I have exciting news!
After talking about grow lights and growing tea indoors, I have decided to get one myself. But I did not get it to grow my own tea, as you probably were thinking due to what I’ve written on this site. No, I got my grow light for a little herb garden and probably also for some vegetables. For now I’m only growing herbs. But that will likely change.
The Grow Light I Chose
First let’s get to the actual grow light I bought. You probably remember from one of my other posts where I discussed the different types of grow lights. The main ones are florescent grow lights, HID grow lights and LED grow lights. I was basically choosing among those three.
HID grow lights didn’t make much sense for me. They need a lot of different components and they use a lot of power and they also emit a lot of heat. These are the types of grow lights you’d use for commercial greenhouse operation or if you were growing weed. I’m not growing marijuana and I do not own a greenhouse, so this just didn’t make any sense.
The next option are florescent grow lights. Specifically, I would go with T5 fluorescent grow lights. They make more sense than getting a bunch of compact florescent bulbs. I talked about T5 grow lights previously, so you can go read that article to learn more.
But basically, they are a lot like standard fluorescent lights, but you buy tubes that have a spectrum that is ideal for plants growing. These are great lights for growing herbs, which is why I almost went with one. But, because I might want to grow plants that also flower eventually, I decided not to go with fluorescents. They would work for that, but they are not the best. They’re also not great for bigger gardens and while mine is small now, I might expanded in the future.
That leaves one lighting solution: LED horticultural lights. These lights are the most expensive of the bunch, although it is possible to get them fairly cheap. That said, those cheap ones are not any good.
So you’re going to want to spend some money and I did. Despite what I just said before about getting flowering plants eventually, I actually went with an LED grow light that specializes in vegging. I got the NextLight Veg8.
It basically replaces a T5 fluorescent fixture. It gives you better results while using less power and giving off less heat. And while it costs more, within the year you will make that money back in electricity savings and not having to buy bulbs.
It made a lot of sense for my herb garden so I got it. Like I said, I do plan to grow things like tomatoes eventually, but for now I will stick to herbs and maybe things like cabbage. For those the Veg8 is the perfect light. When I decide to start growing plants that also bloom, I will most likely get the NextLight Mini. It is a flowering specialist and it will sit over my tomato plants and whatever other flowering plants I have and help ensure that they grow me the kind of fruit I want.
There were a lot of lights to choose from and it took me a lot of research and a lot of time to decide on the NextLight light. The reason I did choose it in the end is mainly because it emits an all white light. This looks very much like sunlight.
Many people think that plants don’t really need most of the light that is visible to us, that they only need the red and blue light, which is why LEDs generally have only those two colors. But I figured plants want sunlight. For that reason I should get an LED light that looks like sunlight. The other benefit, of course, is that your plant looks normal under this light. Under the other LED grow lights, the plants look pinkish and it is difficult to tell if anything is wrong with them. I will not have that problem with the NextLight.
I’ve only had it for a few weeks, but so far my herbs are growing really well under it. I love this light and will definitely stick with the NextLight company.
How about you guys? Have you had an experience growing indoors under grow lights? If so, let me know in the comments below what light you found works well.