6 Best Led Grow Bulbs For Leafy Greens for a Year-Round Harvest
Harvest fresh leafy greens year-round with the right LED bulb. We review the top 6 for spectrum and efficiency to ensure a continuous indoor harvest.
There’s nothing quite like snipping fresh lettuce for a salad in the middle of January, especially when the garden outside is frozen solid. For years, the idea of a year-round harvest felt like a complex, expensive dream. But the truth is, with the right light bulb screwed into a simple clamp lamp, you can turn a corner of your kitchen into a productive little farm.
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Why LEDs Excel for Indoor Lettuce & Herbs
LEDs have completely changed the game for small-scale indoor growing. Older fluorescent tubes were bulky and contained mercury, while incandescent bulbs produced far too much heat and not enough of the right kind of light. LEDs, on the other hand, are incredibly efficient, converting most of their energy into light, not waste heat. This means you can place them close to your delicate lettuce and basil without scorching the leaves.
The key for leafy greens is a "full spectrum" light. Unlike tomatoes or peppers that need intense red-spectrum light to produce fruit, leafy greens are all about vegetative growth. They thrive under a balanced, white light that mimics the sun. This is great news for us, because many of the best LED grow bulbs produce exactly this kind of light, and they look natural in a living space—no weird purple glow required.
Best of all is the simplicity. We’re not talking about huge, expensive, dedicated fixtures that need special wiring. Most of the best options for a small setup are standard bulbs—A19, BR30, PAR38—that screw into any regular lamp socket you have lying around. This lowers the barrier to entry to almost nothing and lets you scale up as you go.
Sansi 36W LED Bulb: A Full Spectrum Powerhouse
When you need to cover more than just a single pot, the Sansi 36W bulb is a serious workhorse. Its most notable feature is the hollow, ceramic design. This acts as a massive heat sink, pulling warmth away from the LED chips and allowing them to run brighter and last longer without a fan.
This bulb is ideal for a standard 10×20 nursery tray of lettuce seedlings or a cluster of 3-4 larger pots of kale or chard. It puts out a powerful, bright white light that covers a roughly 2×2 foot area effectively from about 18 inches above the plants. For leafy greens, this is more than enough intensity to encourage compact, vigorous growth rather than the sad, leggy stretching you get from weak light.
The only real tradeoff is its power consumption and cost. At 36 watts, it uses more electricity than smaller bulbs, and it’s a bit of an investment upfront. It’s definitely overkill for keeping a single basil plant happy on the counter, but if you want to produce a meaningful amount of greens, its power and coverage are hard to beat.
GE Grow Light BR30: Balanced Light for Herbs
Grow plants year-round with GE BR30 LED grow lights. These balanced spectrum bulbs provide pleasing, natural light while using only 9 watts of energy and delivering a high output PPF of 16.
GE’s Grow Light line is a solid, reliable choice you can often find at the local hardware store. The BR30 bulb, in particular, hits a sweet spot for growing herbs and smaller greens. It uses a "balanced spectrum" that appears as a soft, natural-looking white light, making it perfect for a kitchen herb garden that’s always on display.
The "BR" in BR30 stands for "bulged reflector," meaning the bulb is shaped to cast a wide, even pool of light downward. This is perfect for a rectangular window box of mixed herbs or a small shelf with a few pots of parsley and cilantro. It provides excellent coverage without the intense central "hot spot" you might get from a spotlight. At just 9 watts, it’s efficient enough to run for 12-14 hours a day without a noticeable impact on your utility bill.
This isn’t the bulb for powering a huge tray of romaine from seed to harvest. Its intensity is moderate, designed for maintaining healthy growth in plants that don’t have massive light requirements. But for its intended purpose—keeping a steady supply of culinary herbs at your fingertips—it’s one of the most practical and aesthetically pleasing options available.
Feit Electric A19: Energy-Efficient Growing
Sometimes, you just need to give a plant a little boost. The Feit Electric A19 grow bulb is the perfect tool for that specific job. Shaped like a standard household lightbulb and typically pulling only 9 watts, it’s the definition of an efficient, low-impact solution.
This is the bulb I recommend for someone with a single pot of mint on their desk or for supplementing the weak winter sun coming through a north-facing window. You can hang it in a simple pendant cord or clamp it to a shelf just a few inches above the plant. It provides enough full-spectrum light in a small, focused area to keep a plant healthy and productive when it would otherwise struggle.
Of course, its low power is also its main limitation. The effective coverage area is very small, maybe 8×8 inches at most. You can’t grow a flat of microgreens with one of these. But thinking of it as a "spot treatment" for light makes it an incredibly useful and affordable tool in your indoor growing arsenal.
Philips PAR38 LED: Focused Light Intensity
The Philips PAR38 is a specialist. Unlike a BR30 floodlight that spreads light out, a PAR38 is a spotlight, designed to project a focused beam of high-intensity light over a longer distance. This makes it uniquely suited for certain situations where other bulbs fall short.
Imagine you have a built-in can light in the ceiling above your kitchen counter and you want to grow a pot of rosemary directly below it. A standard bulb’s light would be too diffuse by the time it reached the plant. The PAR38, however, can punch that light down, delivering the intensity needed for growth from 3-4 feet away. It’s also excellent for a single, large plant like a developing head of butter lettuce, where you want to drive light deep into the core of the plant.
The focused beam is a double-edged sword. Its coverage area is narrow. You wouldn’t use this to light a wide tray of seedlings, as the edges would get almost no light while the center might get too much. But when you need to overcome distance or focus all your energy on a single specimen, the PAR38 is the right tool for the job.
Briignite A19 Bulb: A Budget-Friendly Start
Getting started with indoor growing shouldn’t require a big financial commitment. The Briignite A19 and similar budget-friendly bulbs are the perfect entry point. They offer true full-spectrum light in a standard bulb format for a price that makes it easy to experiment.
These bulbs are a significant step up from a regular household LED. They are specifically tuned to provide the wavelengths plants need for photosynthesis. While they may not have the sheer output or advanced thermal design of a premium bulb like the Sansi, they are more than capable of growing a pot of lettuce or basil from seed to harvest.
Think of this as your "proof of concept" bulb. It’s the one you buy to see if you can get a system working in your space and if you enjoy the process. For a very small investment, you can get your first taste of a truly fresh, homegrown winter salad. If you get hooked, you’ll likely upgrade, but there’s no better low-risk way to begin.
LOHAS A21 24W: Great for Multi-Bulb Setups
The LOHAS A21 bulb occupies a fantastic middle ground. It’s more powerful than the small A19 bulbs but comes in a standard screw-in base, making it incredibly versatile. Its 24-watt output provides enough intensity for more demanding greens without the bulk or cost of the highest-power options.
Where this bulb truly shines is in DIY, multi-bulb setups. You can take a simple, inexpensive multi-socket light fixture or a few clamp lamps, screw in two or three of these LOHAS bulbs, and hang them over a bookshelf or wire rack. This allows you to create a highly effective, custom grow light bar for a fraction of the cost of a pre-built fixture. This scalability is perfect for the hobbyist whose ambitions might grow over time.
A single bulb is great for a small hydroponic system like a Kratky jar of lettuce, providing strong, direct light. In a group, three of them can easily cover a 3-foot shelf, supporting several heads of lettuce, spinach, and arugula. It’s a flexible, powerful, and practical building block for a serious indoor garden.
Matching Bulb Specs to Your Growing Goals
There is no single "best" bulb; there is only the best bulb for your specific situation. The goal is to match the light’s intensity and coverage area to your plants and your space. Don’t pay for power you don’t need, and don’t try to light a big area with a tiny bulb.
A simple way to think about it is to match the tool to the task. Here’s a quick framework:
- A single herb pot: A 9W A19 or BR30 bulb is perfect.
- A small tray of seedlings (approx. 1’x1′): A 15W-24W bulb like the LOHAS A21 provides good coverage and intensity.
- A larger tray or multiple mature plants (approx. 2’x2′): The 36W Sansi is a strong choice that delivers the power you need.
- Lighting from a high ceiling or for a single large plant: The focused beam of a PAR38 is your best option.
The technical term for light intensity at the plant level is Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD), measured in micromoles (μmol/m²/s). You don’t need to be an expert, but know this: leafy greens are happy with a PPFD of 150-300. Most of these bulbs can deliver that when placed at the correct height (usually 8-18 inches) above your plants. The real secret is simply choosing a bulb with the right power and beam shape for the space you have.
Ultimately, LED grow bulbs are simple tools that open up a world of possibilities. Start with a single light and a pot of your favorite herb. Watch it grow, learn how it responds, and enjoy the simple satisfaction of adding something you grew yourself to your dinner plate, no matter the season.
