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4.5
After completely assembling my Burpee Exclusive Glow 'n Grow Tabletop Grow Light & Ultimate Seed Starting Kit I discovered that one of the support poles was cut 1/2" short than the other resulting in a framework assembly that didn't sit flush. I requested a replacement through Amazon & they were on it! I received that within a couple of days of returning the defect unit. This framework assembly is in perfect shape. I had set the growing trays aside since it was to earlier for me to start planting seeds 3 weeks ago. This last week I decided to do that. For starters, I'm not sure why they recommend you place them flat side down in the trays since they flip over the second you add water to the trays. Secondly, I had to leave the soil pods soaking for the better part of 2 hours with warm water before they were workable to crush inside the seedling trays. And lastly, placing the soil in those trays barely registered half way up the containers once I was able to use the wooden stick that was included to break apart the soil pods. Originally, I only used half of the 72 soil pods that came with the kit, filling just 36 of the seedling trays. I hadn't decided what to plant yet in the other 36 trays. Good thing I suppose in hindsight as I ended up using the other 36 soil pods to fill the first set of seed trays. Burpee might like to take a look at the amount of soil being compressed for those seed trays to assure customers that they won't need to purchase additional seedling soil to fill them. Luckily, I have coir & seedling soil for the other 36 seed trays that I hope to plant next weekend. I see online now that they don't even offer the Burpee's Exclusive Glow 'n Grow Tabletop Grow Light & Ultimate Seed Starting Kit anymore, just the Tabletop Grow Light Stand on it's own. It sells for more than what the kit was selling for. It was a good value at the time as a kit. I'm not sure I'd pay $178 for this product. Would probably look at one from Gardener Supply for that kind of money. Overall an average product with a couple of hiccups for me...I ordered this because I thought you can't go wrong with Burpee.The packaging is awful. The bulbs were broken when it arrived. I requested a replacement of the whole light and frame. I received the replacement light today and the lights were packed the same way but amazingly they weren't broken. I am thinking great. I start to put the frame together and find a problem with the inserts that accept the screws. One was pushed in so the screw would not find the threads. The other problem was the insert was missing completely. No way to attach the frame. I still had the one which came with the broken led bulbs, so I took the frame from that one and used the bulbs from the replacement light and used my Frankenstein skills to make one perfect grow light. Thank God I didn't get around to returning the broken bulb grow light. I will now return all of the pieces that you can never use. I would think for $125 this would be a well built light system. I will keep it because I was able to make a complete unit out of 2 orders.Unfortunately, when I received this, one bulb worked, one did not. Called Burpee, they said call Amazon. Amazon very helpful in issuing credit, called the bulb manufacturer, no answer and no answering machine, called Burpee back to see if they could send me replacement bulb...waiting to hear back from them. They were helpful, but still waiting to hear what to do....This shouldn't be this difficult. I can't even comment on whether or not it is useful to grow plants from seeds. One other comment, the cord is way tooo short. I have it on a low table right above a wall outlet, and I can not put the lighting fixture up very high because the length of the cord. I need an extension cord to raise the height of the whole fixture. Great price, I thought Burpee would be a trusted name in plant growing, but this needs some redesign and easily replaced bulbs!i like the led light, that it actually works is a plus. i haven't started planting yet, but am excited to see it in action.Dissapointed in the 1 short leg. means i have to find about a 1" thick shim. I can do that, but for the price, i shouldn't have to fix before i even use.Think before making this purchase. the light is pretty much what you are paying for. You will more than likely have at least 1 short leg on the frame.Good luck,All three rails (2 side, 1 top) were missing from the light stand. The light assembly was partially assembled and missing parts necessary to complete the assembly.The seed germination sheets in the seedling start kit were shredded.Based on all of these factors I decided to return the shipment for a refund.Oh, and if you thought you might want to have a gonzo seed start setup with self-watering AND heat mat ... don't bother. I don't see any way to make that happen. If you put the heating mat below the water reservoir all you are doing is warming the water with a very low likelihood of that heat making it's way to the planting medium. You can't put the heating mat below the watering mat as that violates the specs for the heating mat (and is dangerous). Putting the heating mat between the pot bottoms and the watering mat defeats the purpose of the watering mat and is also dangerous and out of specs for the heating mat. I just thought I'd mention this because every seed starting kit, including ALL self-watering kits, has a suggested (ALSO) purchase of a heating mat. Apparently, the AI/person that makes those suggestions is clueless.I was so concerned with getting the light up and running to make sure that it worked, that I didn't unwrap the trays until I actually went to start seeds - and the tray was broken. And now past the 30 days that Amazon holds customers to... I was torn at the time whether or not to buy it on Amazon or the original company's page, I guess I should've done it from their website...The kit overall is easy to assemble. The really downside are the pellets that should self expand in 1 minute (accordingly to Burbee website). Well none of them does. At the end I had to buy some starting seed soil because they did not what they were supposed to do.Fit in my grow window perfectly. I can easily start seeds indoors.
