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Garden_Healing wrote: Gymgirl: Thanks for the link. I don't have space for the 4 ft fixtures that are the easily available and inexpensive shop fixtures. I live in an urban condo (i.e small) with no south facing windows. My outside space is a community garden 15 minutes away (and currently under 3 ft of accumulated snow and ice). I'm setting up the lights and shelving in my bedroom and can only fit something with a 3 ft footprint. I ended up with a high system that is narrower. Unfortunately that means the fixtures are more expensive. Going the home depot and repurposing route I managed to create a 5 layer system for about $100 using hook and chain suspended cheap T8 closet fixtures (I removed the plastic casing over the light tube) and Phillips Natural Sunshine full spectrum T8 fluorescent lights. I wish I had the space to use the cheaper shop lights with good reflective properties. The 4 ft foot print was not manageable in my bedroom.
HoneybeeNC: Rebar is an excellent choice if you are going to stick them in the ground outside of the raised beds and then just pop the PVC over them. I am using a dowel system just because it is what holds my raised beds together. A dowel can be made from wood or metal; it is basically a pin that goes into a drilled hole. The PVC is 1/2 inch by 10 ft and I bought two for each of my 4x4 raised beds. They were about $3.50 each. The picture below is them covered at night with a blanket. This year I think I am going to have to come up with an elasticized version of the covers that will hug the boxes and I think move to a covered wagon position of the PVC instead of the x system I have now since I found the irregular shape of my system difficult to attach the covers regularly.
