This week I post the pics a bit earlier since I’m not gonna be here on sunday. Last Wednesday I pinched out the top of the middle plant, hoping it will get a bit wider instead of longer. So this is where we are at week 8:

And the animation to see the growth:

Today we arrived in week 7 for the plants. So time for an update!

And the animation, but keep in mind I changed position of the pots last week!

Today I moved the pots a bit around. One plant got pretty big leaves and the plants were a all bit tight together so moved them a bit more on the edge of the box they are standing in. Also put the one with the big leaves in the middle. The one that was all the way on the left is now in the left back, and which was left back, is now right back.. ( ueuh.. yeah )

Today was time again to make a picture. This is week 6 for the plants to be under the light. To get an impression on how they grow I put an animated gif from week2 to week6.

And, here we are again with the weekly update

I had a look if I could use 2 old webcams to make a picture every hour of 2 of the plants inside. By making a picture every hour from the same spot and then putting the pics together, you create a timelapse movie of how the plants behave.

Weekly update: (Thanks to Jos for watering them when I was on holiday)

Ok, so 1 week later they look like this:

So after making a lot of the polystyrene foam blocks (thanks Christine for helping me out!) I ended up with something like this:

And today 7th of July 2008 my seedlings look like this:

So, where to start? Reading, a lot about growing under LED learned me that plants need certain wavelengths of light to grow and to flower and fruit. Seems that they particularly like red and blue light. Blue for vegative growth and red for flowers and fruit. I first had a look if there are pre-made kits available. And there are. But they are rather expensive, and they give me less control over the ratio of blue and red LED’s that I want to use. So, just ordered 64 red and 64 blue 10mm bright LED’s. My plan was to make a panel of 8*8 LED’s and, with my order I could make a completely red, completely blue or something in between panel. I wanted to make the panel variable, so I could change ratio blue/red without taking the whole panel apart again.

So, I made a design to put the LED’s in little blocks of polystyrene foam which I could then exchange. Then you end up in having something like this:

Then I made a compartment to put the plants in

So, why LED? They have a low power consumption. I’m not interested in the question if it is possible to grow chili inside, because I know it is possible. But using artificial lighting with a power consumption of 600 watts or more, meaning I could go on a holiday from my electricity bill at the end of the year, made me decide to stick with LED.