Now that winters coming I thought of taking my mint, tomatoes, and basil and such indoors. I know there are specialized “grow lights”. But it seems that Craigslist is full of old metal halide light fixtures that have been pulled out of warehouses and such. Would one of these “high bay” fixture be suitable for growing herbs? What wattage? 175? 250? 400?.
Most herbs prefer cool indoor growing conditions (basil is one of the exceptions). Halide and HPS fixtures give off lots of heat (and suck up a lot of power), so they are not ideal for the purpose.
If you don’t have a sunny window (best) and instead can provide a reasonably cool growing spot, either a couple of cheap shoplights and/or an LED lamp (there are fairly cheap options) should work.
I believe there is much hype in specialized lights. I’m sure old metal halide light fixtures would be fine. There are some hoods and reflectors that do a better job than others though. I imagine during the vegetative stage not as much lighting would be needed, but light intensity would probably need to be increased considerably during generative stage (fruiting); nor would it surprise me if experienced growers switched to sodium vapor while fruiting.
I personally would also opt for a window or some kind of outdoor lighting of sorts. Seems like a lot of work just for tomatoes. I seriously doubt anything less than 400 watts would do, and you’re going to need quite a few of these lights. The heat that they would generate could at least heat your winter home quite a bit instead of exhausting it outside.