How It Used to Be

[Leisesturm]

Was going through some photos and found these two from when I lived in a basement apartment on Staten Island, NYC. This was the state of the Gardening Under Light art in the late 1990's. Lights off. Lights on.

Many were still using only 4' (40W) shoplights. You could use four tubes and get 1000fc anywhere under the tubes. 1:1 cool white spectrum and warm white spectrum = sunlight was the thinking.

I wanted better than Phal level light so I used 60W incandescents and 23W compact fluorescent (new and radical). These were 100W equivalent fluoro's so technically I needed 100W candies in the sockets but 1. 100W incandescents are very, very hot, and 2. NYC had (still has) some of the highest electricity rates in the country.

I made a real pest of myself in another life and on another orchid forum preaching the 'Light Gospel' as some called it. There was wide reluctance in those days to using lights at all. The cost, the hassle, the aesthetics. Those that did use lights did not use enough. I made a few converts.

This time around I am doing well at holding my tongue about using lights. For one thing, lots of you are! And LED isn't at all eyebrow raising. I recently bought an LED light. Just amazing. I already have another on the way. Thanks for looking back with me.