Beginner Gardening: Starting seeds indoors ?? what kind of containers , 1 by dreaves

dreaves wrote:
This thread is a little old, and cold, but it's a snow day here so I had time for catching up.

I plant my tomatoes and peppers in the "Jiffy 7" peat pellets. I have the plastic trays and lids from several years ago, and I buy refill pellets every year. I soak the pellets with hot water, then pour off any extra after about an hour. I keep the seeds covered with the lid until most have sprouted, leaving a pencil under one corner of the top, to allow a little fresh air. The seeds are sprouted on a heat mat that is sized for two standard nursery trays, under a set of two florescent fixtures on a PVC pipe frame.

When the seedlings are big enough to transplant, I move to 3.5-inch "disposable" plastic pots that I've been using for a couple of years. They are the perfect size to fit 18 plants per tray. I like the pellets since they make it very easy to handle and transplant the seedlings with little or no shock. I do remove the net mesh from the pellets when I transplant. If there are two seedlings in one pellet I often cut the pellet in half, between the seedlings, and plant each seedling in it's own pot.

Those trays go onto a wire rack that has florescent lights mounted with chains, to easily adjust the height. For those shelves, I have 3 fixtures (6 bulbs) per shelf. Depending on how many plants I have, The flats can go lengthwise under the lights (2 per shelf) or across the shelf ( 4 per shelf). If the plant flats are perpendicular to the lights, the outside row of plants get slightly less light--but seem to do okay.

The photo below shows the light stand with the 3-5-inch pots, and an inset of the juffy-7 peat pellets. I use colored toothpicks with stripes to code for each type of seedling. I mark the code (green-3 for example) on each seed packet.

David