Starting seeds
I've never started seeds indoors. I've always direct sown seeds into the garden (radishes, beans, squash) and planted purchased plants (tomatoes, peppers). This year I plan to try my hand at starting from seed and transplanting.
My average last frost date is May 5 so it's still pretty early for us. Parsley can be planted very early, and it takes 21 days to germinate, so I thought I'd start some of those this weekend.
I'm running an experiment. I have two seed trays and I'm going to plant identical things in each tray and see which plants do better in which tray.
One seed tray I've placed on top of a regular heating pad we had on hand. They sell warming pads specifically for germinating seeds but I didn't see the point in spending $25 to $30 on one, plus shipping. The heating pad came with a spongey thing you could dampen for moist heat, so it should be pretty safe in a moist environment. Nevertheless, I wrapped the heating pad in a garbage bag in case of water spills, and set it to the lowest setting. Thus far, my thermometer sitting on the heating pad registers 65 to 73 degrees. Pretty good, considering most plants like soil to be at about 70 degrees for germination to take place. I'm going to monitor the temperature directly on the heating pad for another day or so. Then I'll also monitor the temperature on top of the seed tray just to get an idea of variance within the cups.
The other seed tray has a clear plastic dome. It just sits in the greenhouse without benefit of heating pad. I'm not sure what the soil temperature is but I would imagine it varies quite a bit, even with the dome there to help warm the soil and regulate the temperature. I plan to put the thermometer on top of this tray and underneath the clear dome, and see what kind of temps I'm getting in there.
I'll post an update after I've had time to monitor each location with the thermometer for a few days, and I'll post updates showing which plants do better in which tray.
Labels: garden
posted by Leslie @ 12:37 PM
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Oh good, my seeds aren't growing very fast. Now I'll get to watch yours also. I started some parsley for the first time this year also. Tomorrow I'll post it on my blog with an update of the seeds I planted weeks ago.
an idea for the domed plants is to buy a carboy thermometer. If you have a local homebrew store (or maybe even your local garden store), they sell thermometers that will attach directly to the surface of whatever you are trying to monitor. (ie, they attach to the outside of the carboy to monitor the temperature of the fermenting beer) They are very inexpensive, waterproof, and they can be removed and reapplied if you need to.
I look forward to seeing the results of your experiment. No garden for us this year :( so I will have to live vicariously through you and the other agrarian bloggers :)
leslie you are going to need to put the dome in a warm sunny area, or put it on a heat pad or like i have mine setup. I have a shelf, with flourescent lights hung from two of the shelves. There are 4 shelves total. THe seed trays get domeed and set on top of the lights while germinated seeds get set below the lights so they can get the light.
IF your dome doesn't have moisture in it in the form of water droplets on the dome, its not warm enough. You should be getting water forming. This helps keep you from having to water as much too.
WHEN the majority of your seeds germinate take the dome off. They will start molding if you don't.
steve
Gwen, I've never heard of a carboy thermometer - thanks for the suggestion. I'll look it up.
Steve, thanks for the input. The domed tray definitely isn't staying warm enough. I'm thinking I need to either dome the tray on the heating mat or turn the light on 24x7 above the domed tray and see if that helps... I like your idea of having the trays above the lights until they germinate. Nice!
I was thinking I'd put a germinating tray on top of the fridge and monitor the temps there. The current setup is in the greenhouse but temps fluctuate a lot in there right now.
Funny... I bought the exact same trays and name stakes that you did at walmart last week. I just put mine in front of the window during the day so the sun or low light can hit it and leave it on the table at night. I have plenty of water droplets on the top of the tray so I'm sure its warm enough. I am curious to see how the warming blanket goes. My friend use to use a heating blanket on low.
Anon, as it turns out there was no difference in sprouting time between uncovered trays on the heating pad, uncovered trays on top of the fridge, and covered trays in the window. It's a good southern exposure though with lots of light.
This year I'm just doing covered trays. The fridge top works fine but you have to check the trays morning and night and move the tray as soon as the seeds start to sprout, they get impossibly spindly VERY quickly.
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