Window growing version 3.0

A few things have been upgraded the last month or so in terms of humidity control and light quality.

A humidifier is a must-have in my case because the humidity drops precipitously during the day and even with my windows closed, this has some effect on the grow area. The 'upgrade' I performed was with the purchase of a humidistat/temperature controller. I've set the humidity at 54% and this has performed admirably to keep the grow area between 50-60% at all times, even when the air conditioner comes on in the evening. I'll be attaching a heater to the temperature controller when the weather cools down and keep the grow space warm for continuous growth in the winter!

In terms of light, the T5 HO fixture originally came with four 6400K bulbs. It worked well, but cast a bluish glow on everything. To counteract this, I replaced half of the bulbs with 3000K bulbs to get a wider spectrum of wavelengths and that did provide a more natural light quality. Hopefully this will also promote flowering as purported by using the redder spectrum, although this might not be the case for these phals that came from equatorial regions. Nonetheless, the flowers look better in this combination of bulbs and the foliage seem to like this as well.

Here is a picture of the current set up with the lights on.

I'm still working on organizing the grow space based upon the requirements of the different species and observing the growth of each individual. Each species seem to have their own quirks and behave differently in the grow space, so it's still a bit of a trial and error to find the position that each plant likes. Learning the requirements of each species is part of the fun I suppose.