I have used warming mats for last two springs for tomatoes and peppers really like them. I use a cool utility room 50 to 65 degrees, growing lights , and warming pad with good results. and I am old at gardening new at starting transplants

It helps to have the proper temperature. Sometimes a mat can speed sprouting and the seedlings don't vary as much in size, which lets me get the lights down closer to them.

Definitely for peppers ! Peppers are a pain for me. I don't have central h/a. Tomatoes don't mind atop the frig, but peppers are just a pain!

Well then, I'm gonna order a couple mats from Amazon. Does anyone have recommendations ? Do I need a thermostat ? Or do I just plug them in ?

some people use the heating pads you get for human use

Will you get faster germination? Yes, with some things like peppers, and maybe others though it is peppers that respond best to the added warmth. Will you get better germination? Maybe or maybe not. Germination requires a combination of conditions---moisture, warmth (or coolness---many cool season crops don't need additional heat from a germination heat mat if being germinated indoors at normal room temperature), humidity, darkness (if needed) or light (if needed) and varies from one type of seed to another. Germination rates also depend on how fresh the seed and how much viability remains.

One thing to understand about seed germination nis that there are individual minimum germination standards established by the goverionment for each type of seed and those germination standards are not necessarily high. You might get only 50% or 70% germination rates with some fresh vegetable seeds, and those rates would meet the minimum germination standard established by the government. (Often, especially with tomatoes and peppers, I get 100% germination, but you cannot expect that with all types of veggie seeds.) So, don't set yourself up for disappointment by expecting 90-100% germination with every single type of seed you sow because that is not a realistic expectation. Sow more seeds than you need and if they all sprout and survive, you'll have extra plants to swap with friends or to give away.

I have had a germination heat mat for about 10 or 12 years. I used it for 3 or 4 years before I figured out that I really didn't need it. I haven't used it in so long that I don't even know where it is, though I think I found it in a closet in one of the spare bedrooms a couple of years ago and just left it there...or somewhere.

There could be times when a germination heat mat and a thermostat would be useful. For example, if you're trying to germinate the seeds of some perennials, shrubs, vines or trees that have very complex cold/hot scarification temperatures where they need specific temperatures for a week or two (or a month) followed by a different specific temperature for a while. When a seed needs really specific temperatures like that, a thermostat is the only way to ensure you are getting the mat to heat to the right temperature, but I don't have a thermostat and don't need one. Anything I grow from seed that has such specific germination needs just gets wintersowed to meet its cold scarification needs and then I put it in the greenhouse or in a sunny window to meet its warmer temperature needs, and there's only a handful of perennials I've grown from seed that had such precise scarification needs.

Some people use a human heating pad, but be careful not to get water on it, and some people use a water bed heater which they held on to after getting rid of their water bed. Others have success setting flats of seeds on top of an appliance that provides a little heat---like the top of some water heaters, clothes dryers, deep freezes or refrigerators. Most people, though, as long as they are not using a cold room kept cooler than average indoor temperatures, don't really need a heat germination mat for success with seed germination.

My experience with people who are having trouble getting seeds to germinate is that it is not a lack of heat that is causing poor germination, but rather they aren't using a sterile seed-starting medium, or they're keeping it too wet and the seeds rot instead of sprouting, or they keep it too dry, or sow the seeds too deeply. A heat mat is nice if you chose to use it but is not in any way essential at all. I germination hundreds of seeds every year in our spare bedroom without even using the mat I have.

In the overall scheme of things, the money I spent on the heat mat is money I could have held on to and used for other things that I would have needed and used more consistently.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

I had a low germination rate last year, but apparently, that could've had more to do with seed than anything else. I was using seed ordered from Johnny's , the year before. Probably a better use of the money, would be buying fresh seed.

I set my trays in a south facing bay window, they are right on the window sill, up next to the glass. I was thinking that the room was most likely a bit cooler right next to the big window. I've not become scientific and measured temps, however, just guessing.

Tomato seed ought to hold its viability for several years. I see very little difference in germination rate from any tomato seeds that are 5 years old or less. After they are 5 years old or so, germination starts dropping but I've still had decent germination rates from seed that is up to about 10 years old. Johnny's is usually high quality seed but anything can happen.

They might get a little cold up there near the glass in that bay window. There's no denying that.

My seed-starting room gets so much sunlight that it gets almost too hot, so I have to close off the HVAC vent and often I even open a windowa few inches for ventilation. I also keep the ceiling fan going all the time.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. You often can get great germination rates by soaking the seeds in water for a few hours. Then wrap up the seeds gently in a moistened paper towel or piece of coffee filter (the seeds may stick to the paper towel but generally don't stick to the coffee filter) and put them in a ziplock bag labeled with the variety name. Put in a warm but not hot area out of direct sunlight. (Direct sunlight or too much heat could lead to mold.) Gently unfold the paper towel/coffee filter every morning and every night to see if the seeds have begun sprouting. As soon as you see them starting to sprout, gently remove the sprouting seeds and put them in your seed-starting medium in a container. Pat down the growing medium gently and water lightly. Your pre-germinated seeds shojld pop up out of the soil-less growing medium in just a couple of days. You can get amazing germination rates more quickly with this baggie method than with seeds sown directly in a sterile, soil-less medium. I think the soaking is the key as it ensures the seeds get enough moisture to sprout. The moist paper towel or coffee filter maintains the moisture level and the baggie keeps it all from drying out. If I get behind schedule and want to hurry up the seed germination process, I sometimes use this baggie method to sprout seeds quickly and get myself bck on schedule.

You also can use the baggie method to easily sprout seeds that have complicated cold/warm scarification needs that must be met, which happens often with some perennials, vines, shrubs or trees. Some of them need to be cold for a certain period of time, and then warm for a certain period of time, and at very specific temperatures. So, using the baggie method, you can stick the baggies of seeds in the fridge (I use a little dorm fridge left over from our son's college years so I can set the temperature on whatever I need) to meet their cold scarification requirement, and then remove it from the fridge and put it outdoors or in the greenhouse or on my porch or light shelf to meet the warm scarification requirement. It is easier to move baggies in and out than to move half-flats of a growing medium in and out of a tiny dorm fridge.

The thing that aggravates me about seed-starting? All the time and effort I put into it and then, about the time I'm putting 8-week-old tomato plants or 12-week-old pepper plants into the ground, volunteers start popping up in the garden pathways or in the beds where I grew tomatoes or peppers in previous years, particularly wherever I had the smaller, bite sized tomatoes or ornamental peppers. Of course, there's no way of knowing what the volunteers are, and they are two months behind the ones I started, but it still is irritating. I pull up the volunteer tomatoes and toss them because I don't want to waste space on random tomato volunteers, but the peppers sometimes get dug up and potted up in the hope that the will be pretty ornamental peppers that I can stick in bare spots here and there. I do grow a lot of ornamental peppers with purple or variegated foliage and it is easy to tell them as soon as they sprout, so I watch for them and dig up all of them to save and use somewhere.

It is kind of funny all the work we go to and nature just shows us up. Lol I went to a lot of trouble trying to get certain flowers that never did come up but marigolds and zinnias forever volunteer beautifully

I don't use a heating mat either, but I do provide extra heat. This is not a good picture, but I use a five shelf rack with two lights per shelf, except the top shelf which has none. I cover three sides, and the top, with silver emergency blankets from WM sporting goods dept. for about $3 each. The germinating seeds are in the dark, on the top shelf and the heat from the lights below warm the trays. As soon as I see the first sprout, I remove the cover, and place the tray on the light shelf below, with the light as close to the plant as possible. The 3 sided cover provides extra light as it reflects back on the plants. I also plant into soil blocks which is a little different. Not a good pic, but maybe you can get the idea.

Seedling shelf

That's what I do and great idea about the silver blankets. Better than tinfoil which is noisy!

Because my germinating bench has always been in a cool place--for 20 years on a barely heated enclosed front porch kept at about 40 on cold nights--and now in an unheated greenhouse, I have always used bottom heat. Not mats but heating wires laid in a sand bed. The germinating benches are enclosed and covered with quilts at night and on really cold nights I leave the lights on all night and turn them off during the warm part of the day. Sometimes I start peppers and tomatoes in the house in a room that goes to 50s at night. I will use a heating pad set on low and covered with a folded towel in that case.

Kim, That's true. I have developed a great appreciation for anything that reseeds, and over the years, as my soil has improved, more and more things have regularly reseeded for me, so I feel like that is a sign of progress.

Among the flowers that reseed regularly in my garden are zinnias, marigolds, salvias, Laura Bush petunias, verbena bonariensis, moss rose, hollyhocks, French hollyhocks (Malva sylvestris), daturas, larkspur, four o'clocks, several kinds of poppies, morning glories, purple hyacinth beans, black-eyed Susan vine, moonflowers, cypress vine and cardinal climber vine.

Herbs that generally reseed for me include chamomile (they sprouted last month), lemon balm, catnip, dill, fennel, artemisia, comfrey, chives, borage (more so in drier winters than wet ones) and sometimes parsley and basil if I let them go to seed at the end of their season.

The reseeding of veggies is more iffy because, in general, you have to have let some veggies get very mature and go unharvested in order to get mature seeds, but I often get reseeding from ornamental peppers (and sometimes edible ones), cherry tomatoes, southern peas, and sometimes winter squash or melons (the chickens may spread those seeds as I sometimes give them winter squash, Armenian cukes or melons as treats in hot weather). This year I never planted southern peas because of the extreme rain and standing water, but got a good harvest anyway as several plants eventually sprouted in a pathway and I left them there. They were vining types so even just a few plants produced a lot of southern peas.

Some years I've had lettuce and other greens reseed, but only because I let them go to seed and left the seeds on the plants for the goldfinches to eat....and apparently they missed a few seeds here and there. I love anything that volunteers and always try to find a home for those volunteer plants, except for the cherry tomato plants...you only need a certain number of tomato plants and I raise enough on my own without the volunteers.

It makes me laugh when I remember how hard some of those plants that I listed were to germinate indoors under lights that first year, and then I babied them and raised them to a good size, only to discover they would reseed every year on their own with no help from me.

A lot of my reseeding plants are invasive, but in a climate like ours where plants ofter struggle with wild weather conditions, I also have a new appreciation for invasive stuff----the more of any given type of plant I have, the more likely some of them will survive the wildfires, hail, strong winds, ice, sleet, snow, tornadoes, heavy rainfall, months of no rainfall or flooding, extremely high temperatures, drought....and weeks like Christmas week when we had everything from sleet/snow to 77 degree highs to heavy flooding rains to a tornado warning, all in the same week. Looking at the list of weather conditions that we and our gardens face, the thought entered my mind that "we must be crazy to try to garden here", but then I thought about it and decided that we don't have to be crazy to garden here, but it kinda helps if we are crazy cause then we are a perfect match for our weather here in the Great Plains.

Dawn

I have a whole new respect for any plant that thrives when then the is trying to beat it to death blowing 40 +mph with gusts up to 60. Snow rain sleet and heat. And droughts. I pray we never have another 2011 while I am here trying to garden. Crazy or just forgetful. Lol

Can anyone recommend a good seed starting medium ?