Good Deal - Fluorescent Shop Lights, Grow Lighting

Last year I set up a fluorescent shop light as a grow light for starting my garden plants. I got a 2 foot long single T-12 light. This got the plants growing OK but became problematic once I brought the plants outside. The plants were used to the very limited amount of light and got burned real easy in the sun.

So I figured I would get some bigger lights so I can get my plants used to more intense light!

Lowes has a really good deal on two bulb T-12 4' shop lights - $10! That's what I paid for my 2' single bulb T-12 last year.

I picked up two of them. Each bulb is 40 watts, so I will have 160 watts x 4' of lighting (as opposed to my 20w x 2' last year). That should help with getting my plants used to more intense light. I will still have about the same amount of plants.

Last year I used an outdoor timer for Christmas lights as my light timer. This worked OK. However, I found a digital in-wall timer today that I am going to try this year. It should make for a cleaner set up.

The next task is to get a shelf set up that I can mount everything to. I really rigged up my light last year and it worked, but I would rather have a nicer set up than what I did in the past. The timer will be in a box on one of the legs and the lights will be mounted so the plants get hit on both sides.