I am starting a small cart with African Violets and related plants. The surface area is about 30 inches by 16 inches. What is a good (and inexpensive) setup to use for lighting. Cost is definitely a factor. I already have a timer.
I personally use a four-foot shop light with two 40W T12 bulbs (some warm white, some cool white) with a lot of my plants. The shop light would be $10-20 (my experience has been that it's worth it to not buy the cheapest one, by the way), and the bulbs run about $5 per pair. If you're growing AVs for shows or whatever, you may want to spring for special "grow lights," but I've grown all kinds of stuff just fine under plain old cool white bulbs: not AVs so much, but Episcias, at least. If a 48-inch fixture is too big, there are a lot of "under-cabinet" light fixtures that might work better for you. Sizes and prices vary a lot with those, and they have to be mounted to something: you can't just hang them over the cart the way you could with a shop light.
