What I am doing differently is that I have shelves that are 4 feet wide this year. Previously I had a 3 foot shelf and so many trays that I always had a table pushed up against the end so I could fit more trays under the end of the lights that stuck out beyond the shelf.

When I first started growing from seed in this house, I had them on the dining room table and struggled to keep the light at the right height and protect the table from water. I had a kitchen table, so we could still eat. LOL After that, I moved to the bunkhouse.

One year we let a friend stay in the bunk house, and he continued to stay during the spring months so I had my operation in my sewing room. It was OK because it had a ceiling fan like the dining room for that "wind" factor, but it made my sewing room too crowded to do anything else.
For the last few years, I have grown in the bunkhouse, and it works great.

The bunkhouse is a small building and is extremely well insulated. In winter, I only heat it enough to keep the pipes from freezing and that is very little heat. The pipes come from underground on a protected side of the building and enter into a heater closet. The water heater is gas, so that alone is enough to keep the closet warm except on the coldest nights. The pipes then go through an inside wall which has a little gas wall heater near by which I use if the temp is extremely low. Unless someone is sleeping out there, I don't use more heat than that.

I plant my seeds in soil blocks which are 3/4 x 3/4 inch. I plant one seed to a block. My blockmaker makes 20 tiny blocks and I separate the blocks into rows of five for tomato and pepper seeds. I use a popsicle stick to push the row onto a piece of aluminum foil and write the name of the variety on the stick which I then leave with those blocks. A few types I may plant 10 of but most things I only plant five seeds. I do this knowing that I will probably only keep two for myself, and give any others away. I hate to cut off a plant that has sprouted so I avoid that by only planting one to a block. Once it is a healthy sprout, I move it to a cup. I have a lot of small containers that fit into trays and make it easy to handle while they are under lights. This is the hardest job of the entire operation because now that they are going into cups or pots, each one has to have a marker which follows it up as I re-pot and plant. I use pieces of a mini blind, but I already know which ones have germinated and grown, so I didn't make extra ones.

I may keep the first few trays closer to the heat source until they germinate, but after that, the lights are on and the light fixture puts out enough heat that I use the shelf above it for germinating future plants. It provides light below for seedlings, and heat above for germinating. I control the heat by trapping it using a mylar camp blanket which is about $3 in the camping dept. It doesn't burn, and will last many years for this purpose. Once they germinate, the dome comes off and they get moved to another shelf under lights. And as for lights, I almost rub their noses in it. I keep it as close as possible without touching the plant, so this requires some shifting around. If it grows slowly, it may get moved to a tray with younger plants or other slow growers so that they are all close to the same height in each tray because they need the lights close. I have a large fan which I turn on some of the time so the plants get a little movement. It's not as good as the ceiling fan was where I could put it on the lowest setting and just leave it on, but this works OK.

The plants grow totally under lights until the weather changes and the days are warm and sunny. At that point, hopefully some of the plants can begin to stay out full time, but the tomatoes will do a lot of traveling. I have two small wagons and once the weather is warm enough, the flats get moved to the wagons and pulled outside each day and back inside for the night. If day temps are not good enough for them to be outside, then they have to go back under lights.

Somewhere down the line, I hope to have some cold frames and maybe a greenhouse or hoophouse. I will probably still start things the same way, but some of the moving in and out could be elimated since they could stay out much sooner. My DH has offered me a small commercial greenhouse several times, but I have declined because I want a bigger one. I can't afford what I want right now, nor do I want another project going on, so I will be following my usual growing plan again this year.

I always hope that the days are good enough for the tomatoes to be outside because by this time I have lots of peppers under lights that still can't go outside. I hope nights are staying above freezing so some of the cool season crops don't have to come in at night. A week of bad weather can make you feel like a juggler.

I normally start tomato and pepper plants in mid February, but I am VERY far north of most of you. Last year I planted in the ground before some of you did because many of you had a late cold spell which I didn't have. I didn't have to cover for cold weather at all but I did cover a few times when they thought it was going to hail. I use two thin plastic flower pots for this. I place them together so that the hole from each one is covered by the other pot then I put a brick on top. Several plants wore that top hat for a few nights, but the hail didn't come. I had to rush out the next morning and uncover them before they cooked in the sun. I usually keep a stack of flower pots at the edge of the garden for those early weeks in the event I need to do a quick cover-up job. I also have floating row covers, but the cats think that is a game when it starts blowing a little.

When it is finally warm forever, you can put the peppers in the ground. At this point, I usually stop the light set-up, but I may grow a few more things inside this year, just so I have them ready to tuck into the garden here and there. I also have lots of flower pots so I can have things waiting in pots until real estate is available in the garden.

Carol,
"I had a kitchen table, so we could still eat. LOL After that, I moved to the bunkhouse." Sounds like your husband doesn't like the mess, either. Or maybe you moved your SETUP to the bunkhouse. LOL

I'm just itching to start, but it's just way to early. I'm satisfying my need by starting cool weather crops, but going through my stash for the swap has me in a truly miserable state. I want to eat it all now!!!

I have the best luck winter sowing my tomato seeds. I start them March 1, 6 weeks before last frost date. So, I guess you could say they get the "cold treatment", Seedmama! :o)

I have never started them indoors yet, and it works great for me. Also, I don't have to worry about hardening them off. I'm a terrible "hardener off-er".

I do intend to get a shelf unit and lights for other seeds, but I have too many to start all indoors. Were it not for wintersowing, I wouldn't be able to grow very many at all. The indoor set up will be for my Tropical Milkweeds, including Asclepias curassavica, A. physocarpa, and Calotropis gigantea. I may also start my eggplant and squashes indoors, too. We'll see. I always end up changing my mind along the yellow brick road.

Susan

Susan

When you talk about winter sowing on tomatoes, are you talking about starting from seed outside in a covered container?

Charlie

Charlie,
It is true you can Winter Sow tomatoes. Trudi at Wintersown.org encourages it, and in fact there is a tomato seeds for postage offer on her website. I'll provide the link.

I have WS tomatoes and thoroughly endorse the method because of the healthy plants it produces. However, in Oklahoma we turn hot so quickly that often WS plants don't have time to produce before the heat shuts down production. The healthy plants sit tight all summer and produce nicely when the temperatures start to drop. Therefore I also start them indoors, every year swearing that it just is too much trouble and I'm not going to do it again. But when my indoor seedlings produce so much earlier than my WS ones, I eat my words. The difference in production time is not as distinct in other parts of the country, where it doesn't get hot so quickly. So I continue to encourage people to try WS tomatoes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Your Choice tomato SASE

I have no idea what, if anything, I'll do differently this year because I don't plan that far ahead. Also, any plans I do make are subject to change depending on the weather.

If it is a "good fire year", i.e., not many winter/spring wildfires, my time is my own and I can devote a lot of time to raising seedlings. In a year like that, I start them indoors, usually by pre-sprouting in damp coffee filters in ziplock bags and seeding them into flats first. Once in flats, they are inside on the light shelf in the guest room until the plants are an inch or two tall and then I start carrying them outdoors to a sheltered area either on the back porch or the patio. That's when they get their cold treatment.

If it is a "bad fire year" with lots of grassfires or wildfires, my time is not my own and the seedlings don't get much attention. I start them the same way but find it harder to carry them outside in the morning and inside at night because I'm often not around. It can be hard to harden them off on a schedule since maintaining a schedule in a bad wildfire year is very difficult. I tend to lose more seedlings during the hardening-off process in a year like that because I can't always make it back home from a fire at the proper time to move the seedlings inside after they've had the right amount of sunlight, or because the same strong winds that push wildfires hard, making them difficult to control, will beat my young seedlings to death before I can make it back to the house.

My young plants do get cold treatment most years but it can be a hit-or-miss process depending on whether it is a good year or a bad year.

I always start me seedlings on Super Bowl Sunday and that's the easy part. The harder part is getting the weather to cooperate when it is time to transplant them into the ground. Even though our average last frost date here in our county is March 27th, the last 4 or 5 years we've had late freezes/frosts as late as the first week in May. I try to get around those by wrapping the tomato cages in plastic or covering the plants with one of the heavier weights of floating row covers.

I don't WS tomatoes because I want maximum (and early) production. It is always such a race to beat the heat here in southern OK in order to get good fruit set. I normally harvest the first ripe tomatoes from container-grown plants (purchased and trsnsplanted into containers in mid-February) in mid- to late-April and from my own homegrown plants in the last week of May. I could not get such an early tomato harvest from wintersown seeds.

In a fairly average year, our temps here in Love County begin exceeding the proper range for good fruit set about the third week in June. However, in a hot spring, they may start hitting those high temps in late May so getting fruitset before that is imperative. It would drive me crazy to have tomato plants that just sat there all summer and didn't produce well until fall so I do everything I can to beat the heat.

Tim and I are hoping to build a hoop house in January so I'll have a place to harden off seedlings in a location that is more sheltered than the patio. Like all the projects on our "To Do" list, though, the building of the hoop house will take a backseat to VFD business, so who knows if we'll get it built in time to use it this year.

Dawn

OK, now this talk is getting me in the gardening mood.

Dawn, I didn't realize you were about two months ahead of us in planting times.

I do seeds by planting directly in flats....under my 12-trat light stand on the back porch which stays cooler than the rest of the house. I use the top of the 4-light fixture for bottom warmth to get them up. For coolest growing I place them beneath the bottom fixture which is very near the tiled concrete floor and it almost gives off a cold draft! You do not want to walk on it barefoot in winter.

I need to buy a large bag of seed starting mix very soon.

I knew if I visited here again, you gardeners would get my adrenaline flowing and you have.

Seedmama, once again, we are living parallel lives.

In this new location, I have none of my old set-up and am starting from scratch. Due to this and limited space in the main portion of the house, I'm going to build some light shelves in the basement. I'll sprout everything in coffee filters for the very reasons you mentioned (I usually prefer doing it in seed starting mix & cells just because it's fun) then move the ones that make it to pots/cups. My light table in the basement will be nice & cool. I'll have to set up a fan for air movement (there's only one outlet in the entire basement right now!). There's no water down there and the basement access is from outside so watering will be an adventure -- only water sources are inside the house and one outdoor spiget on the side of house opposite the basement stairs. The table has two shelves, 9-10 feet long and 3-ish feet deep but not sure how many shop lights our budget will allow by then. (This whole starting from scratch thing is rough on the checkbook.)

Then there's the fun of walking the plants up and down the stairs to get them outside once it warms up....

Diane

Glenda, I am so far south I'm surrounded on 3 sides by Texas, so I can plant way, way earlier than almost everyone else.

Just give us all a pretty day or two in Dec. or Jan. and we're all chomping at the bit to start planting something...anything.....anything at all.

I found the first blooming winter wildflower in my yard yesterday! Yippee! The first bloom is always a good sign and some years I don't see a winter wildflower in bloom until January. It was a Spring Beauty (which is Claytonia, and I think it is Claytonia virginica) and it is very tiny and very low to the ground. It is just silly how happy I was to see that one tiny flower. Was I surprised to see it? Not really. Every week in December we've had a day or two that has hit the 70s and even the 80s, and that heat wakes up the flowers. I even have two new blooms today on a container-grown cherry tomato that is sitting on the patio by the garage. I thumped those little flowers mercilessly to ensure they'd set fruit. It is ridiculous how happy I am to eat a paltry 3 or 4 or 5 homegrown cherry tomatoes every week. I'm starting to think the 2010 harvest may last well into 2011 as the cherry tomato plant has a couple dozen fruit on it right now.

Dawn

Diane, I can't help you with packing flats up and down but for water you might be able to set up a syphon system out of a 5 gal. bucket or bigger container and a section of garden hose with a cutoff at the basement end. As long as the hose isn't allowed to run dry, I think the gravity would force the syphon when you open the cutoff each time. Larry might have more info on how to use a syphon system.

Keith

I might approch the problem a little differently. With all the "slave Labor" she has I would try to talk one of them into setting me up a 55 gal. drum or a 33 gal. garbage can in the basement and filling it with water from the garden hose. I use a 2 LTR. pop bottle with a small hose through the lid, but I never have more than a couple DOZ. plants and they are close to a water source. Once the plants are large enough to go outside I just use a 2 Gal. water sprinkle can.

If Diane wanted a gravity feed system I bet she could talk DH into building a rack to set the drum on and hook a faucet in the smaller bung hole. Then small line could be hooked to that. The size hose I use is 5/16 ID., its soft much like surgical tubing so that I can pinch it shut to keep water from running on the carpet.

Larry

Thanks for the watering ideas! I'm just going to have to carry 5-gallon buckets up and down and then use a watering can. I don't mind the watering can part, it's just the bucket carrying. The water spigot is on the exact opposite side of the house as the basement access and a hose won't reach (unless we buy a lot more). Anyway, not a big deal, just something else for me to bellyache about. If I don't have anything to complain about, I'd have to find a new hobby!

What I wanted to add to my above rambling-out-loud is my herb garden. Hubby now works for a wheel manufacturer. BIG wheels. The rejects get thrown in the scrap pile and he occasionally gets to bring some home. They're round, steel, and perfect for individual herb beds! Each one he cuts in half so they're not too high so I get two beds for each one he brings home. I'll be planting herbs, strawberries, asparagus, etc in them. Very similar to my tire garden I started with in OK but, this time, it's metal wheels instead of the nasty rubber tires. No leaching and it'll look much nicer.

After weeks of below-freezing temps, we've had two days in the 50s! Of course, the snow has now melted and it rained so the entire yard is soup but it is nice anyway. Except it's making my gardening fever even worse!

Diane

Diane, I love your Zone description in your personal info! ;)

Did you wish you were back in OK for those nice warm days?

I'm trying to remember which early tomatoes (seeds) I purchased. I recall Earlibell for one. Hahms Gelbe Toftomate, Mountain Princess, and Sophie's Choice. Maybe I should get a couple more earlies.

Dawn, how cool! The first wildflower for the season? That is just too cool!!! Pretty much everything is brown and dried up in the yard, except for my perennial Salvias 'Cherry Queen' and 'Hot Lips'. They're still looking defiant.

I've got to start getting containers ready and then get over to Horn's to get some potting soil, so I can start with the wintersowing. I did grab a waxed fruit box at Homeland the day before yesterday. Great for wintersowing!

Susan

Susan,

The first wildflower was cool. The second one appeared today and it was a pretty yellow dandelion. It is nice to have a couple of blooms in December.

Dawn

Dawn, Did you run right out and pick Tim a salad?

I thought about it, but this dandelion only had a very tiny rosette of leaves hugging the ground. The flower itself wasn't a half-inch above the ground. It would have been a very tiny salad. I think the 80 degree days we had last week and this week made the poor thing bloom way too early. I bet it is frozen this morning!

Susan, my stupid zone info is driving me nuts! I've tried changing it several times to fix it but it doesn't take. It messed up by itself in the first place. I've noticed a few others whose zone info has gone wacky as well so at least I know it's not just me. LOL

Oh, and Sophie's Choice is a nice one! We grew it a couple of years and enjoyed it.

Diane

I'm late to this thread, but it's beginning to look like I will be starting my plants as I have for many years on the warm bench on the glassed porch. I had hoped to start in the greenhouse this year, but its taking longer than I thought to get it built. DH can't take cold as well as he used to, so we are working on it during sunny still days above 40 F.

I start in midFeb planting peas in peat pots or paper bathroom cups and tomatoes, peppers, broccoli in 6 or 9 packs. I plant 2 seeds to a cell to save space on the bench and prick out and replant one of each when they're a couple inches tall. I germinate everything on a warm bench which I can cover with plastic on very cold nights. Then move to a table in front of the windows after they get large enough and need to be cooler. I only heat the porch to 45-50 F. I set a folding table in the front yard when it comes time to harden off and carry flats in and out. (The dogs and squirrels are too curious to set them on the ground. Ask me how I know that.)

I plant out the tomatoes in midApril and cover with five gallon buckets or flower pots if a late frost threatens.

Next year when the greenhouse/storage shed is done, I will have a greenhouse within a greenhouse, an 8x8 ft section that will be heated while the rest will be solar and compost heated only. One of my goals for this building will be fresh cold hardy veggies all winter. I have an old meat cooler from a deli that I will use as a germination chamber by putting a heat lamp under the shelves, then will take them out and put them on shelves in the cool part of the greenhouse.

MK - I used to put mine on benches and tables outside, but we just get too much wind and I always end up moving them if it's an extremely windy day. We get a lot of those here. All that moving finally made me start putting them on the ground in flats or some kind of box to stabilize them. I don't generally have too many animals in the yard that bother them, so that work's best for me. I still end up having to move them underneath the big, squat pine tree whenever we are expecting a deluge, so they don't get drowned or pummeled. I did this last year several times, and it was getting pretty annoying. But, I'm glad I did it on the day we got the really bad hail storm. It saved so many of my plants, and my tomatos that were already planted into their big containers. Even then, I still had lots of hail stones in my containers, the smaller pots, too.

Do you use a heat cable for bottom heat? I don't have one, and they are so expensive. I usually put them on top of the icebox or just out under the flourescents which provide some heat, too.

Susan

Susan, yes, I have a soil heating cable buried in sand on my bench. It is made with wooden sides to hold the sand in. They are expensive, but last a long time. Mine is over 20 years old and still works. Of course, I only use it for a few weeks each spring.

If you are looking for inexpensive bottom heat, take a look at the blog called Seventh Street Cottage. Tom, known on GW as token28001 links to a lot of innovative ideas. On the left side of the page look for "rope light bottom heat for seed starting and propagation."

Here is a link that might be useful: Seventh Street Cottage

Seedmama - I was very impressed with several of the things token has built, but especially that one. I may still have to make one of those.

Like Mulberryknob...I'm late to this thread too. But it has given me several ideas! Seedmama....now what about the WS of tomatoes? Would that be a viable option for more harvest since they produce later??? Hmmm...gonna have to carefully consider this option. Late June or early July always show space in the garden for something else to replace some crop that's not doing so good.

And Diane- the guys already jumped on the watering situation. And I had the same thought...although I was wondering if it would be a feasible option to put a rain barrel down in the basement with some kind of drainage system? Maybe Steve could bring home a barrel of some kind that you could use? I know that the rainbarrels we have on both the front & back decks insure that whatever is planted on those got a good drink more often simply because of easy access. Hmmm....we need to think on this.

Ok you guys....I'm back in the swing of things. Spent a chunk of time today going over my seed-stash and browsing the seed catalogs. Don't think I have enuf to participate in the Seed Swap...(unless anyone want purple hull peas? I saved way more than I'll need)....but I'm already thinking of the Spring Fling...and what I can grow to share. Yes...you read this right...I'm still in. Anyone coming? LOL! We'll visit this subject later on another thread.

Paula

Paula, Mine are on backorder, so if they don't come I may need a few at the swap.

Paula, Good to see you around. Yes, I'd like to grow purple hull peas, if only to experiment with the jelly!

Winter Sowing is a viable option for starting your fall tomatoes. You'll be pleased with how healthy they are without the hassles of lights and hardening off.

I ate a sample bag of Chile Lime popcorn yesterday and thought of you. How's the Jalapeno popcorn?

Jalapeno popcorn?!? ....do tell and spare NO details.

Carson's Mimi,
Last Frontier Council (Boy and Cub Scouts) changed popcorn companies this year. The new company offered a combo pack that included Jalapeno flavor and Chile Lime. P-mac graciously purchased some from my Cub Scout. The jalapeno has that nutty jalapeno undertone along with the heat. Chile lime carries a citrus fragrance when popped and has a nice hot bite. The popcorn sale was over in October and we have none left. However, I've heard some of the less industrious packs (just a little fun rivalry there) may still have some. If you like, I'll check for you. There you have it. Without a box to quote nutritional information, that's about all the detail I can come up with.

If anyone is interested, Walmart has the 5' Christmas tree strings of bulbs for .37 per string (20 bulbs 9.6 watts). I bought 5. I have heating cable and heating tape both, but they are too large for my needs now.

This is a much cheaper route than the Flexwatt tape I was getting ready to rig up, safer too.

This relates to the link above "Seventh Street Cottage"

Larry

I thought token used rope lights, but maybe he has built one since I looked. The rope light puts out quite a lot of heat.

I think he did but the only rope I could find was too long.

I live in a small town and dont have a lot to choose from.

I will run everything through a ground fault and run an extra ground wire. I plan on using my metal starting trays for better heat transfer. I will attach the light string directly to the bottom of the tray. I will use a light dimmer switch to adjust current (heat) if needed. There is already a very low amp fuse in the light circuit.

I would expect a person could run the lights back and forth under the regular racks but it would require more heat. I do my seed starting in the bathroom so I dont have a lot of space.

Larry

Larry,

Your statement "I do my seed starting in the bathroom so I don't have a lot of space" made me laugh because it sounds like something I'd do.

I do my seed-starting in the guest bedroom, so I don't have a lot of guests during seedstarting time. As far as I'm concerned, that's not a problem. Who needs houseguests when you can have a whole room devoted to seedstarting?

Dawn

Dawn, I got tossed a curve this afternoon. I went out to the shed to bring in some supplies to build my small seed starting station in the bathroom.

I have three metal starting trays, two aluminum (Large turkey roster) and one stainless steel (large buffet pan).
I had planed on using the stainless steel pan because It was it was about two times the size as the others and designed just right. I cleaned that pan up till it shined like a new dollar. When DW saw it in the bathroom she wanted it, and gave me a small, stained metal cake pan for it. Well that put me back to square one on the station design.

I attached 19 small bulbs to the much smaller metal cake pan and it is holding about 10 degrees above ambient using about 9 watts. I still have some tweaking to do but I think the 37 cent heat mat might work after all, but I sure wont be starting a lot of seeds at a time.

Larry

Larry, If you have an Atwoods near you, you can usually find starting trays and dome covers very cheaply. They are not as strong as the ones I bought from Johnny's years ago, but they will last a few years if you are careful. I need to order some more tough ones, but instead I just keep picking up a few of Atwoods every year. When I have a greenhouse I will stock it right. LOL

Thanks soonergrandmom, Atwoods is about 18 miles away. I saw some at Walmart yesterday but I was afraid I would break them before I got them to the truck.

Larry