the blossom end rot. Don't really know if that works but have never had it since I started doing that.

[AKmark]

A 400watt HPS will emit 50.000 lumens, a 600 watt 90,000 lumens. When you don't do side by side tests you don't know the otherside. My example and info comes from a competition between hydroponic grow shops using LED and cherry tomatoes, I use HPS for a commercial greenhouse operation, and feel mighty comfy about results. You can grow under a few different light set ups, but the best I have seen is hps.

[OmahaJB]

For several years I grew tomato and pepper plants indoors, with mostly disappointing results. Wasn't willing to put the big bucks into an expensive lighting system, so when I first started I used 4' shoplights above the plants and brooders to hit the plants from the sides. After a couple of years of doing that I took down the shoplights after seedling stage since they were basically in the way, and concentrated on using the brooder lamps with 300-watt PS-type bulbs from Menards.

Some plants produced better than others. I recall Czech's Bush being the tomato variety that produced the best, and Slonovo Uvo (think I got that right, also called Elephant's Ear) was my best pepper producing plant. Czech's Bush had a more acidic than sweet taste to me and I prefer sweet or balanced, but it was nice to have something produce halfway decently for me. Slonovo Uvo was about 2.5" wide and 6-8" long from what I remember. Great for chopping up as a pizza topping. The other thing I remember growing easily was Genovese Basil which was terrific to use on the blackened salmon I used to buy from Sam's Club before the price got outrageous.

I knew the lights I was using were not going to get great results thanks to the relatively low amount of lumens, but I did have a little bit of success using multiple brooder lamps with 300 watt PS-type bulbs. I don't necessarily recommend brooder lamps, simply because I had a couple of problems with mine, even though they were rated to 600 watts, and because the results were not worth the trouble.

For the last two years I haven't grown indoors due to poor results and the mess of getting rid of potted soil and cleaning the containers. Lately though I've been getting the itch again. Have thought about trying to use the bonsai soil I bought two years ago. Can't imagine it'll go well since I'd have to get the nutrients just right pretty much all the time.

By the time my ship comes in and I have the land I want to grow on I'll be too broken down to handle it. Almost to that point already. Oh well, think my ship passed me by years ago anyways.

[pecker88]

just setup the first 4 of 8 self watering buckets. Totem, New Big Dwarf, purple jalapeno and habanero. I have a later set of toms/peppers that will go in next. The buckets are connected with 1/4 black tubing. I then have a 5 gal. reservoir bucket that dumps into a 3 gal "float" bucket (this gear is to the right of the pic). All you have to do is set the float at the desired level and water flows into the buckets as-needed. The only thing I have to check is the water in the 5 gal reservoir bucket; pretty slick.

I wanted the short and longer wavelength spectrum so I got two 400w HID setups. The left has a MH bulb, the right has HPS.

Both units are identical Apollo Horticulture with the cheap wing reflector. In my opinion, very cheap at $100 each; includes bulb, ballast, reflector, rope hangers.

I have an oscillating fan blowing basement air into the room; temp is steady at 77 deg. When I kick the ballast up to 100% power the temp goes to 80. I'm actually happy about the heat these lights give off; should be easy to heat my grow area come Dec/Jan.

[Cole_Robbie]

I think you have the right idea in using two bulbs to balance spectrum. If I added a third light, it would still be HPS, but the halide still has value in balancing the spectrum, especially if those are not the more expensive balanced spectrum bulbs.

For what it's worth, the HPS on the right should be turned around to face toward the center, like the halide is set up, so the open end of the reflector spills light toward the other plants.

[pecker88]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I think you have the right idea in using two bulbs to balance spectrum. If I added a third light, it would still be HPS, but the halide still has value in balancing the spectrum, especially if those are not the more expensive balanced spectrum bulbs.

For what it's worth, the HPS on the right should be turned around to face toward the center, like the halide is set up, so the open end of the reflector spills light toward the other plants.

The pic is a few days old; I couldn't believe the growth of the hydroponic lettuce in the tote under the HPS light. It's literally grown 4-5" in a few days since I turned on the HPS.

I was wondering about which direction to put the bulb; I'll turn it around. Thanks.

[Timbales]

plants are about 6weeks old

[Timbales]

These are 2 Tasmanian chocolates for those of hat have not read the whole thread. Specs on the lights are earlier in the thread. One 300 watt and 4 12 watt spotlights. All led. They are blooming profusely. So far, no fruit set.

[Spartanburg123]

This is a great thread! I was thinking about bringing in one late-planted plant and keeping it going thru the winter. Time to start checking out grow lights on Amazon!

[Jonnyhat]

check craigslist for the lights... just make sure to meet in a public place when buying them and you will get them for a steal compared to even Amazon.