seedling heat mat. approx. $20. worth it. you might use it only a few days a year, but for decades, and it will make things germinate in 1-3 days, for most vegetables. so if a tray damps off, or goes leggy on you, or whatever, you can restart another one quickly.

the top of your fridge might not feel warm, but stick the box up there with a thermometer in one of the "pots" and see what it reads after a couple hours. if it is 75-85 you are good to go for most things (see below).

make sure you turn off the heat / remove the seedlings from the heat source as soon as they sprout!

the tp roll idea is great i think, those should be plantable (? not sure how fast they will compost compared to peat pots) and result in no root disturbance, if you can pack the box so that you can safely tilt it to drain excess water (presuming you're gonna water from the bottom), even better.

n.b. your germination yield will be low for some things if the temp is too high, exa: spinach above 65deg = low return.

Here is a link that might be useful: germination temps

hi i put my peat pots in a tray on a table in a south facing window, i did the tp rolls last year, it worked ok i would use them again except i was given a whole box of peat pots as a gift,
grant zz: those tp rolls compost down faster than the peat pots

I place my seedlings in a metal or glass baking dish and place it on a heating pad. This way it can do double duty (seed germination and ache reliever) instead of buying a special seed mat. Do be careful that you can set it on a low enough setting. Also, be very careful that you will not get it wet.

Feeling something with your hand and expecting it to be warm when your body temp is 10+ degrees warmer than it takes to germinate seeds isn't very bright.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll give it a shot and see how they turn out.

taz6122 - that's just rather rude and uncalled for.

I could have used many other words. 80 degrees isn't warm to the touch and any adult should know that.

taz6122, if you get your jollies from starting internet wars please move on. How you think you know the top of my fridge is 80 degrees is beyond me.

I felt the top of my fridge and didn't think it was all that warm up there.

Body temp is +/- 98.6 so 80 by touch might feel a bit chilly to you. Use a thermometer not your hand. You're blowing my comment all out of proportion.

"Body temp is +/- 98.6 so 80 by touch might feel a bit chilly to you. Use a thermometer not your hand. You're blowing my comment all out of proportion."

Not sure how I could/should have taken your comment however if I misunderstood your intent then I apologize.

Yes I know my body temperature is +/- 98.6 degrees and yes I understand that if something isn't the same temperature as my own body that it will feel cold to me however what I assumed is that the temperature needed to germinate seeds would need to be something which would feel warm to my own touch.

To compare. I have heard people say to place seeds on top of the fridge to do this but my old fridge actually always felt warm on the top (by touch of my hand) compared to the fridge I have currently. So I assumed that my current fridge wouldn't be warm enough.

Rather I probably need to know if there is a temperature range I should look for if 80 degrees is warm enough to germinate seeds.

75-85 is a good general temp for the majority of seeds. Most refrigerators are at least 75 and if you keep your house at 65 or above then anywhere 2' higher than your thermostat should work fine. Heat rises as is common knowledge for most so the higher you get them the warmer they will be and don't forget to give them lots of light after germination and to decrease temps (if you can) to 55-65.
I'm not here to start wars and sorry but I do get a little condescending when I think people are not using their minds or the forum as they should be used. There are many threads on this subject and a search would have answered your questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Search for germination temps

I did in fact search the forums however I never saw a topic or a post which I felt answered my question.

Perhaps I didn't search for the right information or perhaps I got tired of looking for the right information after hundred search results were returned or perhaps I missed the information when I did search.

I havent had any luck with toilet paper rolls. Seems like I end up losing the seed starting mix out the bottom. I now just use 3.5 oz plastic cups from dollar general.

Can I ask a naive question based on only a vague understanding of the climate in Austin? A quick Google shows warm days(over 70f) and no freezes at night at the moment. I'm just wondering why you need to start seeds indoors under lights? You don't say what you are sowing but many plants will germinate at 70f. I have sown some of my veggies (favas, peas, beets, lettuce) outdoors here already and believe me it is nothing like as warm as where you are. In fact I won't feel 70f until July. Seeds I have started inside (sweet peas, Nicotiana, basil, more lettuce) have not required heat or light. Just plastic covers on pots and flats in a glass porch. I should have thought you could put your pots and trays outside in the daytime and bring them in at night and have good success. I am great advocate of keeping gardening simple. I have never had to start anything under lights in decades of gardening. Maybe this seed starting lark is much easier and cheaper than you have envisaged. Good luck.

I've had trouble finding things through forum searches myself, when others can seemingly pop up the perfect thread effortlessly. I am convinced I am search-impaired. All I ever seem to get is the dreaded "My Stupidest Garden Mistake" thread. I'd suggest someone write up a Q&A about how to construct a proper search term in order to find things on the forums, but it's doubtful I'd be able to find the Q&A. LOL

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

Hi Flora,

Austin's weather is 70 right now but freezes aren't guaranteed to be completely gone and even if it is by May it maybe in the low 90's, by July it's definitely in the 100s.

The seeds I am trying to grow seem to only germinate when it's consistently warm outside. I've planted them straight in the ground before around this time and they didn't germinate until May so by the time they went to fruit it was July (?) and by mid-July they were suffering. So even though they like the heat they didn't like the amount of heat we seem to have here.

This year I want to start earlier and hopefully I'll have a longer season for them to fruit. I'm also taking other measures to try and adapt them. I've lived at my house since 2008 and I grew these plants at my previous house (still in Austin) with lots of success for several years so I'm not sure WHAT may be causing the problem but it's a matter of trial and error right now.

@obrionusa -
I use Press and Seal and seal the bottoms but many people I read cut and fold in the bottoms.

@loribee2 -
I'm glad I'm not the only one :)

Here is a link that might be useful: toilet roll seed starter

Which seeds are you particulary wanting to grow? That information would really help people advise on the easiest way to go. There is a middle way between lights indoors and direct in ground sowing and that is to start in pots or flats that you can move around so as to use the sun's natural heat and light when available but bring them inside if it gets cold. Aternatively, you can sow in ground sowing under cloches or row covers. Even sowing squash seeds under an old jam jar or plastic bottle can speed germination.

Ive never needed any supplimental heat for my seeds. The only exceptions, are palms, and bananas. Even then I didnt use bottom heat, they just dont germinate as fast. Certain species of plants do need bottom heat, in order to germinate properly, but off the top of my head i dont see why most or general garden seeds need bottom heat (other then speeding it up).

Most need light to germinate. I havnt had any problems germinating anything in south, west or east windows. The only problem is making sure they get enough light after germination, so they dont get leggy and weak.

You can use any flourescent light for a few weeks if you wish. All veggies seem to do ok. Even my pauliwnia seeds sprouted with a compact flourescent bulb ( they need a minimum of 700ft candles to germinate). I used a single, 40 watt, 750 luminen bulb. They dont seem to work well with extremely high light plants, such as cacti and the like, but i know people whove grown tomato, lettuce and other seedlings under them.

@Flora

Something else besides my original post - which didn't post because for whatever reason my home computer doesn't like this forum and this webpage always locks up on me.

I wanted to add that there are other reasons for me wanting to start seeds indoors.

1) I'm still moving and redesigning my garden so for some plants and seeds I'm not 100% if where I the plants yet and some of my raised garden boxes are not ready.

2) I'm not a skilled gardener and I'm still learning and each year I seem to never get started when I want so by learning about starting seeds indoors hopefully next year I will know how to apply what I learn earlier so I'm ready to go earlier next year. :)

So regarding the seeds - they are Oriental cucumbers. Some sort of hybrid. Once I'm finished moving my garden around (by this weekend I hope) I'll be trying to plant the cucumbers in ground.

The use of seed pots is mostly for trial and error and my own experience. I'm also going to try growing one or two in a pot this year.

I didn't think anyone here could really tell me what I'm doing differently here at my new house versus where I use to live to end up with such poor results.

@canadianplant Thanks for the feedback. :)

@loribee Try using the search box toward the bottom of the forum page. It allows you to search just that forum. I used to get those same results when searching the entire site.

@Taz, yes I finally got that part down after a while. But yesterday was a good example. I wanted to know the dimensions of the pots people use when potting up their tomato starts, and whether they thought the 3.75" depth that is standard for a 4" pot was deep enough for tomatoes, considering we try and "sink" the stem when potting up. Hell if I could figure out how to search that question, though I gave a few things a try (unsuccessfully). And then, sometimes, I'm not sure if that would be on the vegetable forum, the tomato forum, the growing from seed forum....so I try searching the whole site and get nothing but stupid threads. Sometimes, it's hard!

At the same time, I've now hung out on the forums long enough to see that some people ask some really, really basic questions that get talked a lot about on these forums. Forget searching--heck, just scroll down the list of current discussions and the questions are already asked and answered. So I realize it's sometimes frustrating. I commend the patience of the folks who continually post helpful answers and links to the same stuff over and over again. I confess that when I come across someone who really clearly hasn't bothered to so much as browse through the recent threads before asking questions, I don't bother myself to answer them.

(Oh, and Newport, that wasn't a reference to you. I was talking about others who will go unnamed! heh)

lnewport - I see now, you are growing a warm weather crop. Oriental cucumbers are beyond my experience, since they are difficult to grow here and only in greenhouses. I will watch with interest if you get any further advice now we know what you want to grow.

The more information you give in your question the better targetted the answers will be. Maybe someone can help solve the problems if you give more info about what your old garden was like?

Good luck, Flora.

@loribee2 - No I'm not taking that you directing your response towards me. :)

Let's just say I have no issues with someone contructively pointing out if I post in a wrong forum or perhaps some sort of information is obviously out there and available. That's how anyone learns. I know I'm not frequent here on the forums but for the last three - four years I'm usually here right around this time and anyone is free to search on my name and verify.

@Flora -

Thanks for the feedback. At this time however I'm not trying to get any specific help with the Oriental Cucumbers. I'm not trying to come across ungrateful and I do appreciate your help. The problem is I can't, I don't think provide much detail, or experience to anyone until I do some investigating myself :)

I moved here in Nov, 2008 so in 2009 I tried my first batch of cucumbers and it wasn't too sucessful. In 2010 I left for a month to New York and left them in the care of my neighbor and an automatic sprinkler.

Between those two attempts it's almost like I was only trying one time.

My thinking is I'll give it another shot this year. Monitor what I'm doing and what the conditions are like and if I *still* have problems then I have more specific information to provide and ask about. Correct me if I'm wrong. :)