In your zone, no it is not to late. You probably can't plant them out until late May/early June anyway so you have 8-10 weeks for them.

Of the common things normally grown as transplants rather than direct seeded it is too early for most everything else I can think off - maybe broccoli. Lettuce, spinach, chard, can be direct seeded as soon as your soil can be worked.

As for the light, it is probably fine although they have less expensive models that would work fine too.

If you only have 1 tray of the Park seed starter things then you won't be able to mix things much anyway since they will all have different germination times. Better to germinate them separately and then transplant in to it if you want.

Lots of discussions about all of this over on the Growing from Seed forum.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Your light link

No of course not. You are right on time. Here are a few guides for planting dates:

2014 Best Spring Planting Dates for Seeds for Columbus, OH

Zone 5 Vegetable Planting Calendar/Schedule

Vegetable Planting Guide for The Mid-Ohio Valley

For the lights those look about right. Many use normal 4 foot shop fluorescent lights. Hang them right over the plants with the bulbs just ~2 inches from the tops of the plants.

The lights looks fine. And no its not to late to start from seed. Its still to early for a lot of things. The only thing that you maybe could have started earlier than this is peppers. I am guessing a May 15th last average frost date?
The only things to safely plant out before then would be cole crops, onions & potatoes. There are lots of thread here that discuss how early to start seed for different plants. Tomatoes 6-8 weeks , peppers 8-10 weeks before plant out time is the commonly suggested time to start them.

Good luck and have fun.

This model is only $12.96 so you can buy 2 of them for just a bit more than the one you linked to would cost.

Walmart has a good one too for only $10.97.

Dave

I live in northeast Ohio and I just sowed indoors:

Onion(i am late on sowing, should of been a few weeks back)
Celery(right on time)
Peppers(Right on the dot timing)
Eggplant(perfect time to sow indoors)

So start your celery, peppers and eggplant right now, even tomatoes! In a couple weeks, start your broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage. You could plant onion sets right about now.

The link below is to a calendar that tells you when to plant everything, just make sure that you type in your last frost day on the top of the page, or else you will be completely off. My last frost free day is roughly mid may.

Here is a link that might be useful: When to start seeds

Dave Iwould like to thank-you for looking for another light , but after reading this you will see why I am not interested in this one.

We bought two of these lights for over the workbench in the garage 3 weeks ago. One of the lights worked fine, but the other one wouldn't light up very brightly until after I adjusted to bulbs a couple times. That lasted until a couple days ago, although sometimes the light would make a lot of strange noises. The light stopped being bright again, and I couldn't get it to work right, so I changed the bulbs, and it was bright again, but the noises it would make were quite a bit louder, and strange buzzing clicking sound. I left it plugged in for about 15 mins, to see if it would stop. there was no smoke or anything just a strange noise. The noise didn't improve and I decided that I would purchase a new light, and replace that one. Unfortunately, a few hours later, a fire broke out in the garage, and according to the fire department, it started up where the light was. Burnt it to the ground. Luckily it was a detached garage, or I'd be homeless too. I don't want this to happen to anyone else, so I posted this here. Apparently there were many more negative reviews, but they have been removed.

Low price is good at time and it can be bad at times you never know.

Natures_Nature I was just looking at their catalog and never knew they had anything in there like this.

Thank-you for passing the information along.

I don't know much about zone 5 but my aunts always tandem gardened. My Aunt Dot started hers as soon as the soil was dry enough to work it and my Aunt Annie started a "late" garden, probably about a month later. They would help one another as their crops came in and extended their fresh pickings over a fairly long period. I thought it was pretty cool. Best judgment would be figure your first frost in the fall, look at the days to harvest of what you want to plant and count back from that. I would think nearly everything would work it would just be a matter of how much harvest you would get before frost. In my zone, 7, the bigger concern is getting cool weather stuff in the ground in time to beat the heat.

As far as lighting, you want something efficient and something that doesnt generate too much heat. T5 or t8 fluorescent bulbs fit the situation perfect. I use t8 bulbs(less initial cost, but less efficient), if i had the money i'd go with t5 lights(more money initially, but more efficient. Divide the lumens by watts to see how efficient the light is. For example, that shop light your looking at takes two 32 watt t8 bulbs, 32(watts)x2(number of bulbs)=64 watts. Each of those bulbs produce 3000 lumens, so 2x3000= 6000 lumens. So the t8 two light fixture uses 64 watts and produces 6000 lumens, will have a lumen:watt ratio of 93.7. That is, for every watt is uses, it puts out 93.7 lumens. That is really efficient. But if you look at the same fixture but in t5 bulbs, that will have an even higher lumen to watt ratio. If you look at a incadenscent light, say 24 watts and 170 lumens, thats a lumen:watt ratio of around 6. 6 and 93 is a big difference.. You want something effecient, like the t5/t8 bulbs. Even if a store pushes those grow bulbs on you, you know what to do, quick calculation of the lumen to watt ratio shows really how good they are. Go with a normal t5/t8 shoplight, the more lights the better.

All that said, I would go with the cheapest, most efficient, most convenient light source. I use a four bulb t8 fixture from homedepot. It was around $60 for a fixture with four lights. Not cheap, especially if you are like me and have 5-6 fixtures. However, I know how to get the deals...

On the light, your choice of course but note that particular fixture has many good reviews written about it vs. 1 from 1 guy who "thinks it might have caused a fire".

Sure, from his description, it may have been a faulty fixture - that can happen with anything. So my question for him would be why didn't he exchange it at the first sign of the trouble he described rather than just keep on using it. In the end he caused the fire by ignoring the problems.

Personally we have approx. 15 -20 of these T8 fixtures in the greenhouses and have never had a problem with any of them over the past 4-5 years. Price and quality don't always go hand-in-hand. :)

But I do agree with natures_nature above, if price is no object then the T5 fixtures are the best.

Dave

It's never too late in my opinion!!! :)

Dave I do agree with you on that, it was the first thing that came to my mind also.

Dave do you have this light in your Greenhouse?

Which one is the newest the T-5 or the T-8?

would this be the one you are talking about?
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-4-Light-White-Troffer-2GT8-4-32-A12-MVOLT-1-4-MVISPWS1836LP741/203072533

You mean for a T5 fixture? No, the one you linked is a recessed ceiling fixture that has to be built in. And you don't want any with a lens cover. You want a shop light

I don't know off hand what T5 shop light fixtures HD has as I don't use them. No way to justify the cost for what the GH needs for supplemental lights. T5 and T8 are about the same age, maybe T5s a bit newer.

But T5 shop lights are available from many sources and usually are 4 light fixtures rather than 2 although I'm sure some 2 lamp units are available somewhere. 4' T5 fixtures usually run in the $80-$100+ range and the bulbs cost 1/2 again as much as the T8 bulbs.

Dave

This is the light I use... Any shoplight would work. I have a 4x2ft area, so a 4x1 ft light was a perfect fit for the space. You want to keep the flurescent lights no more than an inch away from the top leaves, they can be nearly touching the lights.. Without enough light, plants grow long, straggly, and topple over. Your goal provide as much even, adaquate light as you could to the plant. For example, if i used a 2x2 ft shoplight in my 4x2 ft space, the plant directly under the light would grow compact and ok, while the plants on edge will get leggy. You want all your plants directly under the light bulb, but just enough room to not touch the light and get adequate airflow. So your size of the area is a big factor is light choice..

Here is a link that might be useful: 4ft t8 fluorescent shoplights

I agree with what Dave said:
When an electric fixture is malfunctioning, one should stop using it immediately. The fluorescent bulbs should last for thousands of hours. But his fixture burns it in no time, he puts in another bulb and the problem persists and he leaves the light on. So whose fault is it ?

The technology behind a fluorescent shop light is so elementary and there is nothing sophisticated or complicated about it: .

So many people seem to think that there is a tiny little narrow window during which one must plant. When I worked in a small nursery I dealt with people who thought if they did not get their whole garden in in one weekend by the end of May they had missed their chance for that year & had to give up planting anything at all. ThatâÂÂs so nuts!
I start in February (leeks, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, etc.) and keep seeding veggie & flower plants indoors & out depending on what they are right up through August and sometimes into September -- then in October I plant garlic for next year! I plant summer squash at least twice during the summer. I plant early carrots for summer harvest, then some later ones to leave in-ground over the winter. I always like to start more broccoli and cabbage plants indoors in early July. Outdoors it is too hot but they do fine under lights (I use ordinary shop lights - always have, and with fine results) in the cool basement till it is time to get them acclimated to the outdoors.
Read seed packet & catalog info for days to maturity (bearing in mind this is, at best, a ballpark figure since so much depends on the weather each year plus your own unique environment).
Find out your last average spring frost and average first fall frost for your locale (see extension office link in a previous post) and then count forward or backward for spring or fall planting dates based on seed packet info.
Note that days for maturity for plants you set out -- like tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, etc. --are figured from the time of setting out in the garden, NOT from the time you planted the seed.
May sound complicated at first but it is a fun thing to do with pencil & paper when the days start getting longer, the seed catalogs start arriving, and you start longing to get your hands back into the soil!

I sowed my first seeds today...broccoli, cauliflower, butterhead lettuce, and spinach...inside.

About 12 days later it will be time for tomatoes and peppers.

"When an electric fixture is malfunctioning, one should stop using it immediately. The fluorescent bulbs should last for thousands of hours. But his fixture burns it in no time, he puts in another bulb and the problem persists and he leaves the light on. So whose fault is it ?"

Agree. If something is clearly wrong, the last thing one should do is leave the fixture plugged in and unattended.

There's not a whole lot of difference in T12/T8 fixtures at this point. There's only a few ballast manufacturers and they sell to everyone. Pick the one with the best reflectors (as that's going to be the biggest determiner of performance), and if you're seeing problems in the first couple of weeks, return the damn thing.