FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So I'll be moving to an apartment with a new roommate in a month. She likes the idea of my CP grow rack, and was wondering if a similar setup could also be used to grow herbs, peppers, and tomatoes, along with anything else that could fit on the shelf. Would the same lights that I use for my CPs also work for this? I use T8s and T5HOs. Even though I grew up on a farm, I know next to nothing about growing non-carnivorous plants in conditions other than a normal garden. Thanks!

Only your T5HOs will work for this, but you can grow:

Herbs: Things that stay low, such as basil, oregano, thyme, whatever. For things that get tall you must prune them and use them ruthlessly until they die and then replace them.

Small cherry tomatoes, such as Tiny tim. Again, you do have to prune the suckers, but this plant behaves similar to oregano: It will grow large and leggy if you let it, but if you don't it will do fine as a small, bushy plant. Again, as with herbs, you're going to want to buy a pack of seeds and replace the plants once they get too large.

Oh, and lemme clarify something. Tiny Tim is known as a dwarf indeterminate. This means that 1), it will not bear all it's fruit in one go, it will grow and grow and GROW until you pull it. 2), this means you can selectively prune the plant to keep it small while still getting fruit. Keep in mind, however, that there comes a point that it will outgrow your space in that you have to let it get too big to get more fruit. This is when you pull it and pop in a new transplant.

Peppers. You're going to have a hard time with those, as they can't take pruning at all so you can't keep them small. You would have to build a separate rack for them.

That's about all. You could consider hydroponics to grow your plants, it works great, doesn't use soil, and is much less work than most people would lead you to believe.

Hi Jds197!
I grow plants indoors, CP, herbs, vegetables (smaller ones) on racks like this, and it works very well for me:

I use LEDs, and I made everything by myself.
Cheers,
Willy