Let There Be Light

Let There be Light

In the last blog you got to hear my complaints about legginess. Today I will share what I discovered. I went to the greatest source of gardening wisdom I have found. That is Mr. Blackely (I hope I spelled that right) at Renfrow’s Store. The day was gorgeous. The weather was almost balmy. The folks at the store were displaying cabbage and lettuce plants and seed potatoes outside. I went in the wonderful old store and shared my sorrows with Mr. Blackely. He said they ( the plants) need more light.

He explained to me that even in a greenhouse, the day length is too short for many plants. He showed me how to place the light for best results. It needs to be very close to the plants. His was about 4” to 6” above the tops of the plants. I headed back to home depot, where I bought a little fluorescent light and a large surge protector. I did not really need the surge protector. I just needed more sockets.

In the late afternoon, I worked in the greenhouse. I decided the beautiful day was a great time to clean thing up. I gave all the plants a little field trip outside and I cleaned up the greenhouse. Not all of the plants seemed to need extra light; and I only bought 1 lamp so I put that one lamp in the darkest space in the greenhouse and put the leggiest plants under the lamp. I’ll give you a progress report on how well that works. Incidentally the plants that seemed to be suffering most were the members of the cole family and the mint family.



David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com/ , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/.