DWC will work fine for tomatoes. Just make sure your reservoir is approximately 3 gallons per plant to avoid excessive moisture swings in the rez when they get larger.
I would recommend a south facing window to assist with lighting costs. That way you'll just supplement the sun with extra lighting.
From what I've read, LED's are really there yet for plants with a deep canopy. So unless you plan to train the plant to grow horizontally, I don't think you'll get the best results.
MH with an electronic ballast runs about $175 and will grow you a couple of plants. I'll let the lighting folkz chime in more here as I only grow in natural light.

bgaviator,

Seriously, if you want to run with the big dogs you will need to able to urinate in the tall weeds.

I've been trying to grow toms under lights - for a couple of years. I can tell you:

1) LEDs are not ready for prime time, not unless you want to spend mega-100's of dollars. They (a 125-watt red/blue/orange) have the intensity to allow fruiting and fruit development, but the same light will cause very leggy plants.

2) High power or several lower-power CFL bulbs (enough to provide ~9,000 lux per plant) are great for vegetative growth but not strong enough to set fruit of any significance.

3) I haven't tried High Output fluros yet, but I suspect you will need to encircle the plants with them. Like CFL bulbs, they lack intensity.

4) HPS bulbs tend to work great fro fruiting but good grief - the leggy plants you will get on the way!

5) MH! I'm becoming sold these are the bulbs to use. Take a look at {{gwi:1011137}} It has been in a DWC system for just three weeks and is over a foot tall. You can use an MH bulb for the entire grow cycle, as toms are not photoperiod dependent. The systems are not cheap, most of the ones I have found start at about $175. But you can buy a 600-watt almost as cheaply as a 250 watt and it will provide enough light to grow as many as 18 plants.

6) Grow determinate plants, such as Celebrity, Siletz or similar. More compact and do not get tall - meaning you don't have to keep raising the light, decreasing the intensity.

7) Sell fruit to stores, especially a restaurant. They will gladly give you $2/lb. for a vine-ripened, tasty tom in December or January. Around here (Cincinnati) cardboard toms go for $2-3 per pound at stores. If you grow say 17 plants and use two for yourself, that still leaves you with 15 plants that should produce 30 pounds of toms per week. That's at least $60 in income per week. Over the life of the plant, you should get 20-30 pounds of fruit. And your costs to operate a 600-watt system for 120 days, at 14 hours a day would be ~$100

8) Grizzy isn't from Ohio - too bad! If he was, he would know that from about the second week of January until about the third week of February, we don't get enough collective sunlight that even if it was supplied in one day would be enough to tan a finger! I could plants where they get south, north, east and west sunlight and it wouldn't make any difference - I would have six-foot tall plants with sixteen leaves!

Just my opinion and YMMV,

Mike

Grizz was only suggesting supplementing with natural light. And I agree. I live at 39 degrees. If you can, do so. Nothing beats the sun. Generally, MH for vege and HPS for fruiting is what I hear from the most successful growers of larger plants. And you might try some creative training of the plants. Ever seen how some growers grow a large, spread out, horizontal canopy and let the fruit hang down? I haven't tried it, but I have seen it. If I ever get a nice greenhouse I will likely do that. This will allow your light to be closer to the canopy and cut the legginess problem down. My suggestion is to only grow small, determinate tomatoes like cherries during the winter. Grow the big ones in the summer outside if you have the means and freeze some of them for winter cooking. Brandywines are a great choice for that. We are having trouble keeping up with the harvest and we are freezing half of them.

I tried T5 lighting (fluorescents). They just don't cut it. The fruits don't taste nearly as sweet and the size is greatly reduced. Now the T5s are exclusively for propagation to get an early jump on the season. They work great for that.

joe,

We don't get sunlight in the dead of winter - period. I counted the hours (or minutes) this past winter, because I was trying to grow tomatoes in a GH. In a 20 day-period, we had about six hours of bright sunlight, another 8 hours of cloudy light - and I am being generous.

And not to pick an argument, but not all cherry toms are determinate - ever tried growing a Riesentraube plant? It's not the size of the fruit but the size of the plants that counts. Green Sausage (great for salsa) only gets about 30" tall. Siletz, a decent size fruit (6-8 oz.) gets about 40" tall.

I'll let you know about the MH vs. HPS for fruiting in a couple of months.

Mike

So it's cloudier in Ohio, specifically for a month to a month and a half in the dead of winter. I suppose that during that time it'd be more like you're supplementing your grow lights with sunlight. But the rest of the time; the other 4 or 5 months of cold, wouldn't it make more sense to try and use that extra sunlight if it is available.
Also, in regards to keeping your plants small and cherry tomatoes. When I grew cherry toms in my office window last year, I just kept coiling the stem and lowering the canopy.
the actual fruiting and growing part was only about 18" deep. I ended up with 6' - 7' of stem from the rez to the growth.
To the OP, Read up on super-cropping. It really does help keep you plants more compact.

Mike, you're right that not all cherries are determinates. I guess I mean, pick a determinate with small fruits. Yes, you need to check the package to find out if it's determinate and also check the normal height. Keeping in mind, of course, that height is based on soil growth in summer. Point is, small fruits will do better with lower quality light than something like a Brandywine and the plants are more manageable.

That's not completely surprising on your sunlight issue, Mike. If I'm right, you live in an area that has a climate affected by lake effect (Reading or thereabouts), though maybe on the outskirts. The original poster, bgaviator, lives in zone 6. That tells me that he/she lives in the southern half of the state. Which means they get nearly identical weather to me. I got a great early start on my crappy little tarp style greenhouse because January and February were exceptionally sunny this year. Clear skies brought exceptional cold, but allowed the greenhouse to heat up during the day. Unfortunately, I had to bring plants in the house at night. However, you are absolutely right in that some years we don't get such great sunlight. Last year we had so much rain in the unseasonably warm winter that it was like sun would never return. Anyway, the fact that we have gotten such great sunlight on average in the winter has made us consider installing a sunroom for growing some plants in the winter and supplementing with lights because of the shorter days.

It's also worth noting that cloudy skies don't mean inadequate sunlight. I'm happy to sell you a lux meter to help confirm this if you are interested. I carry a wide range. . . Yep, I just spammed the forum. Bwahahaha!

Joe,

I'm next to the Ohio River. (Reading is where my office is - it's a suburb of Cincy.)

Growing plants, rather in a GH, under sunlight or artificial lights requires a defined amount of light per day - at least 16 mols with 22 mols or more fantastic. A mol is the accumulated amount of PAR photons hitting a square foot over a period of time. It's basically the number of footcandles times .000718 (or lux/10.76 times .000718) for sunlight times the number of hours per light per day. 3,000 FC would mean one needs about 10 hours of sunlight to be very productive. That's hard to get in Cincinnati in January and a large part of February.

In August on a sunny day, I was getting 35,000-40,000 lux; in January 20,000 on a sunny day, a lot less most days. Plus, the days are shorter.

My toms didn't take off in the GH until the middle of March. Unfortunately, by the end of April, it was getting into the 80s and 90s inside and in May in triple digits (no vent - yet!).

Mike

Are there two Readings in Ohio? I could have sworn I went through a place called Reading up north. Oh well, obviously I was incorrect on your location so that eliminates lake effect causing a difference. You and I shouldn't have that much different weather and light cycle after all.

Joe,

There is a Reading in Pennsylvania but not in northern Ohio, unless it is an unincorporated area. This Reading dates back to 1784 or so and was incorporated in 1801. I actually live in Cincinnati (Hartwell is the neighborhood) but as I said, my office is in Reading.

Not sure where you are - there are some significant variances, at least in temps, Growing Degree Days and moisture levels between Cincy and Piketon.

But the average amount of sunlight seems to be about the same.

Page 7 of this link shows the average moles per day for the US during all 12 months. My GH had an average transmission rate of about 70 percent and those figures are outdoor readings, which meant I was getting fewer mols per day.

A great book (though not cheap) for those seriously interested in growing indoors or under artificial light is "Lighting Up Profits."

Mike

Ok....so how do these Aerogarden's work then? What kind of light are they using....because from what I can tell, they can grow cherry tomatoes with whatever lighting they are using.....I think Aerogarden even has a model to where you can grow a larger variety type of tomato using your own seeds.

The Aerogardens are either a drip system, or aeroponic (some may call it soakapoincs) system depending on the model you get. All the Aerogardens use florescent lighting. The largest models are 34 inches tall, that includes the base and lamp. The plants need to fit in-between the base and lamp, so the large models can accommodate plants up to about 24 inches tall. Sure they can grow cherry tomato's, if you don't mind dwarf plants. You cant always just trust the sales pitch, of any product. As far as I'm concerned the Aerogardens are not good for much more than growing some herbs (NO, I don't mean pot) on on the kitchen counter. Or maybe starting seedlings, but I can build a much better seed starter (cloner), much,much cheaper.

Aerogarden (main website)
How big are the AeroGardens
What kind of light bulbs does it use
Products (check out the Tall Gardens about the center of the page)

Just bought 2 400w MH out of an auto dealer doing remodeling. $20! The wires were cut so they will need cords. Many of those lights on the ceilings of large buildings/warehouses,etc are MH. I'd suggest talking to construction workers and guys who hunt scrap for recycling. The bulbs in mine are 4000k, and from what I've been reading for tomatoes 6500k would be ideal. Not sure if HPS is even necessary.(many of those are closer to 2500K) Another cheap solution is 4gal square plastic buckets. Restraunts buy sour cream and other things in them. They also have shallow handles and snapping lids. They look just like the ones in some bucket in bucket ebb and flow systems. Good luck newbie, I'll repost when my garden grows.