Most of a plant’s vegetative growth occurs early on in the growing season and tapers off as the plant prepares itself for fruiting in the warmer months.

To help make sure your plant produces a good harvest, you need to make sure it has grown well during this early phase. The challenge is getting enough light during the colder months to achieve this.

You can achieve impressive results by supplying your plant with the extra light it needs in order to grow large and strong before the fruiting season starts, and a bigger healthier plant has the potential to produce a much larger harvest.

Fluorescent grow lights are ideal for this application, because unlike more “commercial” type units such as high pressure sodium and metal halide units, they are quieter and give out less heat, which means you can position them closer to your plants without any heat problems and for maximum benefit. This also makes them safer and more economical.

Growing plants under fluorescent lighting is ideal if you want to give them a boost during the colder months, and then transfer them outside once the warmer weather arrives, ready for flowering and fruiting. However you can also grow your plants indoors if outdoor space is limited or you do not have a sunny windowsill.

Fluorescent grow lights are ideal for growing all sorts of indoor plants, from chillies to cooking herbs.

Most fluorescent grow fixtures come with a white/blue type bulb fitted, which is a propagating bulb and ideal for the propagation and vegetative stages of plant growth. These white/blue spectrum bulbs are great all-rounders, but you can also easily swap this type for a red spectrum tube, which is more suited to flowering and fruiting.

So now you have a couple of great options for growing plants indoors. You can use the white/blue propagation bulb as an all-rounder to give your plants a good boost at the beginning of the growing season, and then transfer them outside when it gets warmer and sunnier, or you could swap to a red flowering tube to continue growing your plants indoors.

A good choice for growing plants indoors is the LightWave T5, which is a compact unit that uses interchangeable fluorescent T5 tubes to produce high levels of light that plants love.

So, boost your plants by giving them the light they thrive on and you’ll soon be rewarded with much happier and more fruitful plants, whatever the weather!