I can’t go to jail for tomato seedlings….can I?

Last year the spring mega-seed starting effort took place in Mrs cohutt’s back sun room. I had the lights, heat mat and multiple seedling trays in front of the large south facing window. It was quite a production…

But, in spite of mrs cohutt’s intense desire for me to repeat 2011’s Herculean effort of junking up her sun room, alas, it is not to be…..

I’ve adopted a much lower profile this year; in fact it is just the sort of lower profile that a horticulturist of certain types of cannabis might adopt if they did not wish the world to know what they were doing.

I’ve rigged up a seed starting system using foil backed polystyrene sheathing that accommodates my heat mat, the two lights and four standard 1020 flats of seed starts. I’ll rig a front panel and plastic “roof”, but this is pretty much it:

Under the lights (just to flatten the heat mat overnight) are one of the larger speedling trays and a 1020 flat full of freshly made soil blocks. The lights will be on a 16 hour timer and the heat mat will be thermostatically controlled based on the soil temperature.

Back to the original question:

Last year the intense glow of my grow lights could be seen from a quarter mile away but attracted no attention. Will the same lights, buried in my dungeon of a basement and seeping a curiously bright and white glow out through the cracks and crevices inherent in a 143 year old foundation, invite inquiry from the local authorities?

I guess we’ll know soon enough.

I can’t go to jail for tomato seedlings… can I?