Your Ultimate Guide To Growing Vegetables Indoors With LED Lights

Do you want to live a self-sufficient life and grow vegetables all year-round? If you’re reading this, the answer’s probably “yes”. But no matter where you live, growing your own food can be challenging, especially in winter. Let’s take a look at the process of growing vegetables indoors with LED lights.

LED lights offer the full spectrum of light that plants need to grow and thrive and are more efficient than some other grow lights.

This is because they work really well for smaller indoor spaces because they have lower temperatures so the leaves won’t burn meaning you can grow the plants closer to the lights.

The ticket to growing vegetables successfully indoors is to work out how much light your vegetables need and how you can best set up your indoor space to support them. You’ll also need to assess the light sources you have in your home.

Are your windowsills north, south, east or west-facing? How much light do your chosen vegetables need (while salad leaves and lettuce can do well in partial shade, vegetables like tomatoes thrive in full sun).

These questions need to be considered so you can arrange your indoor space accordingly.

By the time you finish reading this ultimate guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about growing vegetables indoors with LED lights!

Table of Contents

Growing Vegetables Indoors With LED Lights

Natural Light Vs Artificial Light

Let’s start at the beginning. We all know that plants need light for the process of photosynthesis – which is when a plant converts light into energy. Without a light source, plants would not be able to bloom and produce seed.

Some plants need more light than others, be it natural or artificial. While in summer, you can rely on natural lighting which radiates from the sun, in the winter, when light is low and hours of sunlight are limited, it is likely you will need to use a source of artificial light.

It is important to know the power of natural light in your house. If you have south and west-facing windows, you will have access to sufficient sun for your plants. But north and east-facing windows will mean that you may need to double up with artificial lighting – even when the days are light.

Depending on your home, you can use artificial lighting to grow vegetables in darker areas or rooms without windows and you can also use grow lights to start seedlings indoors before they grow big enough to be planted to bigger pots outside. So conduct an analysis of your living situation to get a better idea about your growing situation.

Growing Vegetables Indoors with LED Lights: What Are LED Lights?

There is a big difference between the normal lights you generally find in your home and grow lights. LED lights are on another level altogether, with a lot of advantages that, in my opinion, make them the standout option for growing your vegetables indoors during the sombre winter period.

LED stands for Light-Emitting Diode, which is a semiconductor device that emits visible light when an electrical current passes through it. You may also have heard of IRLED lights – a special-purpose LED light that can be used in red light therapy – but that’s a whole other story!

Now for the science…

The important point to remember is that LED lights offer the full spectrum of light plants need to grow successfully indoors. To grow plants, you need light waves of red and blue light. Phytochromes drive leaf and stem growth and are stimulated by red light. Red light also helps with the production of fruit and is important for growing vegetables indoors. Red light has a wavelength that is longer in comparison to other colours – for plants the most critical are 640 to 680 nanometres.

Cryptochromes are sensitive to blue light and control plant light response. Blue light stimulates photosynthesis and is the best for vegetative growth and strong development. Other lights on the spectrum include purple – which is used for plants in the vegetative state – but which isn’t as effective for photosynthesis as blue lights are; and white light, which encompasses all colours of the spectrum and is good for early developmental growth.

Some indoor gardeners use blue light for starting seedlings when they are in the first stages of growth. Blue light in the 430 to 450 nanometre range is the most vital for seedlings.

The Benefits Of Growing Vegetables Indoors With LED Lights

There are many benefits when using LED lights in comparison to other grow lights. These include:

• Efficiency – LED lights last twice as long as other grow lights, which means lower costs in the long-run.
• Lower temperature – LED lights run cooler than other grow lights meaning that vegetables are safe from heat damage (they need a moderate room temperature to thrive) and that the risk of burning leaves is low.
• Suitable for small spaces – LED lights can fit into smaller growing areas because vegetables can grow closer to the light source.
• Full spectrum of light – one major advantage of using LED lights indoors to grow vegetables is the massive spectrum of energy they provide. This means that you can adjust your lights to any stage of the grow cycle and adapt them to your lights so it gives you much more control over your plants.
• Harder bulbs – LED bulbs are tougher to break because there is no breakable filament.

Growing Vegetables Indoors with LED Lights: Types Of LED Lights

There are a range of different types of LED lights that you can use for your plants. These include spread-style lights, chip on board lights and traditional lights – let’s look at them in closer detail:

Spread-Style Lights

Spread-style LED lights have lots of individual small LED diodes spread out over a fixed area, which is ideal for targeting a large number of plants. The two main subcategories of LED lights include quantum board and spider-style lights:

• Quantum board lights refer to a style where many small LED diodes are spread out over a flat surface area – usually a thin piece of aluminium. They use full-spectrum white LED diodes and the board passively cools the diodes.
• Spider-style lights have an open bar design with lots of LEDs on narrow “arms” rather than on a solid board. They can be more expensive than quantum board spread-style lights.

Chip On Board Lights

Chip on board (COB) lights have a number of minuscule LEDs placed very close together on a single chip, leading to a single intense point of light and offer deeper canopy penetration than spread-style LEDs. However, they don’t provide the same level of coverage as spread-style lights and tend to emit more heat than other LED lights.

Traditional LED Lights

Traditional LED lights tend to be very compact, so are good for small spaces. They usually have multicoloured LEDs that cover the full spectrum of colour frequency. This creates a kind of ‘disco feel’ that can be a required taste for indoor growers!

Growing Vegetables Indoors with LED Lights: Best Vegetables

There are many vegetables you can grow using grow lights – but some are more suitable than others. Vegetables that self-pollinate – which means they don’t need pollinators to help with fertilisation, are easier to grow using LED lights versus those that don’t self-pollinate.

Here are some of the best vegetables to grow using LED lights indoors.

Lettuce

You can grow your lettuce on the windowsill with additional LED support, or use LED lights alone in the darker months of the year. Sow your seeds into module trays or pots along with well-draining potting soil. Cut-and-come-again lettuce leaves – which are the loose-leaf variety – mean you can keep harvesting the leaves on an ongoing basis.

Spinach

Spinach is a super green that is very easy to grow in trays or pots. You can start your seeds inside and set them outside when the weather gets better, or you can keep growing them inside using LED lights. Spinach needs a decent amount of light like other greens – but make sure it’s not too intense and hang your LED lights higher than normal.

Microgreens

Microgreens are one of the fastest vegetables to grow indoors and take just one to three weeks to germinate. You can use LED lights to make it easier for them to germinate in winter.

Kale

Kale is another super green for your indoor salad bar! Kale grows very quickly indoors and will do so even faster using LED lights.

Herb Garden

Growing an indoor herb garden is the goal of many urban gardeners who have limited outdoor space. Herbs can be conveniently grown on the windowsill – with or without LED lights and you don’t have to transplant them outside like with other vegetables you can start indoors. Examples include thyme, mint and parsley – just don’t forget to water and fertilise regularly.

Garlic

One of my favourite vegetables to grow indoors is garlic. You will need to prepare your garlic before you plant your sets (or seeds) and if you start garlic indoors with natural light, it is best to move it outside in spring. With LED lights you can grow garlic indoors whatever the season – but bear in mind that garlic will need more room to grow in comparison to salad leaves and herbs.

Green Onions

Green onions are easy to grow indoors! They are typically planted in spring but can be started as early as February and then transplanted outside, or kept inside with a mixture of natural and LED light.

Remember that some vegetables such as cucumber and zucchini are harder to grow under LED lights as they are not self-pollinating. So if you are just getting started with LED lights it is best to practice with vegetables that are easier to grow at first and move on to the harder ones later.

LED Lights Versus Other Grow Lights

LED lights aren’t the only option for growing plants – in fact, they are relatively new and have only really taken off over the last few years.

In my view, LED lights are by far superior with their full-spectrum bulbs, efficiency and long-term value. They’re also great for alternative gardening methods such as hydroponics gardening.

But, everyone has their own preferences, so here are other some options you could consider to grow your vegetables.

• • Fluorescent lighting – you’ve probably experienced fluorescent lighting quite a lot in your life. Think hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, offices and female changing rooms. I personally cannot stand this light – it’s so unflattering! Traditional fluorescent bulbs look like tubes and can fit into specific fixtures while Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) have screw-in bases to fit in most home fixtures. While fluorescent lights can work for growing your plants inside in winter, they are not as efficient and don’t last as long as LEDs.

• • High-Intensity-Discharge (HID) lights – HIDs are another popular option for growing vegetables in winter indoors and tend to be used in plant nurseries and bigger grow houses because they are so powerful. However, they are expensive and use electricity inefficiently.

• • Halcyon Bulbs – these are smaller and can be brighter than incandescent bulbs, (see below) but they are expensive to run and have poor blue wavelengths.

Can You Use Household Lights To Grow Plants?

Household lights are not the best option to grow plants indoors. This is because plants need light from across the spectrum and both red and blue light are necessary for their health. The most common light bulbs in the home are incandescent light bulbs, which can be easily screwed into a socket and tend to be round towards the top. The problem with household lights is they tend to emit colours on the red side more than the blue, so are not suitable for using for vegetables indoors in winter. They also don’t usually last very long.

How To Set Up LED Lights

When you set up LED lights, you will need to think carefully about how to position lights over your vegetables so you can change the distance between the lights and plants as they grow.

Typically, LED lights will come with a metal wire hanger that clips onto the lamp’s body. One option is to suspend lights from chains from the ceiling. LED lights should be around 15 to 30 inches above the plants, but you can adjust accordingly. Search out lights that allow for adjustable stands as well as hanging kits.

What Colour LED Lights Should You Get?

Look for LED grow lights that offer adjustable colours. When you’re first starting your seedlings, you may want to use only blue light to give them a quick jump start. Once they’ve matured, you can add red light to encourage them to bloom and provide fruit.

How Long Should You Use LED Lights?

Expose your plants to around seven to ten hours a day in winter. You can mix LED lights with natural light for growing seedlings indoors during the winter season. But remember that plants can need some time in the dark to germinate, such as chives. So do your homework on the seedlings you are trying to grow so you know how much light to expose them to.

Growing Vegetables Indoors With LED Lights: Final Thougthts

LED lights are the perfect option for growing plants all year-round. No longer are you limited to the summer months to grow your plants – you can grow your vegetables, herbs and even fruits indoors in winter and have access to your own fresh produce whatever the season.

As with anything, the types of lights you need will depend on your goals and naturally there are advantages to other types of lights. 

But, as LED lights are affordable, efficient and safe, in my view, they are the best option for growing a decent number of plants indoors and are especially suitable for those of us without massive gardens who need to be conscious of space.