Oh am I ever ready for spring. Beautiful sunshine days are really calling me......BUT.....
the temps are still to low and the ground frozen. Very Big Sigh.
While pouring over my gardening catalogs I found a lighted growing rack, oh that is what I need!
It is still to cold out in the greenhouse during the night so I can't start seed yet, but I could do the rack..........until I looked at the price. Depending on which company, the prices range from just under $600.00 to just over $900.00. Well that is just to expensive.............SO..............
After talking it over with Kirk, we came up with our on version for $260.00, now we can do that and we can feel good about the expense. So here is what we did.
At Costco we found this rack for $100.00..........this is a very good price, anyplace else the price is considerably more.
Then at Home Depot we got 4 lighting fixtures for $18.00 each and
the bulbs for $10.00 each X 8.
Now mind you that ours is not as fancy in such areas as the cords. On the expensive ones all the lights are wired in and you can turn then on one at a time.......but I can turn mine on one at a time also........LOL. Oh one other thing the other one has is 4 bulbs per level, which is probably better because the light is more even all the way across the shelf, but I don't think that is worth that much money to me.
On the fancy ones you can adjust the light height with the twist of a couple knobs, I adjust mine with chains and S hooks. I can do these things to save 400 to 700 dollars. My rack is very heavy duty, it is meant to hold lots of weight out in a shop, yet, it is very nice looking. The other ones are made of light weight aluminum. Both mine and the expensive ones come with casters so they can be rolled from place to place.
The ones in the catalog also came with grow trays, but really, I already had mine and they certainly are not that expensive.
Below, my seeds are up after 4 days. So we are on the way to having lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, lemon balm, and some flowers. I did notice the tansy (planted last year) coming up in the greenhouse, but it is still to cold for seeds, it won't be much longer until we stop freezing out there, but in the mean time...........I have a head start.
2 comments:
They are already sprouting! The rack looks great! You guys are just like us....my husband helped his mom make something similar for her voilets. Not as big but home made. You saved a ton and it's well worth it! We're looking forward to meeting you too!
Nice job on the rack! It looks great!
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