Gardening
Gerald Filipski
Growing Under the Lights
One of the problems of living
where we do is that the winters
can be dark due to the length of
daylight. Growing some types
of plants indoors then becomes
a challenge. Even if you have
a sunny window, placing the
plants too close to the cold glass
is an issue and, let’s be honest,
sometimes there is just not
enough light to grow some plants
even in the sunniest of windows
during an Alberta winter. There
are solutions that can help in
getting those plants to perform in
dark conditions.
Several products on the market
use the principles of hydroponics,
downsizing the system to
make it household friendly and
bringing it into the modern,
high-tech world. These systems
do not use soil. Unlike traditional
hydroponics, where you had to
measure the pH, conductivity,
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and other factors, many of the
systems on the market do it all
for you. You do not use soil,
instead simply insert ‘grow pods,’
fi ll the reservoir with water,
add a couple of tablets, plug it
in, and turn it on. All it needs
for maintenance is a couple of
nutrient tablets every two weeks,
and adding water to the reservoir
when it gets low. These systems
are ‘hydroponics for dummies.’
Many come with their own grow
lights and a microprocessor
for adjusting nutrient delivery,
light cycles, and water fl ows,
depending on the plants. All of
these features come in a device
with the footprint of a breadbox.
These hydroponic systems
make gardening year-round
simple and easy and can make
any brown thumb into a green
thumb gardener. The appeal of
these systems is that you can
grow herbs,
tomatoes,
and other
veggies
right
in the
kitchen.
You can
harvest herbs and salad greens in
as little as twenty-eight days, and
you can harvest continuously.
You can grow beautiful fl owering
plants in even the darkest room,
and you never have to worry
about when to feed and how
much or when to water.
If you don’t want to invest in
one of these hydroponic systems
but still want to grow plants
indoors, you can grow them
under artifi cial lighting. I can
hear the grumbling out there
already. No, you don’t have to
have an ugly four-foot fl uorescent
fi xture hanging on chains in your
living room. Many grow lights
now come built into decorative
plant stands that can complement
any décor. In the past, we would
have talked about fl uorescent
lighting as the way to go, but
LED lighting is taking over the
market. LED bulbs run cooler,
last for a very long time, and off er
a full spectrum of lighting that
is the best for growing plants
indoors. Yes, they may cost a
bit more than the other choices
but their long life, low cost to
operate, and the quality of light
they provide more than make up