Bottom watering. All my starts sit in plastic flats and I simply put water in the flats and let them suck up what they need while I do other things. The starts I have in soil blocks (rather than cell packs) are misted with a fogging nozzle.

I use a dishwashing liquid bottle, which gives more a dribbling/squirting action. I do some bottom watering when the seedlings are indoors, but veer toward keeping them a wee bit dry until hardening off begins 7+ days before transplanting. Then they are spending lots of time outdoors and I do daily bottom watering and occasional dunking of larger seedlings growing in individual pots.

I've never watered from the bottom, but I will use a mister to water until it drains from the bottom. Outside, a fogging nozzle is a necessity.

I bottom water same way mackey does. Unless I get one of those 4 packs and one cell keeps drying out and the others are still soggy, then I will gently top water the single cell. But the key is figuring out when they need it, without going over long and letting them wilt. I judge that by weight.

A simple spray bottle works wonders.

Joe

When I water from the top, I use a liter water bottle with a pop up thingy - similar to using a dish detergent bottle. Very easy to control how much water comes out.

I mix up diluted fertilizer in a big two gallon container and then use it to refill the bottle.

Excellent suggestions, all. Much appreciated. I've never had good luck with bottom watering... I can't seem to keep the moisture level consistent. Mostly, I overwater using that method. How do you control moisture uptake? Add water in smaller quantities until it stops being soaked upward? I always end up with a pool of water and soggy seedlings.

I have hundreds of seedlings to care for

Then set up an over-head misting system as are used in nursery greenhouses. Sure you'll lose some plants to the problems caused by top watering but the majority will do fine if you have well draining growing mix, good air circulation in the area, and you don't overdo it with the watering.

I have hundreds of seedlings to care for too but i also have some help now and then so I don't find bottom watering to be all that much of a chore. Containers are all lined up in flats, use the hose to put an inch or two of water in each flat down the rows, by the time you have the last flat filled its time to go back and check the first ones and start dumping out what's left in any of the trays.

Dave

Just let them soak it up until the top soil begins to show moist then dump the leftover like Dave does. On a smaller scale I have many small flats and 4 packs and only a couple of traysfor watering, so I just fill the trays with water and move things in and out. Takes a minute for soil that's just ready to soak, about 5-10 for soil that's gone too far towards dry. If you're overwatering with bottom watering then either you aren't getting rid of the excess once soil is moist or you're probably watering too soon. Cheers!

Ditto sunnibel and Dave.

"If you're overwatering with bottom watering then either you aren't getting rid of the excess once soil is moist or you're probably watering too soon."

I thought it was a given that people emptied the trays or moved the plants out when the soil soaked up what it needed. My apologies for not stating such when I posted above.

I'm handling a few hundred seedlings here, too. I even bottom water when they're out in the cold frames because the canopy of leaves mostly covers the pots by then, causing the water to shed off to the ground.

The younger stuff that's outside (for example, my pole beans are kicked outside as soon as they break the soil) gets fogged with the fogging nozzle on the garden hose because there's enough exposed soil to target and they're in soil blocks, which can't be bottom watered.

When I do seedlings by the hundred or thousand, i still top-water I find lifting the trays out of the water too cumbersome, and hard to do safely with trailing varieties.

I keep the water in a bucket or wide topped jug, and scoop it out with a one-cup yogurt container. The keeps me from having too much water at once, with too much force behind it.

I dribble the water an inch or so away from any seedlings, and watch it wick to where their stems come out. This is to make sure I do not bruise their stems or disturb the soil around their roots.

It works for me because I like to check on each seedling, or each tray, while watering. I look for aphids or snails, see if they are germinating on time, and just generally coo over them.

It's funny to me that lifting a flat out of a tray is more cumbersome than dribbling water on each and every plant. :)

I bottom water seedlings until about the 2nd set of true leaves. I find the time it takes from beginning to finish to be too much. I do it inside and it's sort of a pita. The tray with the slots in the bottom that hold 32 square containers is easy enough to dunk into a tray with water but pulling it out isn't so pleasant. Always still holding alot of water even after setting it a draining tray. I look forward to having the trays temporarily outside or in the coldframes so I can just use the watering can.

@sunnibel: Inorite?! It probably depends on type of tray, legginess or trailingness of seedlings, workspace... all kinds of stuff :).

It never occurred to me to pour off the excess water... now that you've all mentioned it, it seems like a no-brainer! It might be worth adding that tidbit to the faq's in the growing from seed forum for other idiots like me... Again, thanks for some great information everyone.

Lol live and learn!

It never occurred to me to pour off the excess water... now that you've all mentioned it, it seems like a no-brainer! It might be worth adding that tidbit to the faq's in the growing from seed forum for other idiots like me... Again, thanks for some great information everyone.