Are cheap grow lights any good for the homegrower looking to extend their season and starting their tomato seedlings indoors? If you live in a cold climate or if you just want to get an earlier harvest, then starting tomato seeds early is a necessary step. In this video, I investigate if cheap LED grow lights that you can buy on Amazon are powerful enough to stop tomato seedlings from going leggy and to produce healthy plants.

To find out, I’ll run my own experiment and grow six tomato varieties under different light intensities and share my own data on how much light tomato plants need, determine how close you need to place your tomato seedlings to the lights to keep your tomato plants healthy and discover which varieties grow best under artificial lights.

You can read the written version of this video and see the results for yourself at https://www.alexgrowsfood.com/post/ar...

AD To make this video, I used the following equipment and varieties:

LED Grow Lights (Set of 4): https://amzn.to/48TZLxl
(But the newer model might be of interest): https://amzn.to/48XyLgl
My (Modular) Flatpack Shelves: https://amzn.to/3U4MC0d
You might also want some heat mats to help them along: https://amzn.to/3tQCttv

I always use this organic seed compost: https://amzn.to/43Uu5oP
I used this organic coir: https://amzn.to/3S0PSXL
And perlite too: https://amzn.to/3vFnhQk

Sungold: https://amzn.to/47FmwnL
Red Cherry: https://amzn.to/3O6z8x3
Black Cherry: https://amzn.to/4aXK7mr
Tigerella: https://amzn.to/4b4iU1B
⚪ Costoluto: https://amzn.to/47UG3Rn
Roma: https://amzn.to/3S19pr9

Other equipment should also work (with a few caveats) if you follow the recommendations in the video. And as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This doesn't affect the price you pay but helps support the channel. It doesn't sway my content with the exception of my love of the Sungold tomato, I'm just sharing hard data here.

One thing I didn't talk about was the quality of the light spectrum or colour temperature I had to cut it. These LEDs claim to be full spectrum but they produce that from two (or three) LED colours. Recreating perfect daylight spectrum is also difficult (expensive) so there's a good chance this isn't accurate but it doesn't have to be! I also didn't talk about how many seeds I sowed (the Roma tomatoes did doubleup more than other varieties because you get 75 per pack rather than a dozen) which may have had an effect as they got bigger.

We covered a lot of ground in this video. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions at all about my experimental setup or methods or anything else I forgot to mention (or likely cut out).

And apologies for those not using metric. I did a lastminute render to add Fahrenheit but there are 100 centimetres in a metre and like 3 and a bit feet in a metre or something...

There were also a lot of technical issues during filming. More than I've ever experienced it turns out they are like buses. The radio microphones dropped out a lot in the first half of the video, including during the reshoots, so I had to buy new equipment and rerecord the audio and try to lipsync with myself. It sort of worked but there a couple of places where it didn't. Apologies if it looks weird (the second half is grand though).

Otherwise I hope you enjoyed this one and, as always, Happy Gardening!

Follow or contact me via
Instagram:   / alex.grows.food  
Website: https://www.alexgrowsfood.com/

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I get most of my music and sound effects from Epidemic Sound and it has transformed how I approach making videos. If you want to try your hand at this YouTube thing, there's a 7day free trial at: https://share.epidemicsound.com/76meao and I've got a playlist of some of my favourites available at: https://share.epidemicsound.com/76mea...

Credit to the following artists courtesy of Epidemic Sound:

Binkley / 'Lovely Ghost'
Victor Lundberg / 'Down By The Creek'
Vincent Vega / 'Tomorrow'
Par / 'You Are My Little Sun'
Raymond Grouse / 'Toss Me The Tomatoes'
Victor Lundberg / 'Tell Me I Should Have Known'
and
Grieg / 'Morning Mood' / YouTube Audio Library

0:00 Starting Tomato Seeds Early Means You'll Need Grow Lights
0:32 The Equipment and How I'm Going To Test It
1:18 Sowing Tomato Seeds
2:48 Setting Up The Grow Lights & How To Create Different Lighting Conditions
4:42 Getting Tomato Seeds To Germinate Faster
6:15 Timelapse of Tomato Seeds Germinating
6:27 Which Tomato Varieties Performed Best Under Grow Lights?
7:39 Can You Grow Tomato Seedlings Under Grow Lights?

#growyourownfood #growlights #tomatoplants