I suspend my shop lights from the ceiling. It's the perfect solution and costs nothing. But if you don't want to, here's a link to a discussion in the pepper forum. The first commenter made a homemade shop light support from PVC.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3304353/please-recommend-a-grow-light-system

Maybe that will give you an idea or two. And I agree with Rhizo, direct sow your cukes and squash.

Rodney

If your garage is very cold, you could build a 'box' of sorts from Styrofoam and tape. Between the ballasts in the shop light, and a warming mat, you might even have too much heat. Often, especially with a heat mat, a covered seedling flat is plenty warm.

Also, you could spend for special 'grow lights', but really, just cheap 'cool white' bulbs are usually fine. If you wanted a fuller spectrum at reasonable up-front costs, use 1 'cool white', and 1 'warm white'.

Is there a reason why lights and mats are so commonly used in the US? Temperature? daylight amounts? Timing? Seed type?

I have grown seeds for 3 decades and have never used either heat mats or artificial lighting - have grown a wide range of tender perennials, vegetables, hardy perennials and trees and shrubs with nothing other than pots and medium. For a while, my failure rate was high enough to make me reconsider my casual practices...but as soon as I started growing my own or traded seeds (which had not sat about, badly stored in warehouses for years on end), the germination rates improved dramatically. I have grown many bulbs, including numerous lilies, and have recently started growing trees from seed - why should the standard practice of sowing when ripe, outside in pots, not have a result in the US? Or is it essentially a cultural thing - after all, the winter sowing method is just 'sowing' in the UK and pretty much everywhere else.

I am only opposed to starting and growing seeds using additional heating and lighting because of the difficulties in transitioning over to the permanent planting sites - hardening off, watering and so on...as well as being a bit of a cheapskate regarding energy use (and also prefer to surrender total control to 'nature' rather than my own unpredictable and inconsistent practices. Starting with seeds as a novice, I can think of little more anxiety making than faffing with hanging lights and heating mats..

The reason that many here in the U.S. start seeds indoors is simple... we are 'pushing the climate envelope'. In much of the U.S., the temperatures are much colder, and the season shorter, than many vegetables prefer. We are not on an Island as is the UK. There is no buffering from the ocean. Some places in the U.S. can get 5'-10' of snow in a single storm - repeatedly throughout the winter.

Our N. West Coast is not dissimilar to UK climates. They do receive a certain 'buffering' from the ocean waters. However, that is a small portion of the U.S.

So, could we sow tomatoes outside? Sure, but some of the favorite varieties wouldn't ripen in time. If they did ripen, it would be a short harvest season. Artificial lights, and the occasional heat mat (I don't use a mat, there are other ways to retain warm temps.) help get the season off to an early start. The earlier the start, the longer the harvest season.

In general: yep, it's correct, there is no need to start early using lights and heat mats, but for the minimal investments, those of us who do start early get longer harvests and greater yield. That extra yield far outweighs the costs and the efforts.

Campanula - those are exactly the questions I asked myself when I first started on these forums. I think it is partly climate but also a cultural thing. After all somehow people in the US managed to feed themselves before they had artificial lights and heat.

rgreen48 - no way can we sow tomatoes outside here, nor cucumber and other things you could direct sow in much of the US. Soil temperatures don't get warm enough for germination until well into the summer, too late to get a crop. What Campanula is saying is not that we direct sow everything, even tropicals like tomatoes, but that although we do start some things indoors or under glass, we don't use a mass of gear to do it. I sow tomatoes and peppers in my glass porch. I do put the trays in a warm place until they germinate but after that they are just left in the porch. In fact the peppers never leave the porch as it is never hot enough to get a harvest outdoors.

And the Winter Sowing thing has always puzzled me too, especially when I read about 'WS' in April or 'WS' tomatoes, which is an impossibility given their tropical ancestry.

Ty for the clarification floral. There does seem to be a cultural component. It is also perhaps, different responses to our individual conditions.

Above, I described the colder conditions in much of the U.S., but where I live, our houses are built to resist heat and harsh sunshine. I don't have a glass porch. No one has a glass porch lol. If anything, they have screen porches. My open porch runs 3/4 the length of the South side of my house, is an extension of my roof, and shades the entirety of my house. I get very little usable sunshine indoors. I have no E. facing windows at all, and 1 W. facing window. I could build a cold/warm frame, but beyond the costs, a frame is limited

So, the response to these conditions is to get a cheap shoplight and sow indoors. Now, I can't speak for everyone, but as soon as day temps are warm enough to put out tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant - the majority of my indoor-sown crops - I put them on my porch steps to harden off, and I pull them indoors during colder-than-preferred overnight temps. I'm with you on winter sowing.

You'd possibly call my porch a lean to green house in US parlance. It's tiny, attached to the house, double glazed but unheated. Not one of those lovely wrap-around porches complete with swing, rocking chairs and iced drinks. No screens here - it's not hot enough for many bugs to be a bother.

I think it's mostly cultural. People want to get the biggest jump on the season they can. Also the fact that lights and bottom heat are constantly recommended everywhere (forums, books, friends, etc.) for seed starting has conditioned everyone to think they need them.

Sure, I could wait until it was just warm enough outside to use a cold frame for starting warm season crops (which is what some older gardening publications recommend) but then I'd also be waiting longer for ripe fruit. Or I could do some digging, haul and move some manure, and make a hotbed (another suggestion from older gardening sources) to get a slightly earlier jump on the season but that's more work than I'm willing to do. And my limited experience with starting seeds in a windowsill has resulted in seedlings being leggier than I would like.

As for winter sowing, you can winter sow most anything of temperate origin but also things that reseed themselves or volunteer in your garden, which tomatoes do. I haven't actually winter sown them but have read many comments from people who do and have been successful.

Rodney

My point about winter sowing tomatoes is that even if you 'winter sow' them they will not germinate until the soil is warm enough for that to happen. So it would make no difference in warm summer climates if sowing had been delayed until that time rather than done much earlier. And in cool summer climates they'd germinate far too late.

I get tomato volunteers too, but they don't sprout until mid Summer and never grow big enough to get any fruit. I did actually try winter sowing tomatoes after reading about it, being perfectly prepared to try something new. The result was nil germination since all the seeds rotted in our damp, cool climate. I ended up starting them in the greenhouse/porch as always.

Ah. Understandable.

Rodney

Um, I often sow most seeds when I get around to it...or, in an excess of excitement, as soon as I get them, reasoning that they grow without human intervention, even when that means lying around in cold, damp soil for months, years until optimum conditions spark them into life. Annuals, obviously, I have to be a bit more circumspect. However, the last frost date always seems much earlier in the US (ours is the end of May, 1st week in June) and the US season also seems to go on for longer...but, like Flora, I only push the envelope with tomatoes (I sow mine March 14th) and peppers (15th January because they really seem to need a long season)...I do have an unheated greenhouse but the main difference this makes is quantity - 60 peppers and 60 tomatoes (potted on, do not easily fit on a windowsill (I germinate them in the house)...but they also don't need extra heat - on a really freezy night, I might throw a bit of horticultural fleece over them and by the time I transplant them, there are often flowers.

Our climate is a bit screwy because of the Gulfstream - technically, we are on the same latitude as Moscow - so daylight length can be an issue. Still, I would say growing under lights is definitely a more technical skill than this old-stylee gardener can cope with.

Ah, the other point I want to make is the length of time I can be waiting...for anything. 2-3 years to germination, years to flower - I could never manage to keep things under lights/watered/warm for that length of time...whereas paeonies, easy - stick them in a deep pot, leave against an outside wall for a few years, sorted..

I think it is a question of particular needs, not necessarily culture. I am in Canada, but we live on a huge continent that has every zone available. Sure we did manage to feed ourselves before artificial light and heat, but then we had a very limited time when we could access "fresh" fruit and vegetables, at least in the colder areas of the americas.

Bottom heat definitely aids in the germination of many seeds and in the rooting of cuttings. There is no transitioning shock for the plant moving from the heat and lights to the permanent planting site because the heat mats are only used to start seedlings, once germinated they grow on at room temps. or cooler (but when I first started doing my own plants, I would put the seed pots directly on the furnace ductwork in the basement )

It is not complicated to use either the mats or the lights. The mats are fairly cheap and a fluorescent shop light suspended on chains over a bench is an easy "fix", just plug it in in the morning, unplug before bed, easy peasy!

Now, most of my seedlings are started in a ziploc bag of moist peat, set on heat and as they germinate they are picked out and potted, then set under a suspended shop light as I do not have enough windows for sufficient light.

Also, any plant that takes 2-3 years to germinate does not have to be under lights or have bottom heat for that amount of time. My peony seeds are stuck in a ziplock bag with moist peat, thrown in a basket on a warm shelf till they send out a root, then put in the fridge till they send out a leaf, usually a total of 6 months till they are potted up or planted out. Nothing complicated or difficult.

I think we are judging methods that are needed in one zone with those that work in another. "Apples to Oranges" you might say.