Years ago I built a wooden box long and narrow to sit glass on and had a couple 60 watt bulbs mounted underneath to generate the heat. Had holes drilled on each side to keep it from overheating.

If your serious about wanting to start a lot of things each year, go ahead and buy the good stuff.

I have a thermostat that can be set from 40 - 100 degrees F. It has outlets on it for 4 propagation mats. I have three mats, but usually only use my two 20" by 60" mats. Keep them in my basement sitting on that 1" thick R4 new construction wall insulation.

I start seeds, root cuttings, and nurse unhappy roots on them.

randy

Ilene,

I have a small Hydrafarm seedling heat meat. It is 9" x 19.5", so it is perfect for one seed flat. I have found that it cuts germination time roughly in half for most vegetable seeds, and also gets those stubborn heat-loving pepper seeds to get with the program and germinate more quickly. I wish I had about four or five more mats, but am too frugral to spend the money for more.

IF I ever see a waterbed heater at a garage sale, I'm going to get it!

Is it worth the money to buy a heat mat? Probably....if you start a lot of seeds indoors like I do.
I put a flat of newly seeded peat pellets on the mat and leave it there for about a week. When that flat has been on the mat for about 4 or 5 days, I plant a second flat of peat pellets. That second flat will sit 2 or 3 days before it gets to go on the heat mat, but during that time the seeds are hopefully soaking up moisture and "thinking about" sprouting.

So, on day #8 from the date I started the first flat, flat #1 is off the mat and the seedlings are growing under lights. Flat #2 is on the mat for its first day. On Flat #2's 4th or 5th day on the mat, I start flat #3, and continue the cycle. I do this continually for a couple of months, until I get all my veggie, herb, and flower transplants up and growing.

All this staggered seed-starting probably works to my advantage. Since I start a LOT of seeds indoors in flats, I probably would be overwhelmed if they all got "big" at the same time and needed to be transplanted from their peat pellets to their little paper cups at the exact same time.

Other than setting a flat on top of a warm appliance like the top of a refrigerator or freezer, I can't think of any other way--other than seedling heat mats--to keep them warm enough to make a difference. If your warm air blows out of vents near the ceiling of your rooms, you might get a little heat gain if you put the seed flat on top of a bookshelf or other very tall piece of furniture. If you do this, though, they still need good light or they will stretch, get too leggy too fast and fall over.

In case you're interested in a heat mat, I've linked some for you.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Seed Starting Mat

Dawn, thanks for that link. I've looked around a bit on my own, as though the price of the mat itself is quite reasonable, that old nemesis, "Shipping", brings the price up quite a bit. Still, maybe I'll find some other things to buy there that might not cost additional shipping. I'll go back and check that out.

I noticed on some of the other mats that are offered (for instance, through Amazon.com) the mats are priced about the same, but they're also selling thermostats. Do I need to buy a thermostat, too? None of them say, "Thermostat required". The one on Neeps doesn't mention a thermostat, just a "power cord". So do you just plug it in and it gets as warm as it's supposed to, without a thermostat?

Ilene,

I just turn on the heat mat in the morning and turn it off at night. It is plugged into a power strip with the plant lights so they are "on" and "off" at the same time. I probably could leave it on 24/7 but I like the idea of a more natural "warm" day and "cool night" much like the seeds would experience in nature. Mine doesn't have an external thermostat that I can control although I guess it has some sort of mechanism inside that lets it warm up to a certain temperature and no hotter than that.

Someone like Randy who propagates all kinds of amazing stuff probably does need a thermostat to keep everything at the right temperature.

Dawn

ok, I'm going to order one. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I did not know you could order a heat mat made for seedlings, I just thought everyone used a heating pad! Silly me.

Thanks Dawn, and Randy, for the advice. I have been using a gooseneck floor lamp with a regular bulb in it, it provides heat from the top. Some seeds really liked that. But my pepper seeds were unimpressed. I've had to replant some of my pepper seed, it's germinating slowly. I finally saw my first California Wonder sprout today.

I'll probably get the heat mat too late to do anything with it this spring, but I'll be prepared for next year!

Ilene,

This time of year the gardening companies ship things pretty quickly so the heat mat ought to arrive in time to help!

Goodness gracious! Don't be afraid to admit anything here! I am sure we all could tell funny tales of things we didn't know or understand at one time or another. Is there ANYTHING else in the world that is as hard to figure out as gardening with its' ten thousand variables and an exception to every single "rule"? I didn't know seedling heat mats existed until I saw one in a Park Seed or Burpee Seed catalog long ago, and even then, I figured it was for a really serious hobby gardener and not me! Of course, now that I have one, I wonder how I ever lived without it. LOL

By the way, did you know that there are soil heating cables that you can run through your beds to heat up the ground???? NOT that I am saying we could or should use one in that manner, but it is possible! Frankly, I find it hard to imagine that a cable could help much when the rest of the soil is still cold and the air temps are cold too, but then, who knows? I didn't think a seedling heat mat was much of a "necessity" before I bought one! (grin)

Personally, I'll like for someone to errect a Bio-Dome over my main veggie garden so I can grow stuff all year round without worrying about hailstones, thunderstorms, tornadoes, derecho winds, late spring or early fall freezes, snowstorms, racoons or deer. Well, it'd be way cool, but it'll never happen!

Dawn

Yeah, I'd like a Bio-Dome too! Big enough to go over my 2 peach and 2 apple trees, please! I sure hope I'll be able to have fruit from those trees this year. Year before last, they were delicious, although it was a lot of work getting them into the freezer. We enjoyed frozen apple slices all winter. Most of the peaches went to jam, pie and other baked desserts.

Any time you have to do anything that involves Mother Nature, you'd best have all the tools you can gather, and do your homework! I feel like I still have much to learn.

Here's something I found out about yesterday, there is a new snow shovel that is easy on the back and heart. It was in Prevention magazine. It's called a 'wovel'. BTW, we got a lot of snow today. Wish I had one of those wovels.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wovel

Wow, Ilene, what an amazing invention!

I can see where one would come in very, very handy in an area with lots of snow.

How I envy y'all the snow! We got snow too, but the amount we got was so pitiful it would make you laugh! It was very fine particles, like freezing fog at first, so from inside the house it just looked a little foggy or smokey. Then, as it fell a little harder, you could actually look out the window and see that SOMETHING was falling. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing in the 30s and probably gusting into the 40s so it blew sideways and not much of it hit the ground. I think it mostly evaporated before hitting the ground and melted when it did hit, 'cause our air temp was 36 and our ground temp was in the low to mid 40s.

We don't get a lot of snow here in Love County. We will have a good, hard snow that actually covers the ground maybe once every three or four years. In a really, really wonderful year, we might have snow that covers the ground (maybe 2") twice in one year. This year all we've had has been tiny trace amounts that only register, literally, as a "trace" on the NWS reports. Since we've lived here, we've only had enough snow to make a snowman once, and that took ALL the snow in the yard around the house.

I really love snow, for an hour or two, and then I'm over it. The last good snow here in Love County that I can remember was in January '04 and it was a thunderstorm, which gave us thundersnow. That was the first time in my life I saw lightning and snow together.

We do get lots and lots of sleet, which causes so many traffic problems that it is not even funny.

Maybe your husband needs a Wovel for his next birthday or as a Christmas gift or even for Valentine's Day?? I know that if we lived in an area that got enough snow to shovel, my DH would love to have one of those Wovels. (He grew up in Pennsylvania, so he KNOWS all about shoveling snow and he'll be perfectly happy if he never has to shovel snow ever again.)

Dawn

We only get snow that sticks about once a year here, sometimes not then. Usually we have ice. The snow yesterday fell in big, fat, wet blobs yesterday. We got about 10" here. Not so much in Tulsa, 50 miles south of us. The trees were beautiful, like on a Christmas card. Perfect snow for snowmen. Usually it's a dry snow that won't hold together. Of course the wet snow's a problem, it sticks to the shovel, and is really heavy to lift. We needed the moisture. We barely escaped the worst of the ice storm a few weeks ago. DH had to to to Tulsa after it was over and he said it looked like a war zone. So sad. We were very lucky. But our phone developed static so loud we couldn't hear anything else and we had to wait ten days to get a repairman because they were so busy elsewhere.

I showed DH the website with the Wovel on it and all he said was, "Hmmm!" But this is the same man that opens Christmas presents dead-pan. I still, after forty years of marriage, can't get used to that. I took off work yesterday and today, they called off school so DGS is home too. I have to take vacation to have my time off. I have spondylolisthesis and was in bed with muscle spasms this time last year. I just cannot afford to slip and fall down.

We lived in northern Indiana for about 10 years. We had sandy soil and it rained often. It was perfect garden weather, not too hot. But the growing season was short. My dad (from OK), couldn't get over my garden when they came up for a visit. He would spend most of the day out there, sometimes with a salt shaker in hand, eating tomatoes! Right before Halloween, we'd get our first snow. It would snow on top of snow. Sometimes all the snow wouldn't be melted till May. I had the worst case of Cabin Fever you ever saw up there.

I had a few more peppers pop up during the night last night, but I still have 28 little pots with nothing up. I ordered the mat yesterday.

Ten inches of snow! I remember that we had 12" of snow in Fort Worth when I was about 5 years old (that's still their record snowfall) and about 6" or 7" when I was a junior or senior in high school. I love snow--but that's probably only because it is a novelty. If I had to live in an area with lots of snow and deal with it all the time, I probably wouldn't think it was so wonderful!

My DS went to Tulsa about a month ago and was astonished at the destruction wrought by the storm. I am glad it missed y'all.

Spondylolisthesis. I had to look that one up. It must make gardening very challenging at times.

Peppers seeds are just slow to sprout and grow. I have had some take 3 to 4 weeks to sprout. Some years I have soaked the seeds in water or weak compost tea for 24 hours before planting them. That seems to speed up germination a little, but not a lot. I bet the biggest single factor in the sprouting of pepper seeds is heat and not moisture 'cause they do pop up a lot faster if they're getting bottom heat. I'm glad you ordered the mat. I really think it will help.

It's February, Ilene! Somehow that makes spring seem a little closer! Well, closer, but not close enough. I wonder what the groundhog will see tomorrow?

Dawn

Thought I'd add my 2 cents about heating up seedlings. I start my seedlings on a glassed in porch that doubles as a greenhouse (kinda) in the winter. (I hold my tropicals; have 3 geraniums blooming right now.) Years ago I saw an ad for a soil heating cable in Park's or Burbee's i think. I had never seen a soil mat then. Well, my DH built a plant stand for me with a 2x4 ft top covered with plywood and bordered with 1x4's. The side legs of the thing extend 18" above the top of it and are connected with 1x2's. I bought some fine sand from somewhere and put 2" into the basin. Then I snaked the planting cables back and forth, pushing them down into the sand, hung two 4' flourescents over it and cut a piece of clear plastic sheeting to cover the whole thing. ANd that is where I start my seeds, starting with 200 sugar snap peas--I wish I had back all the seed of this plant I wasted by planting it directly in the ground. It will grow in cold soil, but not germinate well. It only needs 2 weeks from seeding to transplanting. Then I move on to starting 150 broccoli seedlings. I usually start a few tomatoes too and 2 0r 5 sixpacks of flowers, but it is mostly for starting the grandkids favorite veggies.

Dorothy,

What a wonderful set-up you have for starting seeds!

I hope to someday have a greenhouse, or to at least glass-in the screened-in porch and turn it into a sunroom so I have a larger area to start seeds and overwinter tropicals.

I, too, like to start everything I can inside in controlled conditions because it is frustrating to put seeds in the ground and get poor results.....and with our highly variable weather, sprouting stuff in the ground in late winter and early spring can be difficult.

Have a lovely day today!

Dawn

Here's how I made mine:
Order a heating cable that will heat the number of square feet that you want to put flats or whatever you use. I use plastic mushroom trays that hold 8 Oz. of mushrooms. Don't use the styrofoam ones, they insulate from the bottom heat too much. Decide on a width to fit under your lights. Cut a piece of plywood the width you want and long enough to equal the square footage your cable is rated to heat. Get a sheet of styrofoam about 3/4 inch thick. I forget exactly how thick mine is. Using a hacksaw blade held in your hand. (not in a holder) cut it to fit on top of your plywood. (Do this outside as it makes a mess) Glue it on with silicone in a few spots. (other glues won't hold or will dissolve it. Cut some strips 2 inches wide or so and glue them on edgewise to form a tray. Line it with aluminum foil shiney side up. Use silicone here too. Arrange your cable evenly spaced inside. Attach with silicone in spots. Use a cut off paper clip to hold it in place till the silicone sets. Put some clean sand over the cable to distribute the heat. I have two of these and they have worked great for 25 years. Even cool loving plants seem to benefit from this bottom heat. I grow "blue Butterfly" delphiniums and this year I got 90 seedlings from a 100 seed packet and up in only 10 days. I have had brocolli come up in only 2 days and tomatoes in 3.

You know, Pistol and Mulberry Knob, those are both excellent ideas! I wish I had the space to do that. We have some experience making styrofoam "boxes", as we built one to fit over the attic fan and one to fit over the attic stairs. Both have done wonders in keeping the cold/heat from affecting our living quarters. At the recycling center, they just HATE the stuff, cause they don't have a market for it, people bring it anyway, it fills up the dumpster really fast, and it blows all over.

Oh, Btw, Dawn, in answer to your previous question, I have not heard anything about Tomato Man other than that he's in very poor health. They have not updated their website with 2008 information yet. When I was there in April 2007, I did not see him, and his daughter mentioned that he was not well then, though she indicated he was at the kitchen table having breakfast. I don't know if his daughter is going to continue or not.

Dawn, I have a neighbor who has a screened in porch with a 3 ft solid wall under the screened area. Every year she staples heavy plastic sheeting over the screened area and over the screen door. Not very pretty, but she overwinters her tropicals there by plugging in a small electric heater. Would that work for you? Dorothy

Dorothy,

Actually my DH made portable "windows" of 6mm heavy-duty plastic stapled over wooden frames that he puts over the screened area every winter, and the screen door is a storm door with glass. So, we do keep some of the cold air out of the back porch. We probably could warm it up with a space heater, but dogs and cats sleep there and I am afraid they might knock over the heater, or knock something onto it or whatever.

Since DH is the chief of our local volunteer fire dept., and son is a professional (and volunteer) firefighter, we are VERY fire-conscious and ultra-careful. I thought it was just us....being a little paranoid, but then....one day we were at the home of dear friends. He is a retired firefighter with 30-something years of service. She told me that they keep a hammer in the bedroom so they can break out the double-paned window glass to escape in case of fire. SO, I thought to myself (laughing), it's not just us! LOL

It probably would work for us, but our overly-cautious approach to fire prevention means it probably won't happen!

After you've fought a few housefires and seen the devastated families...you tend to go overboard on being super, super cautious.

Dawn

Hey has anyone ever tried an old electric blanket- maybe doubled up? or I guess you could even wrap it around the flat until the seeds were about to sprout. Ok just an idea after reading the forum. I can see Dawn writing me a fire safety citation right now...but then again it can't be any hotter than a heating pad right?

Backyardmomma,

Go ahead and use an electric blanket if you think it would warm up the bottom of the seed-starting container a good 8 or 10 degrees. I promise....no fire citations!

For what it is worth, we have never been to a fire started by an electic blanket! : )

Dawn

Backyardmomma, that's what I tried first! But I could never feel any warmth coming from it. I tried all 3 blankets that I had, turned the thermostat all the way up, the little button lit up, but none of them warmed up under the trays. I felt warmth in some parts of the blanket, but not where it mattered. What's up with that? DH said maybe it was another "safety feature", but I couldn't figure how the blanket could've been engineered to know that was plants on it and not a person.

I'm 61, and they just don't make things like they used to. Oh, Dawn, I know, maybe there are less fires now.

DGS, the one that lives with his mom, not the one that lives with me, set his room on fire last summer. He left a box fan running, apparently sitting on top of his bedside stand. After he went off to school, one of the cats or dogs must've knocked it over onto the bed. Set his bed on fire first, then spread to the rest of his room. Burned up his brand new sneakers and most of his clothes (of course they were probably all scattered around on his floor). Luckily, his mom was home and smelled the smoke. All their possessions smelled of smoke and of course the house was not fit to live in and they had to move. They are renters so it was just their personal effects. I sure hope their landlord had insurance. DGH learned a valuable lesson. I thought it was kind of like Karma. He's usually pretty careless and could have set his room on fire when he lived with us except we caught that he had opened the box on his ceiling fan and taped two wires together with masking tape, before anything awful happened. Gee-min-eee, these teenagers! --Ilene

Ilene,

I think maybe that some electric blankets won't heat up if the sense something is "on top" of them instead of "beneath them". I THINK I read somewhere that it's a safety feature. (There's so many safety features any more that nothing works like it used to.)

I'm glad DGS and his mom, and presumably the pets too, were OK. Fires CAN happen in very bizarre ways, and you can become paranoid about everything (at least, I can) after seeing a few fires caused by odd things.

And I agree that they don't make things like they used to. I remember when you turned on an electric blanet and it got REALLY WARM and it stayed that way all night. Now they don't seem to get as warm as they used to, and they shut off automatically, etc., etc., etc. And, Ilene, I wonder why someone doesn't make an electic blanket for the garden.....you know, an all-weather one to keep plants warm on enexpectedly frigid nights?

Dawn

Dawn, that's a whale of an idea you have there. You might make some money on it! --Ilene