The benefits of growing indoors under low-power LED lights.

ü  All the advantages of the backyard veggie patch plus

ü  No pests, meaning, no checking each leaf for a crawling life form.

ü  No need to wash your salad greens (huge time saver) just cut and put straight on your plate.

ü  If you are busy and come home in the dark, no need to go outside with a torch.

ü  Its fun and easy, a great way to introduce children to the joys of gardening, even if you live in a high-rise apartment.

ü  It makes an attractive feature for your lounge room, lights only need to be on for 6 to 10 hours a day (I use 9hrs 8am-5pm).

ü  Plants grow faster, no weeds, for the IVG (Large & Small) each shelf receives warmth from the lights on the shelf below, greatly accelerating growth rates.

ü  Except for growing under lights, instead of the Sun, it is totally organic, if you have a sunny window filling a room with reflected light, then your plants will be receiving the best of both worlds.

What sort of things can I grow?

Well you can grow just about anything, but this is what we recommend and think will be the most popular use for our Indoor Vegetable Garden systems (available mid-August 2010).

1.    The most economic and abundant crops are the Micro-greens (1c,1g,5,8), taking 1-2 weeks e.g. Broccoli, Cress, Radish, Field pea (what you buy at the supermarket called Snow pea sprouts), Wheatgrass and my favourite Mustard, and the true Snow pea (1b,6),  which takes 2-3 weeks.

2.    The next group is your Herbs which you only pick a few leaves from and the plant grows for a long period of time, I have 3 small Mint plants growing, normal traditional mint, Spearmint and Vietnamese mint, these can all be grown from a cutting so just get one from a friend or purchase a seedling, of course you can grow from seeds as well. These plants are good as you can trim them and train them to grow within a restricted area and they will just keep going. Then there are other larger plants such as Sweet Basil, small leaf Spinach, which you just pick the leaves from, and of course cherry Tomatoes, these can be grown in the base stand of IVG-Large (10 right bottom & 11, a 48W Red,Blue,White Grow light is being used),  here you would train them around the edges, there are holes in the stand for a string support system, or you can grow them vertically in the IVG-Mini (12).

3.    The next group is your salad greens that grow quite short and start to have pickable leaves in about 1 month e.g. various forms of lettuce (miniature Coss, Rocket), curly Parsley, Strawberries.

Now we will talk about the different growing Containers, then the growing Systems that we offer and the different types of LED lights that go with them, then the growing Medium & Fertilisers we use.

Growing Containers.

Pic.1, we use a combination of Self/Watering(S/W) pots and boxes and circular and rectangular trays that perform a dual function, one is as an alternate reservoir for the S/W pots, and the other is to grow Micro-green sprouts in e.g. Broccoli, Radish, Cress, Field pea, Wheatgrass, Mustard etc please see our sprouting kits section for more information on this. Wheat-Grass-and-Sprout-Kits

To grow larger plants we use either the round S/W pots which have a detachable reservoir, here (1e), the reservoir has been placed separately to the growing container, this allows them to be placed inside the tray which becomes the common reservoir eg blue pot, this is where you now add water, this makes watering exceptionally easy, as you can see at a glance when to add water, and you have a big target, so no chance of spillage. There are 3 pot types to choose from & 3 colours, 3 will fit in the 475mm tray (you can get 4 of the 130mmD pots in the 575mm tray). You also have the option of choosing a larger round tray (1f), if you would like to place it on the floor inside the base stand, providing a similar function to the rectangular trays, but more individual for each pot (1d,9,11,12).

The other option is to use a s/w planter box which is 60cm long, for indoor use this is best used in conjunction with the 575 mm tray which provides an extra level of safety in case you accidentally overfill the internal reservoir.

Note: the 165mm s/w pot is a shallow version of the 170 mm diameter pot and is specially designed to grow sprouts that require a little bit more room, Ideal for the Snow pea sprouts and Wheatgrass (1b,6,9).

LED grow lights

These lighting systems are designed to be economical (7/12/25W globes use approx 0.1/0.18/0.34/cents/hr a 10hr/day 1/1.8/3.4/cents/day of electricity), & give the urban dweller the ability to grow all their own salad needs.

To grow a small salad green plant e.g. Rocket lettuce, a small Basil plant e.g. Lemon Basil (4) you will require approximately 7W of LED energy.

Basically, plants need more energy from the blue end of the spectrum to produce vegetation i.e. leaf growth, and they need more energy from the red end of the spectrum when they are producing flowers and fruit. We have found that a mixture of white LED lights, which has most of its energy in the blue end of the spectrum is a good compromise for growing salad greens, i.e. you get good results and the plants look attractive, you can see from (3) where a blue light is being used to grow a pot of Snow peas but the look of the plant is distorted.

If you would like to grow something to flower and fruit you have 2 alternatives, the 1st alternative is to use the strip lights which are the main lighting source for our new series of Indoor Vegetable Garden plant stands, these are low powered lights and the design is to keep the light as close as possible to the plant at all times, you have the choice of either white lights or red lights, so you could start out for example with 1 red and 2 white lights while the plant is small, as it is getting ready to flower and fruit you would change that to 1 white light and 2 reds, then as the plant increases in size just keep adding more red lights. The other alternative is to choose one of our grow lights, (11 48w) 12w to 288w which have a mix of predominantly red as well as a mix of blue and white lights, designed to give optimal performance for the plant especially in the fruiting stage.

The 25W, 48W and 96W lights can be used with the Indoor Vegetable Garden - Large (IVG-L) (8-11) with the 48W being optimal.

(2,3,4) shows the use of our adjustable Clamp lamp stands where a 7W 240V Edison screw standard fitting LED light is being used. (2) shows where it is being used to grow seedlings in biodegradable seedling pots see our seedling kit Seedling-Kit

The 7W globes can be purchased as a combination of white, 6 red and 1 blue. The best one for growing salad greens is a combination white, as it provides most of its energy in the blue end of the spectrum which is most important for vegative growth. You can also use one of our 12W LED lights which has a combination of red, blue and white to grow small plants to flower and fruit.

See Light-Stand-with-Chrome-Clamp-Lamp

(5,6,7) shows one of our new plant stands, we refer to this growing system as the Indoor Vegetable Garden - Small (IVG-S), it is shown here equipped in various configurations using 7.5W strip lights. Using a combination of different wavelengths of white light, so using the rule of thumb suggested above, to grow 3 pots of Snow pea sprouts, when it is at full growth, you will need 3 of these lights for 3 pots. (5) shows the system being used to grow Micro-green sprouts in shallow rectangle trays (475/575mmL), you can use 1 light for the 1st weeks growth, 2 lights for the 2nd week's growth, and then 3 lights in the 3rd and final week's growth, a very energy efficient process <30W. (6) shows the system being used to grow Snow pea sprouts in shallow S/W pots (165mmD), (7) shows the system being used to grow Spearmint in a S/W pots (170mmD), here some of the strip lights are being used to hang from the top shelf, so that they face back in towards the plant.

Note: it will also be possible to add red LED lights to this system for growing small plants to flower and fruit such as Cherry Tomato Strawberries eg White above & Red in front.

See Indoor-Vegetable-Garden-Small-for-Aust-Sales (Aust Sales) or

Indoor-Vegetable-Garden-Small (Int Sales)

(8,9,10,11) shows one of our new plant stands, we refer to this growing system as the Indoor Vegetable Garden - Large (IVG-L), it comes as 3 stages or stands which simply fit together one on top of the other as you require. Again using a combination of different wavelengths of white light (red LED lights also available). (8) shows the system being used to grow 8 small Rocket lettuce in 130mmD S/W pots using 575mmL rectangular trays as a common reservoir, the shelves above are being used to grow 16 trays of Micro-green sprouts at various stages of growth in shallow rectangle trays(475/575mmL) placed outside the stand to illustrate the concept. (9) shows the system being used to grow 2 Basil plants in the base stand using the 170mmD S/W pots each sitting in a 200mmD round tray, above this we see a mixture of Snow peas, Micro-green sprouts and Rocket lettuce, just to illustrate the flexibility of this growing system. (10) shows the Mid & Top stands of 2 IVG-L systems side by side, on the left you see a combination of small plants Mint, Lettuce mixed with trays of Micro-greens.

On the right you see a 48W grow light shining on 2 cherry tomato plants below (for close up see 11). Above that are 3x 130mmD pots growing strawberries 1xWh, 4xRed, above that a tray of Broccoli Micro-green sprouts and above that trays of Micro-greens germinating, taking advantage of the warmth from the lights below. In (11), it is a bit hard to see, but we are also using a couple of Red strip lights at the front to provide a little bit of extra energy to the lower foliage levels.

Coming soon

(12) shows one of our new plant stands, we refer to this growing system as the Indoor Vegetable Garden - Mini (IVG-L), can be used to grow up to 4 shelves of Micro-greens or a single large herb to 1.2m tall eg Basil or cherry Tomato Coming soon

(13) you see the new high intensity LED grow lights, these come in a mixture of red, blue and white lights, currently there is a 7w lamp, 1 of these lamps has 7x1w LEDs in either 1B6R or a mix White with different colour temperatures. A 12w lamp  9R2B1W. Attaching these LED lights to a flexible clamp lamp gives you unparalleled flexibility in being able to position the lights on to your plants. You can purchase the globes individually and build your own system, or you can purchase it with a vertical stand (2,3,4) See Light-Stand-with-Chrome-Clamp-Lamp

One of the common features of all these lights seen in (13) is that they all use lenses most of which can be easily interchanged, and/or specified at the time of purchase, this gives you greater flexibility in tailoring your growing situation especially if you do not have a lot of room to work in.

The 25W up to 288W can be purchased from either our Australian warehouse Salad Greens Under Lights or if they are not in stock here you can purchase them from the International sales Tab, for international customers please go to this product group. International Sales

For More Info. Click On-> LED-Grow-Lights-7W-12W-25W-48W-96W-144W-288W

IMPORTANT:- these LED lights have electronic circuitry and like other electronic equipment they are subject to failure if they experience surges or spikes of electricity. We strongly recommend that you use a surge/spike protector device, these can be purchased from electrical stores, Harvey Norman etc for about $20.

For More Info. Click On-> Growing Under LED Lights.pdf

Growing Medium.

We use 2 types of growing medium both organic and clean and lightweight for shipment. For sprouting we use a fine grade washed Coconut Fibre which we blend with Azomite and Dolomite. This mix can also be used to grow short-term salad greens like lettuce parsley etc, but if you are growing larger, we use an organic potting mix made primarily of peat and sphagnum moss which gives great water retention and aeration properties. Again it does not have any animal waste by-products added to it.

See Organic-Fertiliser-and-Growing-Medium

Fertiliser.

We use an organic fertiliser that is made from composted and fermented vegetable material i.e. no animal products are used in this product, this means that it does not have that strong smell of other types of fertiliser that use animal waste, this is particularly valuable when you are considering growing indoors near your living area.

The other advantage is that it comes in two types. one type is for the vegative stage of growth which is all you need for growing salad greens, however if you wish to grow plants to flower and fruit e.g. tomatoes then you switch to a different fertiliser formula which is designed to support this stage of growth.

The other magic ingredient is liquid seaweed fertiliser mixed with humic acid.

See Organic-Fertiliser-and-Growing-Medium