I always had problems starting seeds in our plant room, but these tomato plants were grown under shop lights in only 4 weeks from planting the seeds!
These seedlings were planted only one week ago. I used to wait weeks for germination that was spotty at best in my cool plant grow room.
The answer was simple…
Recycled rope lights turn out to be a great way to make bottom heat for seed starting under lights.
I built our “plant room” about 2 years ago – just a small well insulated room with a lot of windows and shop lights – and since then I’ve tried starting my own seeds with varying degrees of success. The problem that I’ve had is that over night temperatures in the room routinely fall into the 50s which is fine for maintaining tender plants over the Winter, but makes seed germination spotty at best. I knew that what I needed was bottom heat.
The thing is that retail bottom heat is expensive – I saw one “kit” at a local garden center that was big enough for 2 flats and was $79 – wow! You can buy a lot of tomato plants for eighty bucks! A low cost alternative had to be possible for a dedicated scrounger like myself.
Whatever I decided upon had to be:
- Safe – neither an electrical shock nor a fire hazard!
- Cheap
- Simple
- Big enough to start all of our early Spring seeds.
Before proceeding – You the reader must agree that you will not hold the author or anyone associated with doorgarden.com responsible for your use of this information. What you see being done in this article may not be safe (and probably isn’t), and could cause injury, death, destruction, mayhem, fire, dammage to your home, and prolong the economic downturn by preventing you from spending money and thereby stimulating the economy. It might not even work. In any event thou shalt not hold me responsible. If you don’t agree with any of that then turn back now – don’t even look at the pictures. » Read more: Home Made Bottom Heat for Seed Starting (or pet bed)
