My wife has a few 'plastic' pots that she uses for herbs, and places on the deck outside our kitchen. My biggest use of them is in starting the seeds each year. I used peat pots for many years, and was always annoyed at the amount of failures, and resulting re-plants. I have found a better way, especially for my tomatoes and peppers. I use these bio-sponges to germinate the seeds, and then when they have about 2 or 3 leaves, I move them into small plastic pots(square) that are almost 4 inches deep, and 3 1/2 inches square. (with potting soil filler) They have consistently done much better than the peat pots ever did. Some suggests that the peat absorbs too much moisture, maybe. When it comes to planting in the garden, they pop out of the plastic pots quite easily, with their roots well developed and holding it all together. This year, I tried using these foam shipping trays for wine bottles. I buy a case of wine, now and then, and when they are shippped, they come in foam formed containers for the bottles. I realized they are not too wide, but nice and deep, so thought I should try them for my seedlings. I lined each cylinder shape with wax paper, then put in the plant which grew in the biosponge, with the soil filler. I'll be putting them in the ground later this week, so will be anxious to see if they pop out easy enough with the wax paper. They also grew very well from the seedling stage. We'll see!

The advantage of LED's. light shines in one direction so if all the led's are pointed in a narow range forward, then most of the light will hit your trees. The life expectancy of the LED bulbs are 50,000 hours but the electronics in it probably won't exceed much over 6000 hr. You and I loose. The multi color lights is largely a gimmick. Single color bulbs are less efficient than all spectrum bulb. So lets put all the diodes in all spectrum instead of having a group of one color combined with a group of other individual colors. Citrus trees are slower in winter because of many reason with one being less light. trees are genetically coded to sow down to day length, decreasing solar angle, light wavelength shifts as the solar angle changes through out are seasons. BR40 CFL - 23 Watt - 120W Equal - 6500K Full Spectrum Daylight this is the best bulb for your trees and will look good in you living area. check out this company's link and check out Home depot or other for equivelent. If you value time and don't mind reasonable sipping cost than just get the above. Home depot may have a 6 pack going for much less. They may not. Kroger's will rip you off on these. No rush you have 5+ months left.

I know this is a fairly old post, but I'd like to add a bit of my knowledge. I would suggest buying a Mylar enclosed grow room. IT helps trap heat, and keep bugs out. It also allows you to monitor the exact temperature and humidity within your own container. I also live in the snow and grow tropical plants that need approx 70� with 60-70% humidity. Without ruining the wood or walls in my house, or making my room smell like a butterfly house. Also I went one step further and I use 2x quad band 90watt UFO lights, and 1 tri-band UFO in a tri-force configuration all piled into a 5'x5'x5' grow space. I got a pretty substantial harvest, and my power bill increased approx $30 a month. You can pay the extra for the HID bulbs and my buddies swear by the increased watts that your harvest also increases. So it really depends on the $ ur willing to throw down and to what extent. To me. Let's say 6 months to fruit.. If you have that setup you're probably looking at around 500-600 for a hydro, HID, and depending on your light, you're probably looking at a couple hundred more in power. Is what you're planting worth the investment? Or if you went LED's, it dramatically drops the amount of power consumption and makes that level even more affordable. Also with Led's since they use such a low power. @ some point in the future I want to set up a parallel 12v system tied to a Gear bike generator. So I go and workout in the morning and it powers my grow box. In which you could easily set up for another $200. Enjoy, and any questions or schematics you may want just hit me up.

What, no twirling plates :-) When you hold it on the end of a stick on your nose, THEN I want to see pictures! One of the cool things about this joint is all of the improvisation. Hang in there!