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Do you recommend using a grow light?

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Posts

  • Fire said:
    Hmmm this seems like a divisive topic. Hard to know what to do. Many articles online and gardening YouTubers say I would need one. 

    For what?
    For germination and to prevent leggy seedlings.
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    Try an almost free experiment. Make a 3 sided reflective screen from card and tinfoil to place behind your seedlings. This will make the most of available daylight and help stop seedlings stretching towards the light.
  • YviestevieYviestevie Posts: 7,066
    I've used grow lights for a few years now.  I have limited space so it allows me to start sowing earlier in the year and I can utilise the dining room table as well as the conservatory window ledges.  I think they work really well.
    Hi from Kingswinford in the West Midlands
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    steephill said:
    Try an almost free experiment. Make a 3 sided reflective screen from card and tinfoil to place behind your seedlings. This will make the most of available daylight and help stop seedlings stretching towards the light.
    I have a reflector like that for my seedlings, and it does help, but my only suitable windowsill is east-facing so plenty of sun from dawn until lunchtime, unless it's cloudy so this year I am supplementing with a growlight in the afternoon/evening when the sun has moved off. It's not very powerful but it does seem to be helping. Since I got it my baby tomatoes aren't turning towards the window.

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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