How To Select A Grow Light For Indoor Vegetable Gardening

When starting with indoor vegetable gardening, one of the most influencing factors is light. For hydroponic growing, establishing a good nutrient solution, growing medium and maintaining the exact temperature and humidity is a must but lighting is the most crucial part of all indoor gardening either organic or hydroponic gardening. In indoor hydroponic gardening, the plants are provided with artificial growing conditions which include indoor plant grow light.  When lighting used correctly, promote the proper growth of plant at every stage. Here are key points to consider before choosing a grow light for your indoor vegetable garden.

Color of Light: Bright sunshine includes the full range of light wavelengths from green to violet and blue and red to yellow. Plants require all these wavelengths for photosynthesis process, but blue and red are the most important light for the process. The blue spectrum light encourages vegetative growth that builds into foliage. The red lights promote fruits and flowers development.

Duration of Light: No matter how much light do they need to grow, plants also need a rest from time to time, to complete their functions. Plants partialities for dark to light are commonly divided into long-day, short-day and day-neutral. Long-day plants require maximum 18 hours of light every day. Indoor vegetables and other plants are long day, and get stretched when they are deprived of maximum light.  Few examples of long-day plants are beetroot, artichoke, lettuce, radish etc. Short-day plants need not more than 12 hours of light in one single day. Most plants may even stretch to shorter days to get buds and flower. Indoor plants like cucumber, okra, beans, sweet potato etc. are short-day grow. Day-neutral vegetables like cauliflower, corn, kale, sprouts etc. are happy with 8 to 12 hours of light all through the year.

Intensity of Light: All indoor plants need light to bloom, but few plants have high or low intensity towards the lights. Some houseplants are shade-loving while other need light as much as desert cactuses. Flower gardening generally need intense light to produce flowers and fruits.

Kinds of Grow lights: There are many different kinds of lights available in the market that will support your plants. Few of them are LED; fluorescent, HID and incandescent grow bulbs that give multiple light ranges. Fluorescent bulb gives much more light than the incandescent lights on same energy. Their color ranges from red to blue, so you can match up different tubes and use it as per your preference. Full-spectrum bulbs are great for seedling stage. You can even opt for LED or HID bulbs which are best grow light for hydroponic indoor gardening. LEDs are very efficient, generates less heat, making it safe for human beings and plants.

In spite of which kind of light system you use for your indoor gardening, rotate your plants to balance the light each plants get. Replace lights as and when required to avoid blacken and maintaining the adequate level of lights. Keep your plants quite far from the light to avoid burning.