Winter Veggie Growing with Hydroponics

Finding fresh produce in during the Cincinnati winter is not only tough, but ass-kicking tough. I already have an incredibly difficult time dealing with the cold gloomy midwest weather. But good news! I've got several leads on some incredible sources for my winter green veggies.

1) Kale (a winter-resiliant leafy green)
2) Greenhouse (extends the growing season past the fall and into the early winter)
3) Hydroponics (brings the growing season indoors and without soil)

It only takes a space about the size of the hood of a car to grow the greens that would sustain my wife's and my daily consumption if I start growing with hydroponics.

My friend-bor (neighbor + friend), Dan, finally got the green light from his wife to set up his hydropic-palooza in his basement. Based on my professional experience in the realm of commercial lighting retrofits, we are experimenting with a couple of cool types of lights-- LEDs and Plasma Induction.

The problem with traditional hydroponic grow lamps is that they suck a ton of electricity, something I'm trying to avoid. They often use metal halide lamps that suck as much 400 watts. That's like Lance Armstrong having to live in your basement on a hampster wheel while pedaling 8 hours per day at time trial pace to generate the equivalent power those lamps suck. And here in Cincinnati, we get our electricity from coal power plants. That's dirty power that we just can't be using.

So, check out the high output of the Plasma Induction lamp. It not only uses a fraction of the energy as a metal halide lamp, but it lasts darn near forever since their are no internal electrodes to burn out...just an energized ball of gas courtesy of Nicola Tesla. Click the link below for a cool example of one of my induction light tests.
http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAxk3n0xIU

Both LED's and Induction lamps are expensive, but this will be a long-living investment that will cut our ties to the onerous "spinach and kale grid" of our local supermarket. Dan is partial to LEDs so we'll see how this experiment plays out. The real heart of the matter is, "which light do plants enjoy more?"