Upgrading My Indoor Growing Setup

 In February of last year, when I first began to garden, I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a growing setup, but I wanted to be able to start my seedlings indoors. We bought two 48'' LED grow lights and did what we could with what we had on hand to install them over a ''table'' (my sowing machine).  Honestly, it worked perfectly!  But I knew that I would eventually need more shelves and more lights if I wanted to grow more food.  

Well, guess what?!  We recently upgraded our growing setup and this will allow us to be fully productive all year round.  I thought I would write a blog post on this for two reasons.  First, by showing you our old setup, I hope to inspire you to do like us and do what you can with what you already have and I also want to share our new growing setup with you because this might be helpful to someone.

As you can tell, this setup couldn't be more homemade!  We used a sowing machine as our growing table on which we had put a styrofoam boad to make the surface bigger.  

Then, we used a clothing rack (that I had bought for my mermaid school) and reclaimed pieces of wood that we had on hand to fix the lights over the table. 

Nothing was pretty, but everything was efficient.  It worked perfectly and I loved the fact that I could adjust the lights higher or lower over the plants.  

I encourage you to be creative and not to care about how it looks  What is important when is that it works.  As Wayne from Letterkenny would say : ''If it can be one thing, it should be efficient.''

I know I'm repeating myself, but you don't need a setup like that to grow your own food.  That being said, some of you might want to upgrade your setup, just like me, and you might be wondering what to buy.

Shelving units
We bought three plastic 5 shelf units from Rona, each measuring 18'' x 36'' x 72''.  

I made a lot of research before buying our shelving units.  It needed to be the right size, have at least 3 shelves and had to be foldable / easily transportable.  The shelves from the metal unit were not deep enough for my likings and they cost more than double the price of the plastic shelves we ended up buying.  Wood wasn't a good option either because of transportation, time and price reasons.

Grow lights
We bought four more 48'' LED grow light from amazon and we plan on buying two more before spring.

We bought the exact same lights that we had gotten in the spring because they are cheap, super light weight and they work great!

Wow, what a difference!  I can’t wait to put it up to use!  If you’re just starting to garden, remember that you don’t need a big setup like mine.  Start small, be creative, and learn as you go.  

-Mel-