Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - LED rope lights as small cheap heat source

MendozaMark · September 9, 2015

I made my own seed germination box using cheap Xmas LED string lights under the trays in an insulated crate. It worked like a charm ! I have a small unheated greenhouse that I use to extend my season/over-winter my tomatoes and peppers grown in containers. I use layers of fabric row cover to cover them at night and they survived and even set fruit in 30 F night time temps in the greenhouse. I wasn't able to record temps under the covers though. Now I am thinking i may be able to get even better results next winter by using strings of LED lights and running them around the pots or on top of the pots. I live in Mendoza Argentina, and we are just entering Spring here, so my experiment will have to wait. I will also get more LED strings when Xmas sales come around and a Max/min thermometer for result keeping. I should add, that my power in my rural area has low power tension(don't have many watts to spare) and wood is very pricey, making the LED potential very attractive to me.

I was wondering if anyone has tried something similar here ?

Cheers Mark

September 9, 2015	#1
MendozaMark Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Yarmouth,NS Canada Posts: 296	LED rope lights as small cheap heat source I made my own seed germination box using cheap Xmas LED string lights under the trays in an insulated crate. It worked like a charm ! I have a small unheated greenhouse that I use to extend my season/over-winter my tomatoes and peppers grown in containers. I use layers of fabric row cover to cover them at night and they survived and even set fruit in 30 F night time temps in the greenhouse. I wasn't able to record temps under the covers though. Now I am thinking i may be able to get even better results next winter by using strings of LED lights and running them around the pots or on top of the pots. I live in Mendoza Argentina, and we are just entering Spring here, so my experiment will have to wait. I will also get more LED strings when Xmas sales come around and a Max/min thermometer for result keeping. I should add, that my power in my rural area has low power tension(don't have many watts to spare) and wood is very pricey, making the LED potential very attractive to me. I was wondering if anyone has tried something similar here ? Cheers Mark