Planning to grow herbs indoors? Thinking about purchasing in indoor herb garden with a grow light? Curious about what kind of herb garden light will work best for your plans? Wondering whether you should place your kitchen herb garden near a window or on a shaded countertop?
Growing sustained, harvestable amounts of herbs indoors often requires long periods of intense light (6-8 hours of direct light for most varieties). Choosing the right indoor herb garden light can make the difference between a plentiful harvest and dried out sprigs and stems.
Why?
Abundant light is essential for helping herbs produce the oils that give them their distinctive flavors. The right type of lighting is critical to ensure the success of your indoor herb garden.
Without the right amount of light, your herbs won’t taste much like … well … herbs.
Sunlight is ideal for herbal plant growth, but when growing indoors it’s not always possible to get enough, especially during the winter months.
Here we’ll explore some options for giving your herbs all the light they need.
But first, a word of caution: not all herbs grow well indoors. Cilantro and dill, for example, don’t grow back after a clipping, so you constantly need to replant (not the best choice for a little window garden).
Conversely, oregano, chives, mint, rosemary, and thyme grow back when they’re trimmed, providing a steady stream of fresh herbs even in small planters.
In a hurry? Here are our top 3 picks for best LED grow lights for indoor plants.
150W LED Grow Light – Full Spectrum
- Full spectrum light
- Suitable for indoor use
- Low energy cost
Monios-L T5 LED Grow Light
- Full spectrum light
- High output
- Affordable
VIETERR 1000W Led Grow Light
- Ideal light spectrum
- Energy efficient
- Waterproof
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Why is Sunlight So Good?
A quick bit of background: The visible spectrum of natural sunlight is composed of color bands – red, orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo. But it’s two invisible bands at either end of the light spectrum — infrared and ultraviolet — that make sunlight ideal for herbal plant growth.
Infrared light (also called infrared radiation) provides heat. An appropriate amount of infrared radiation is an important part of healthy, natural plant growth.
The heat provided by infrared radiation is an important signal for plant growth, and herbs grown with infrared light have more robust stems.
Ultraviolet light (UV), on the other end, is much maligned and misunderstood when it comes to plant growth.
What’s important to know here is that the UV light stimulates the natural defense mechanisms in herbs, including the production of essential oils (flavor) and other substances that are good for our bodies (i.e. anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory, etc.). Without the UV, herbs lose those properties that make them beneficial.
The big problem with natural sunlight? It’s not always possible to get enough through your window, or during the low-light days of winter.
Artificial Light
The artificial lights in your home don’t emit a balanced spectrum of light, but instead give off light that is in excess of one or more of the color rays. For example, your typical household incandescent bulb gives off light that is heavy on the yellow, orange and red rays, while standard fluorescent bulbs produce a more yellow/green light.
So what kind of light should you get for your herbs? It seems like there are a million options for picking grow lights (because there are…). I’ll try to make this as simple and helpful as possible.
First off, don’t use a sunlamp. Sunlamps are for people, not plants. They often produce either too much of either infrared or ultraviolet rays, which can be harmful for the plants.
Second, energy efficiency matters. These lights will be on for up to 12 hours a day, so more efficient will save you money in the long run.
Best Grow Lights for Indoor Plants
Here are some of the products that we think are the best for successfully growing indoor plants.
1. 150W LED Grow Light – Full Spectrum – Best Overall
This premium LED Grow Light uses the highest quality LED chips with over 50,000 hours of service life, making it a great choice for improving plant health and growth. With 414 LEDs, it provides the most efficient wavelength of light for your plants to improve photosynthesis and promote healthy plant growth. There are 36 RED LEDs that help plants bloom faster, 18 BLUE LEDs to help promote leaf growth, and 360 warm LEDs to provide full spectrum of colors.
The unique design of this LED Grow Light allows for better heat dissipation, so it can be used continuously without harming your plants. Moreover, this light is also easy to install, simply twist it into any normal socket to replace an incandescent or halogen bulb. With a wide range of applications, this LED Grow Light is perfect for indoor plant seedlings grown in home or office hydroponic greenhouses.Average lifespan: 50,000 hours
PROS:
- 414 quality LED lights
- 50,000 hours of service life
- Provides the full spectrum of colors for faster growth
- Easy to adjust, foldable fan blades
- Offers an efficient wavelength of light
- Better heat dissipation
- Easy to install
- Saves electricity cost with only about 35W of power consumption
2. Incandescent Grow Bulbs – Cheap Options
These are both the least efficient grow lights and the least expensive. You can get an incandescent grow light kit for less than $20. These lights won’t last long, though, and they don’t provide the full sunlight spectrum.
They’ll help your herbs grow, but not to their full potential. Average lifespan: 700 hours
3. Fluorescent Grow Lights – Better Options
Fluorescent grow lights are a good option that won’t break the bank. A nice hanging setup can be had for in the $30 range. However, your herbs won’t get the benefits of a “full spectrum” of light unless you opt for the more expensive T5 system.
Fluorescent lights also have to be replaced often (about once a year) and they only really come in one size variation (long), meaning they aren’t the most convenient light source to set up in your house. Average lifespan: 10,000 hours
4. Full spectrum LEDs – Best Option
LED grow lights are extremely energy efficient, and they offer an ideal light spectrum range for herbs. They are also by far the most expensive.
We recommend starting with a simple hanging setup, which will provide light for most small indoor gardens. Average lifespan: 50,000 hours
5. Full Spectrum Plasma Light – Better than LEDs
What’s better than an LED? A full spectrum plasma light. These are unholy expensive, but they are the next closest thing to the sun in terms of full spectrum and UV/infrared light, and they are even more efficient than LEDs. And they are definitely overkill for my simple indoor herb gardens, but I want one anyway.
6. All-In-One Planter – Quick & Easy Option
If you don’t want to hassle with setting up special grow lights, but you still want to grow indoors, there are new all-in-one herbal grow systems coming on the market (like the highly-rated Aerogarden Sprout) that combine lights with a planter.
You won’t be able to grow a high-volume of food, but it’s great for small batches of herbs or small vegetables.
Light Placement Tips
When possible place your grow lights directly above your herbs. In this way you mimic natural sunlight coming from overhead (many grow light systems come with kits for hanging the light at a desired height). You want your herbs to grow up and evenly.
If using artificial lights as a supplement to natural light from a window, it’s ok if the light is coming at an indirect angle. Just leave the lights on for up to 14 hours daily in winter months to compensate for the weaker sun of the season. (Find an inexpensive timer to turn them on and off.)
- Incandescent lights: should be at least 24 inches over your plants. (these put off alot of heat, and you don’t want to fry your plants).
- Fluorescents: 12 inches above your plants
- LEDs have a lower heat signature, so they can be placed 6 inches over your herbs.
Keep adjusting the placement of the grow light as your plants develop and mature to maintain the proper distance.
Have tips or questions about indoor plant lighting? Be sure your share them in the comments.
I grow cilantro indoors, outdoors and on my screened porch. I find that clipping it back to leaving 1/3 of the size of the plant and it will continue to produce for months and s and months. Just thought I’d share as I read in your article that cilantro doesn’t regrow.