Grow tent and grow lights setup - Allotment 2016 day 2
A Grow tent and grow lights go very much hand in hand. Following on from my previous post about growing onions under lights. The lights are really important but you also need the right kind of environment for the lights to be most effective. They are used when the sun is at its weakest through the winter. The sun only shines for 8 hours each day and is also very low in the sky.
What is a grow tent?
The key to a grow tent is to provide an environment where light cannot easily escape from the inside and also to ensure that it is reflected on all sides. That way the plants do not get leggy. This is a state where they have a very thin and spindly stem and not very well developed roots. They might grow tall but they have no substance to them and usually die. Obviously this should be avoided. The reason is that plants need light. As much light as possible is what makes good plants and enough of it on all sides, so that photosynthesis can happen. The more light, the more energy the plant has and therefore the stronger it can grow.
A grow tent is a thick canvas shell that is black on the outside to reduce the light escaping and lined on the inside with Mylar. Mylar is a highly reflective material that is one of those space age fabrics. It keeps heat retained and also bounces light off and around its surfaces. If you have a strong grow light above and the walls floor and ceiling lined with Mylar then you have created the perfect artificial environment for plants to grow. That is what a grow tent does.
My grow tent setup
Grow tents come in lots of shapes and sizes. Some of them are room sized and are used 24/7 to grow plants. There is of course the Grow tent cliche of the naughty gardener who grows naughty plants, and certainly that goes on, but the majority of Grow tents are used to start off early seeds and varieties that need a long growing season. If you start them off in a grow tent in January then they are ready to plant out in March and continue to grow throughout the main growing season to provide bigger and more abundant crops.
My grow tent is 1.5 metres long and about 50 cm high and the same wide. It has 2 CFL bulbs in it that both operate at 150 Watt but give out light that is closer to 450 Watt. That means that the plants are getting 900 watts of light for 12 hours a day. That is enough to make them thrive.
This is my first year growing with a grow tent and grow lights, so here is how I set it up.
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