Before too long the frost will come again. For the past two years I’ve tried taking some of the potted plants on the deck indoors and down to the basement for the winter rather than let them die off with the frost- mint, peppers, basil, chili peppers, etc. About 6 square feet of plants. I used a 150 watt, 5000K induction lamp as a grow light since I had an extra one laying around. The past two winters the peppers survived but everything else died. Am I giving them too much light or not enough light, or the wrong kind of light, or is it something else like too much or not enough water? Should I be using real grow lights of some kind? T8? T5? HID? LED? (Putting them in a window upstairs isn’t an option because the cats would decimate them).
Also, I have a pot of Geraniums this year. Is that something I can take inside and have it bloom next year?
I do almost the same thing although I am in zone 9 and take the plants to the garage. I also have more tropical fruit and tropical fragrant plants.
The lights do not do much good but what I have found is that many plants may die but they come back in the spring.
Your mint would have come back from its roots if you were patient in the spring when you brought the pots outside. Now Basil is more like a annual and it produces a lot of seeds that you can sow again to get new plants in the spring
One thing you have to watch out for is watering. Water them very very sparingly when you keep them inside.
Many plants prefer to have a rest phase over winter - a cool, frost free place with just moderate light, and just enough water not to dry out - Geraniums overwinter well that way. If you are trying to keep them growing under growth lights, keep in mind that the room air usually is drier indoors during the heating period - you need to be very careful to water your plants frequently without overwatering them.
Having grown hydroponic gardens indoors I will note that you need a LOT of light, a lot more than you think you do, especially for something like peppers that like lots of sun. One grow light may not be sufficient, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. I’ll also note that peppers are very sensitive to cool/cold temperatures, it may be that your basement is too cold for them, especially if they’re not getting enough light.
I’ll also note that it’s perfectly normal for mint to “die back” in winter and go dormant, but it will happily resurrect in the spring. It’s rather infamous for being difficult to impossible to eradicate.
Additional mention of the watering situation for indoor plants - you really need to stay on top of that with drier winter air indoors.
We’ve had this topic before. I don’t know how glow bulbs were supposed to work, but nowadays, its been figured out that plants need led lights a few centimeters away from their stems. Like this thread covers: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=852466
We bring a bunch of plants into our sunroom for winter and most do fine. We do not supplement light. Each plant has its own needs. Last winter I was surprised that our papyrus survived (was told it wouldn’t).
Some plants are “programmed” to live one growing season, put out tons of replacement seeds, then die.
Basil is one of them. Once it starts to flower, you can pinch it back to stave off the inevitable, but the plant will quickly re-bloom, pump out those seeds, then wither away.
No point in overwintering basil. Just harvest the seeds, and start new plants in spring.
Even though that’s a very small area you describe, going from sunlight to putting them in the basement with a 150 light doesn’t seem like enough for most plants, although I have no experience with the plants you described. But the higher your light are away from the plants, the more it diminishes exponentially, the inverse square law is critical since you didn’t have that much light to begin with.
I used to have a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree in a pot, and while I could keep it alive over the winter with a grow light (one of these) mere inches away, I couldn’t ever keep it happy- it always lost some leaves and generally looked sort of sad until spring, when it would perk up once I put it outside.
I think the dryness of indoor air and the lack of actual sunlight makes some plants very unhappy.
Not sure why your mint didn’t live; that’s generally a pretty hardy plant as long as you don’t let it dry out. We had some live through the winter just in a cup of water in a windowsill.
OK, apart from the irresistible smart-ass remark, I can tell you that herbs are said to be difficult indoors because they need a combination of abundant light and cool temperatures. I have successfully grown ornamental basils (African basil and B. herbalea) under T-8 fluorescent light and a combination of T-8 and LED light for 12-14 hours a day with plants no more than 6 inches below the fixtures. Peppers likely would need rather intense lighting for at least that long per day (I’ve seen them growing fairly well at hydroponics outlets under HPS or metal halide fixtures), but the power cost in relation to what fruit you’d harvest would make that pretty inefficient.
I looked up induction lighting because I had no idea what it was. Seems that there are grow lights of that type available for $$$ but supposedly are ‘‘more economical’’ because of long service life, so they should work if output/lumens are sufficient and other growing conditions (warmth, humidity, quality potting soil, adequate water) are met.
I’ve never tried growing potted geraniums indoors under lights. They need strong light and a freely draining soil/soilless mix that is allowed to mostly dry out between waterings.