Place the pellets in a seedling tray and cover them with water, and the pellets will expand. Once they have soaked, set the pellets in a solid seed tray (no need for an additional container), drop your seeds into the opening at the top of the film, and keep moist.

Seed plugs are sold with small seed-germinating greenhouse kits.

Gardening Under Lights Book

While citrus is easy to grow in containers, they hate living indoors. They require bright light. When you see photos of a beautiful fruit-filled lemon tree next to a small indoor window, know that it most likely did not grow and fruit in that location.

If you happen to have a very large south- or southwest-facing window that gets direct full sunlight for more than 6 hours a day, you might be able to keep your citrus happy.

Getting cannabis to produce flower buds requires a strictly controlled lighting regimen. Cannabis sativa is a qualitative short-day plant. To remain in a vegetative state, plants require 16 to 18 hours of continuous light followed by 6 to 8 hours of uninterrupted darkness.

Once you are ready to force them to flower, reduce their daylength to 12 hours, followed by 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness, for about two weeks.

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In warm climates, cilantro can be grown outdoors only in the cooler fall and winter months. In cool climates, it can be grown in spring and early summer. Once temperatures reach about 70 F, cilantro will go to flower and seed, then plants will expire. If you live in a hot climate like I do, you must grow cilantro through the winter outdoors. BUT, that means I don't have any cilantro in summer when my tomatoes and peppers are ripening. My solution? I grow some cilantro indoors during the warm months.

You'll need a cool spot in the house to grow indoor cilantro, and use low-heat grow lights such as LEDs or CFLs. Use moderate light for harvesting foliage, bright light for flowering if you want to collect seed.

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Plants that bloom only in summer, such as coneflower, are typically long-day plants; those that bloom only in early spring or fall, such as chrysanthemums, are typically short-day plants. Plants that can flower continuously through the growing season—such as roses, cucumbers, and tomatoes—are day-neutral.

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An easy place to start with your propagation adventures is African violets. They propagate easily from leaf cuttings. Simply snip a leaf off (with a bit of the petiole) and place in potting soil.

PC: Leslie F. Halleck

It is important to keep even moisture when rooting African violets.

Gardening Under Lights Book

When starting seedlings indoors for your outdoor garden, you must prepare the seeds early enough to plant outside at the optimal time. Refer to your seed packets for seed timing, depth, and spacing instructions. Sometimes, these instructions are in the inside of the packet.

Know that your climate is unique and you may need to plant earlier or later than your seed pack recommends, based on your first and last freeze dates, and how warm your summer temperatures get.

Gardening Under Lights Book

When you grow orchids indoors, you'll need to pay attention to their temperature preferences. Orchids tend to fall into warm-, moderate-, or cool-temperature categories.

Dendrobium orchids fall into the cool temperature loving orchids category. This means daytime temperatures between 60°F and 70°F (15–21°C) and night temperatures between 50°F and 55°F (10–13°C).

Gardening Under Lights Book