Miraje,

I am not the best person to answer your questions but i will make a statment or two.

I do not have any grow lights. I do use 3 cheap shop lights.

I live in a mobile home so I dont have a lot of room. I went out to the shop to check on my seed starting junk, and have taken pictures to post. You can start as simple as you want, but if you are not sure you want to start seeds, just buy the plants, I do both.

This is the stuff I stored after planting time.

This is my window rack after installed, its not painted and made from scrap, but I started enough sweet potatoes to produce to produce well over 100 lbs of potatoe in the top tray. The lower tray was used to start onions and flowers.

I don't follow all the advice from the so called "experts" either. I start a fair amount of plants under lights. I just use the cheap shop lights with bulbs I buy at wally world ect. I don't buy any special bulbs. The spares I have now say residential bulbs on them. Yes you can grow them in the windows part time. You will need to rotate them as they will slant towards the brightest light. Also if the sun light available in the window isn't strong enough they might become "leggy" trying to reach it. If so on the tomatoes when you pot up just pot them deeper. After you grow a few plants then you can make any needed adjustments if you still have the desire to start your own. My suggestion for the first year would be to grow a few and see how they do. I always recommend starting out on a smaller basis and then growing as you gain experience and the desire too. If for some reason when it is time to plant you aren't happy with the plants you started then you can always go buy some. One advantage of starting some yourself is you can grow varieties not found in the nurseries, ect. Also after you grow them a few years you will likely raise better plants than you can buy most of the time. And I also enjoy doing it. My mother always started her seeds in egg cartons on the top of the fridge. Then moved them to the windows and rotated them several times a day. Then if she potted up it would be to a used plastic cup ect. She always had beautiful plants. Jay

If you have a window with good light your tomatoes can stay there during the day. Then you can turn on your lights at sunset for several hrs. If they get a little leggy, you can pot them up burying the stems, then when it comes time to harden off, be careful at first. It isn't necessary to leave them under lights for 14 hrs.

That's a really neat setup for your window! I think I'm just going to buy the little 24-cell windowsill tray for now until I get a better feel for how to do this, but eventually if I want to do it on a larger scale that's a really cool idea!

I was worried about the "getting leggy" part since that's what the websites I've read say happens when you just use the cool white bulbs. If they still turn out ok just by burying them deeper when potting up then I think I'll give it a shot. I have regular compact fluorescent bulbs as well, and those seem to give off a warmer light than the ones in my kitchen. Maybe I can shine a few lamps on them too with those. I already ordered some beefsteak tomato seeds and sweet pepper seeds last summer, so they'd go to waste if I didn't at least try to grow my own. Thanks for the advice!

I think almost all of us on the forum just use shop lights and no special bulbs. You do need to keep the plants very close to the lights though or they will stretch. If I were growing fewer than a dozen plants, I doubt that I would both starting my own. But once you start a few and have success, you may want to plant lots of different things, and especially tomatoes and peppers that are not available as transplants in the local area.

I started seeds on my first "large scale" operation last year and had really great success. Previously, I'd done two-four trays (72 pack jiffy starters) on a card table in my home office, which was north facing with one small window - horrible light. To supplement, I bought two small florescent fixtures from wal-mart, maybe 16 inches long, probably meant as under-cabinet lighting, with just regular florescent bulbs, both were less than $10, and my husband nailed some scrap 2x4s together so I could suspend the lights from them over the trays (at a fixed height, not adjustable, as I didn't know any better). I did this for several years, and while some of the plants may have been a little leggy, I had no idea what I was doing so didn't ever notice. They all grew when I put them in the ground! I left the lights on most of the time, as florescents are pretty efficient, and I kept the door closed to the room most of the time (cats would chew the seedlings) so I'd forget to turn on and off. Also, I never potted up, I just grew them until they were taller than the lights and the weather was right and plugged the peat packets right into the ground. Again - probably not optimal or the "right" way but it worked for me!

Last year, I wanted to go bigger, so bought a $45 wire five-shelf unit at target from the storage aisle, four shop lights from Lowes with daylight-temp regular florescent bulbs (not grow lights, just the Kelvin color for daylight), and a timer from the lamp aisle. Total about $100, plus I bought more 72-pack jiffy starters and I could fit three trays per shelf (only used four shelves) and put the whole shebang in my dark garage. I'd start two trays at a time on my kitchen counter and waited for germination of a few, then moved to the garage (unheated). Worked great, most if not all germinated, and my problem became having enough space to pot up and find place to put the potted up plants! My only other expense was an inexpensive heat-mat off ebay from some guy who makes them custom length and they are mostly used for reptile cages so they were cheaper. Can't remember the cost, but I got one cut to fit my lowest shelf, put some cardboard between it and the wire shelf, and got 100% within-a-week germination on my peppers. That may have been overkill, I was just nervous about having enough heat in the garage or kitchen (we keep the thermostat at 67 day, 62 night). Hope some of this rambling helps!