This year I am trying to grow some vegetables. But this blog is about woodworking, right? Have no fear, there’s woodworking here. For instance, there’s the raised beds I made out of cedar and filled with 800lb of compost:
But that was just cutting two of the boards in half and screwing them together. What about something with joinery? Well, in order to get my seeds started, I wanted to plant them inside and use some artificial light to give them a head start. To that end, I needed to create a light panel that would be adjustable in height as the plants grew. Here’s what I came up with:
The LED panels were secured with tape to the underside of the lower plywood panel there. The uprights and cross pieces and feet are made from reclaimed pine. There’s another plywood panel over the top to act as a convenient shelf. The horizontal pieces are simply screwed into the verticals, which seems to be enough to prevent racking.
The feet are joined to the verticals using slots. This is basically like cutting a half-lap joint in the side of the board instead of the face. No screws here, so it’s easy to take them off if I need to.
In order to adjust the height, I put clamps to hold the light panel in place, unscrew the screws, adjust each end as needed, and then drive the screw back in. And lo, the plants seem to be growing!
