Action! Camra! Lights!

Vermies...let's get something going here. I am having withdrawal pains without something to read on vermicomposting. I need imput!

It's been several weeks it seems since the last posting in this forum and I had an idea which turned into an intereting experiment. You know how tomato seeds will sprout in your worm bins when you include tomato scraps into the worm food. Well the idea occurred to me to try cultivating tomato seedlings in one of my worm tubs....
IT WORKS!!!

If anyone is interested I will post a couple of pictures and the details of the experiment.

Please keep posting y'all...I am running out of ideas to play with. TYVM

I would love to see the photos. I moved some of my worm bin to an area that was in desperate need of help because not a worm in site. Now 4 months later, big grape tomato bush with tomatoes and two bell green pepper plants with 1/2 full grown bell peppers. Have never been able to grow bell peppers here. I will take photos tomorrow and post.

Mraider3, how are you? Sharon

Doin great Sharon, and you? We have been going crazy trying to process all the corn this year. Today will be the last day to process and then I will invited the neighbors to take what they want.

The attached pic is the worm bin which I added a Prarie Fire Tomato to in the form of worm feed. I tossed a whole tomato into the blender with some pea pods, egg shells and coffee grounds. Blended the mix with some aquarium water and let it sit for five days to ferment. I did a couple of quick blends during the fermintation process and just prior to adding the mix to the top two inches of media in the bin. I raked it all around good with a small hand rake and watered the surface again with some more aquarium water.

Since the florscent light which sits over the top of the bins is the only heat source at present, the germiantion porcess was a little slow, but I had about 50 or so seedlings finally prop up and they looked viable for transplanting for the most part. I chose four seedlings and turned the rest back into the worm bin. The tomato seedling root systems looked good and they now have two sets of true leaves.

During the development of the seedlings I did fine spray the surface of the worm bin and seedlings several times a day, and place a cover over the top of the bin at night to shut of the light penetration. I could have left the bin uncovered and probably had the same results, but I typically give my tomato seedlings about 17 hours a day of florscent lighting.

The transplants are currently in the hoop house awaiting potting up. I plan to use three plants in a five gallon bucket for winter tomato production indoors if every thing goes well.

I tried the same thing with a Jalapeno pepper from the store and no results. Might have worked if I had a heat mat under the worm bin which is what I do in the winter months. I don't think the media was quite warm enough for pepper seed germination. I will give it a try later when I had the heat mat.

Next year I am going to buy a pack of seeds of good tomatoes and put them in the redworm bin. Also either cantalope or honeydew melon seeds. The tomato and cantalope volunteers grew so well this year but the tomatoes were dinky (grape tomatoes) and the cantalopes were sweet but kinda bland. (My dog ate them finally). I hope the good seeds work as well as the composted ones did.

pbyrley...I've had squash and mellon seeds germinate in my worm bins as well. I wonder if the root system would be adequate to pot up into a 3-inch peat pot???

mraider3,
I'd just take seeds and start them in a 3" pot, with or without using worm castings for dirt, rather than transplanting seedlings if you want to have them in 3" pots (I don't know why). My point was, the volunteered fruit of my composted cantaloupes wasn't good enough to waste time on so I am going to buy good seed next year.

a big hey ya to mraider3 !! you are always one busy guy!!
this yr ,my 1st full yr of vermiculture.. ive had a great supply of worm castings.. this yr i planted
a ton of tropicals..and they were fantastic!! some i attribute to, here in provo ut..we had a really good
summer..also..i used alot of coco coir..and a ton of my worm castings in the potting.and in making worm tea...
mraider..i did one small batch of aerating .. one thing i did notice..whether it was just a fluke or result from use of
aerated worm tea.. was my roses had no problem with aphids..????
if its sunny today..and we had rain here this morning..(very welcome).. i want to take out 2 bins stuff and separate out
more worms/castings.. still cloudy still though..
im always encouraged and motivated by mraiders projects...
i know i'll have several buckets of castings for nest yr for potting up..

dito on new seed for cukes, squash and mellons. I probably spend less than $199 on new seed each year for more than 5,000 sq ft of plantings, and for the work involved in properly saving seed I don't think that's excessive. However, I do like to play around with some new ideas each year and one is to plant sweet potato slips in the outdoor raise vermiculture bin. As I mentioned this bed is actually over five feet deep and I did raise red potatoes in composted horse manure one year. Although the results were good, the reds do just as well in the garden. Sweet potatoes however require a longer growing time and I think this might make better use of this bin.

For tomatoes, I plan to plant a row of black cherry using a soaker hose and let them sprawl. I take a maul and a shovel and dig a hole about two feet in diameter and two feet deep. The bottom foot of the hole is clay and rock which is later sifted removing the rock and the clay is placed around the raised beds and shed as a protective barrier. The holes spaced about two to three feet apart are refilled with the top soil mixed with composed cow manure. I do the same for the caged determinates. Since the tomato seedlings are germinated and potted up in spent worm media (spagnum peat moss), there is plenty of that to use when transplanting the tomatoes. Do basically the same for pepper plants, cukes, mellons and squash. As you can see I go through quite a bit of spent media on just tomatoes and peppers.

On the subject of aphids. I did bring in 9 potted pepper plants and I already have noticed aphids appearing on one of them. No problems outside, but I can't seem to raise peppers indoors without the aphid problem. Tried something new on the infested plant. I saved the diatomaceous earth/powdered carbon from a filter I use to polish aquarium water after a gravel syphoning cleaning. Placed this material in a bowl and decanted as much water off the surface as possible. Placed the bowl on top of one of the freezers in the garage and let it completely dry. The resulting 'wuffel dust' was a greyish-black color and the clumps broke into a fine dust easily. I mixed in four large teaspons of this material into the pepper pot with aphids; rinsed the leaves well enough with a spray bottle to nock the aphids off the leaver; and then applied more of the wuffel dust to both the surface of the potting material and the leaves of the plant. Not a complete success as yet, but measureable improvement. The diatomaceous earth I have heard cuts through the outer shells of these varmits so they tend to avoid the places where it has been applied. I still find an occassional aphid but no clusters as before in the treated areas. Some of the new untreated leaves however will have a few aphids on them so it's not 100 percent..I really don't care about the pepper plants, so I will continue to apply the wd to see how far I can go before destroying the plant.

For what it's worth I have had some problems with renewing my subscription here in DG. If I get the boot my email is mraider3@earthlink.net.

morgan

Have you contacted anyone in Admin? We do not want to lose you.

Yes Sharon I have. My computer locked up when I clicked on their repayment link, and their only solution to the problem is try again. I can ill afford computer problems right now due to a large project I am working on, and therefore reluctantant to try again. My only other solution is to call in my payment and that does not appear to be an option. May try the link later when my computer technecial is available to see what the problem might be.

OK, Mother Winter fixed it. You are ready to go for another year. Merry Christmas. Sharon.

Sharon, what did you do??? I was wondering how the problem got fixed so easily...

Looks like I owe you a big favor here young lady. So name it, it shall be yours...

morgan

Come to Las Vegas and spend some money. We are at 15% unemployment.

You know I did it because I love hearing from you and talk about your worms. Just stay healthy and happy. AND PLAY IT FORWARD......

According to Haley Joel I must pay it forward three times...sounds fair to me Sharon.

Boy you get up early. It must be freezing at that time of the morning.

Actually it's snowing in Helena at this time. But, I'm in Texas where it was 97F and muggy after a day of rain and tornadoes. Clicked my heels one to many times and missed my target. Will be back in Kansas and Colorado next week. As for the time of day...no grandkids to deal with. Just peace and quiet. Love the buggers, but can't get squat done when their around. Two year old says "What?" all the time in a Texas accent. Cracks me up.

Two year old grandchildren are adorable. I will chat later. I have gardening to do. Full sun today in high 70s so perfect weather.....

hey morgan.. long time.. yep.. snowing here in utah too.. sigh.. fall is over.. oh well..
hasnt froze here yet though..and if its cloudy tonite wont freeze tonite either.. and im ready to pull the
cannas..and bananas out.. lol.. well sort of.. :) lol
cleaned out 1 bin last weekend.. need to do another.. i get a ton of castings.. im really glad
i started raising my own worms.. even made some bio active worm tea..not a huge volume..but
enough to use sparingly..
anyone else use corn meal as feed?? i had some i havent used..was still good..and the worms got it..
they ate it right up.. ?? isnt there a commercial worm feed out there made with corn??? i think its
expensive..???
you drive safe morgan on your retreat>>>>> have a good one..

Sharon, took the two year old fishing with some of our sweet corn. Caught sunfish from a catch and release pond in her subdivision. She was good for 45 minutes. Not too bad for a two year old.

Dave, I have some corn meal which I feed to the Canadian night crawlers which I keep refrigerated (40F) for fishing. Although it isn't necessary to feed them I thing the corn flavor makes them more appealing to trout. I also have a large pile of left over corn which didn't get picked this year. I save all my cobs and this left over corn for grinding into worm food. Especially in the European bed. Hopefully next spring these Europeans will be ready for fishing and possibly garden stocking. How's yours doing???

morgan

hey back at ya morgan...
we got our hard 1st frost yesterday.. now its digging out time.. thank G..i have couple of teens to help with the lifting..
i took one banana out the other day..it was over 100# easy.. lol
my worms are doing great.. i have noticed my euro worm population has deminished ..??? but my red wigglers are going
gang busters..!!! was my initial intent that the euros would compost more material than the red wigglers... but not so sure about
that anymore..
i know u were thinking of the euros as fishin worms.. and i know with all your know how..u can make it work.. :)
for me.. its i want the castings..and wow..im really pleased this yr..
i think ive harvested over 16 -- 5 gal buckets of castings.. this yr.. and i could have gotten more if i had been
more attentive to screening the castings.. lazy.. LOL :)
thats a good idea on the corn.. i'll have to watch out for fields(less and less around here).. with corn.. see if the farmers
would let me do some gleaning..
how do u do the grinding morgan of the cobs?? do u use a meat grinder?
i put alot of coco coir in where i put elephant ears/bananas ... and boy.. there are some sweet big worms in there..
have i made ya jealous.. hehehehehe :)
i guess the worms love coir.. i know after i mow over fall leaves and dig them in garden..and saved one for next
yrs composting.. the worms sure show up in droves...
the teen boys that have worked for me this summer had plenty of fishin worms this summer... mmm.. guess im jealous
now.. LOL
all the best.. dave

Hey Dave, sounds like busy busy time there. Fortunately we got everything out and the garden tilled before leaving. Reports from home are pretty bleak. Snow and Cold. It’s in the 80’s here in Texas and tomorrow I am going white bass fishing with son #2 at Sam Rabourn.
I started raising red wigglers a number of years ago to provide live food for nearly 20 aquariums with native fishes. When the kids were younger we used the red wigglers to catch sunfish, but they were useless for trout. When I moved 1500 miles to Montana I took the worm culture with me to feed the aquarium fish. I decided to take up gardening and converted some of my back yard rock pit into a small garden. That is when I began using the spent worm media as a germination mix for tomato, pepper and onion seed. My garden has expanded to over 5,000 square feet and I accumulate about 60 gallons or more a year of the spent worm media for germination and potting mixes.

My first attempt at using Euros as fish bait was right after I received the shipment and the results were negative. Trout wanted nothing to do with them. I started feeding one of the bins with ground up corn and corn stalks and tried it again. Second time it worked, however that is when I discovered the diminishing numbers of Euros in the two bins. Relocating them to one of the outdoor compost bin was a good idea. They seem to be doing well now. As I mentioned I also add Canadian night crawlers to this bin as well. I fish three or more times a week and use up to a dozen crawlers per trip. Since I only use the tail section of the crawler on a #6 hook, I can release the head and heart (ring) section into the bin so they can grow their tails back. I can tell the two apart based on the length of the worm at present, but that won’t last long. I figure by spring there will be more than ample worms for fishing. As mentioned this 4’ 8’ bin consists of about 5+ feet of well digested cow manure and straw. I feed a five gallon bucket of rotted, chopped up garden scraps periodically and each time I dig there are lots of worms.

As for grinding the dried corn and corn cobs, I use an electric McColloch (sp?) with several of the safety features removed. This machine binds up frequently and it is a pain to take apart. I wear safety glasses and work where there are no children around. It regularly spits cob pieces back at me but in an afternoon I can go through four or five bushels of dried cobs and corn kernels which I store in a large trash bag inside a 35 gallon plastic barrel. This stuff molds quickly so I leave it in the shed to ferment. Worms go through it quickly after it has molded.

My next grinder is going to be a gasoline driven Troybuilt. Expensive but I can grind nearly everything from the garden and compost it rather than burning.

hey morgan..bass fishin.. thats just terrible..LOL :) excellent man !!!
yea it was alot of work this yr.. had 2 teen boys help so my back isnt notted up.. sigh..
i found another source of rabbit manure.. couple truck loads so will get that this yr.. i'll spread most of that over
open vegy garden..mix in grass clippings..and mowed over leaves.. let the teen boys spade it in..and let winter do its job on
it..
i like your thinking on the corn grinding..i have neighbor that has every tool,machine known to man..LOL and what hasnt been made
he makes.. :) i'll have to ask him on grinding up corn cobs..and do like u do..let them rot..and use for the worms..
have several pumpkins left so ive been cutting them up.. microw them and worms seem to love them.. :)
leaves are dropping now..so ive been stopping and picking up bags for my composting..
hope ya have great luck bass fishin!!!! jealous as &^%& :) take care man...
dave

We are all alike. We all scan garbage on garbage night. I find great pots. I do not have to pick up bags of leaves. I have several mow and blow guys that drop off as many bags of leaves that I want. I have two large areas for compost but I also spot compost. Works easier for me.

Last spring I left a bucket of alfalfa pellets and a large amount of tomatoes and bell peppers, that my neighbor let spoil, in a large pot to get warm and break down. Well I forgot it and when I decided to pour, I just about poured right out of my own stomach.

Well, I have just made Potatoes O'Brien with one of the bell peppers. I was eating tomatoes all summer from a plant from the same hole, which was a new flowerbed. I swear this mixture was nothing but putrid liquid but the best bell peppers I have ever grown.

We are still in the 80s all of next week. I still have much to do in the garden. As I am out in the warm sun, I will be thinking of you guys. If you want, you can come down an d help for room and board. Just like to olden days. But you are all to young to remember guys coming to the back door saying they would do yard work for food. And they would actually work. My mom and Dad had them working in the garden all the time. They did not really need the help but they would never turn someone away.

Have a safe trick or treat and do not eat to much candy. My neighbor children love me at Halloween. What ever I have left over, I get rid of so I do not eat it. So tomorrow they will be here to load up with the leftovers. But I think I will call Salvation Army and see if they can use it first.

Rose blooming in my garden.

Hi all,
reading one of Dave's posts above I saw "elephant ears/bananas" mentioned for the worm bin and it reminded me of a question I keep forgetting to ask.

It is, do the earthworms (any kind I guess) get harmed when vegetation normally identified as poisonous (like, I think, elephant ears) is added to their bed? I may be wrong on elephant ears being toxic but I have always avoided using stuff like lantana (seeds are definitely classed as toxic) for my worm bin. It just seemed to me that toxic plants would be toxic to worms also - any experiences or even opinions?

Thanks,
Paul

so morgan.. when do u start your tomato seeds up there? ive become very unhappy with
local nursery i always buy tomato plants from (6pks) they miss label the tomatoes all the time..sigh
last yr..tomatoes did great just i didnt end up growing the tomatoes i wanted.. :(
so..this yr..starting my own.. i have several 4' flouresent lights..just have to go get some new bulbs...
im going to grow mostly heirloom tomatoes.. medium sized ones..
here in utah..alot of times we dont get many ripe tomatoes till end of july..:(
its gotten chilly again here..bummer.. mostly low 30s for highs..
oh well.. lol

Dave, once you have grown your own tomatoes from seed you will never go back to those pathetic nursery plants for $3.50 a plant here. There’s typically started in their green houses and are never ready when I want to plant out. The cages allow me a month's head start and my plants are pretty healthy by then. Some even have buds starting which may be too much for some people. I know Dr. C advocates eight to ten inch plants as being the best size to plant but here's my idea. I first start with a 3-inch peat pot and some grated vermicompost. I carefully plant 6 to 8 seeds per pot of seeds from a single variety of tomato in each pot and fill a flat with eighteen of these peat pots. The pots are placed on an insert inside the flat and then I add water with hydrogen peroxide to the flat and let them soak until the complete outsides of the peat pots are damp. I then lift the insert with peat pots out of the flat and remove the excess water. Sometimes I actually have to add water several times before the peat pots are completely dampened. I then replace the insert with the well moistened peat pots in the flat and cover it with a clear dome. I place the flat on a heat mat and lay a sheet of black plastic over the dome to shut out all light. It doesn't take long before the tomato seeds start to germinate. As soon as I see seeds sprouting in any of the peat pots I remove the black plastic and dome and place the flat under florescent lights on my homemade PVC planter. You really don't need a heat mat at this point unless your room is cold (below 60F in my case so I continue with the heat mat for a while. Couple of tips here which may help: (1) When you check your flat each day be careful when removing the clear dome, it may have large droplets of water which I carefully remove so as not to splash water on the surface of the peat pots. Too much surface water can cause fungus or dampening off and if I think the surface of the peat pots is too damp I immediately place a small fan next to the flat and let it run until the surface starts to dry or the fungus disappears. If the surface is not damp you will need to spray some warm water with a fine mister on the surface. In time you get the hang of it. Working with peat pots in my opinion is really easy. The pots will tell you when to water: (2) Do not use the florescent plant grow lights in your light fixture. It is best to use one cool white and one warm white bulb; (3) Do not plant pepper seeds with tomato seeds in a single flat. Pepper seeds, especially the hot ones take longer to germinate. Often some of the tomato seeds have not sprouted when I remove the flat to the florescent lights but it doesn't really matter. They will come up within a day or two at the most while pepper seeds may not come up at all.

Within a couple of weeks the tomato seedlings are ready to pot up into their individual peat pots. The reason I put only a few seeds in a peat pot to start with is I don't want the roots to stay exposed to the air any longer than they have to. I make up my flats for potting up in the same manner as the germination flat. Each peat pot is filled with my potting up mix which consists of vermiculture compost, MG potting soil, peat moss (soaked, drained and grated, and some well composted cow manure. The reason I add MG to the mix is to extend my potting mixes. In the past I used straight vermiculture compost, but the 60 or so gallons I produce a year doesn't cut it anymore. I then tamp down the mix with my thumbs and add a little more potting mix if necessary to bring the level up to about a half inch of the top of the pot. I have a tamping tool which I use to smooth the surface before using a pointed ½- inch dowel rod to make the center hole. I carefully take one peat pot at a time and remove the plants I want to pot up. Once the plant is in the hole I add a little of the finely grated potting mix to fill the hole and lightly tamp it in around the seedling which is buried up to its leaves. Once the flat is filled with peat pots it is soaked in the same manner as the germination flat, however I don’t replace the clear dome. Just place the flat under the fluorescent lights within a couple of inches. Again no heat mat really required for tomatoes.

I start about ten weeks out from my planting out time (May 1st for my caged Stupice tomatoes) and repeat the process at eight weeks out. The duplicate planting is strictly for backup in case I loose the first batch. If I don’t need them I give them away. Although the Stupice tomatoes are considered indeterminates I treat them as determinates. They will outgrow the cages by the end up summer, but I can still trim them back and get another months production by recovering the cages.

If the first batch of tomato plants gets root bound I will pot them up one more time in 2.5 gallon pots. I have various means of hardening off my tomato plants and that includes moving them to a planter stand in my unheated garage, then to the hoop house, and possibly to a sunken raised bed with window pane covers. It is generally too cold at night, or too windy to try and harden these plants outside in mid-April or early May. Stupice tomatoes are really cold hardy and produce throughout the season unlike determinates. We do a lot of canning of various tomato sauces, juice, etc., and the
Stupice combined with some black cherry and sun gold cherry tomatoes make an excellent combination. I don’t plant out my cherry tomatoes until June 15th and they are simply staked or sprawled depending on where they are planted in the garden.

Hopes this gives you an idea or two Dave.

again ..thanks morgan!!
i knew u would have some good ideas..and experience.. you plant alot of tomatoes..
im trying alot of mid to full season heirloom tomatoes this yr..
but im going to start with seed..:)
area im going to grow them is room temp..so i figured after they came up i could do without the heat pad..
isnt it better not to give to much heat then..or u end up with leggy plants?
so why do u prefer cool white and warm bulbs over "plant" flouresents?
i tested my balasts and they are working..yea!!!! wont have to buy any new lights..just bulbs...
last couple yrs..its been so dissapointing in the plants i got from local nursery...
my plants do great.its just not the ones i wanted..LOL :)
so..figured.. what else am i going to do till spring shows up..:)
i'll probably plant alot more than i want to acturally grow.. even when i buy plants.. and grow out
i end up giving many away to neighbors..
thanks tons for your ideas..and insights morgan!!! always can depend on u....
dave

Dave, the fluorescent plant or grow lights do not put out sufficient light and they don't last very long. I replace my bulbs each year and the warm white are difficult to find. Labels are also confusing. I have a file on lighting which I am updating and will send you a copy ASAP. My biggest objection to nursery plants besides absurd prices is they are not at the stage I would like when I am ready to plant out, especially in cages. As for varieties, there are sooooo many to choose from it gets confusing. I had thought about strictly hybrids after a poor last season crop but changed my mind. The only hybrid I plan to plant is the sun gold cherry toms and I plan to save the seeds from four or five of the earliest ripening stupice and black cherry toms. The process of fermenting the tomato seed is well documented in the tomato forum. Dr. C has posted it several times and I have tried it with the stupice before. It's hard to beat stupice for cool climate gardening of tomatoes outdoors. Hardly anyone I know of has any success around here with growing tomatoes other than hoop house varieties. Stupice is a medium sized tomato and fairly meaty so it cooks up nicely for sauces. We use a Kitchen Aide food processor for making several of these sauces and the wife and I have an assembly line process that takes the better part of a day, but we do can a lot of tomatoes. As I mentioned earlier I like to toss in some cherry tomatoes for added flavor. Once our pot of blended tomatoes comes to a boil, I take a conical sieve and insert it into the pot and start ladling out the juice into another pot. I add little cayenne pepper and some white pepper to the juice and we can it just like the sauces. I make chili about once a week in the winter from dried beans, deer meat, and my own chili sauce mix. The chili sauce has onion and peppers added. We also make a chunky salsa which also serves as a chili additive. It has cumin in it when canned so it can be used for tacos and dips as well. My spaghetti and goulash sauce has Italian herbs and oregano added at canning time. It’s amazing how much less herbs you need when adding them at canning time. I plan to grow fresh herbs in 2.5 gallon pots on the deck this year for canning. I can't wait to see how that's going to play out.

Most everyone that plants their own tomato seeds over does it Dave. When I've planted what I need and no longer have any concern about losing some due to weather, I give the neighbor a two day notice that I will be putting out my excess tomato plants on Saturday for him to pick up. Typically he takes most of them for his garden. I don't do this before the second week of June when frost damage is usually past. I even harden them off for him, but for some reason his crop doesn't come close to mine. The cages are the big difference in my opinion, but I dig a fairly large hole and fill it with a mix of the top six inches of soil and well aged compost. Toss in a couple of handfuls of red wigglers along with their media and there you have it. Probably doesn't hurt that I fertilize with MG a couple of times early on too. This year I plan to do the compost tea without fail. Just didn't get to it last year but I have the equipment now to set up a fifty gallon bucket, so I will be working on putting the system together shortly. Will post some information on the setup once I get it going.

morgan

hey..thanks morgan..
i got some good seed soil today.. plan to mix it with coir and perlite..
i'll get one of the back rooms set up with shelves..and lights..so when the seedlings come up
i'll be ready for them..:)
i'll have time tomorrow to get the bulbs.. i will go with the your recommendation on cool and warm whites..
i know they will need alot of light to do well ...prob go with 4 banks of lights (2 bulbs in ea set)
are u starting your seeds in castings then? do u have any problems with damping off..or bacteria?
i just potted up some elephant ears and bananas.. had to thaw the compost from in garden..
geesh..its cold out..LOL
lets get spring here!!!!

The only problem I have with any germination mix now is the fuzzy mold on the top of the media when I first cover the flats with those plastic domes. I check seed flats daily and as soon as I spot this I remove the dome a set a small fan next to the flat. I am careful to keep the surface of the germination mix in the peat pots or whatever I'm using to start the seeds moist. I have a small round fine mist sprayer which I fill directly from a heated aquarium to keep the surfaces moist. If the flats are on a heat mat I may have to moisten the surfaces of these peat pots, etc., four or five times a day.

The key to avoiding fungus problems in the germination mix is the saturation of the germination media with the hydrogen peroxide water at the beginning. I start by setting the peat pots in a flat containing the hydrogen peroxide treated aquarium water until the outsides of the pots are completely dampened. Of course you need one of those grated inserts so you can remove the peat pots from the flat and dispose or the excess water, or transfer to another flat. I suppose you could add a couple of mls of hydrogen peroxide to the spray water if there is a problem, but I haven't had to do this myself and I use 100% vermiculture compost for most all of my germination mixes.

The attached picture is of some saved onion seed which I planted in two of the COSTCO plastic roasted chicken container covers. I'm not sure if that idea was yours or our fiend Paul's idea but so far I really like this method of seed starting for onions. I had the fungus problem start on both of these on the second day so I removed the dome from the flat they are setting in and turned on the fan. As you can probably see from the pic there is a 48" shop light with two fluorescent bulbs they are setting under, and a heat mat underneath. The 1-inch diameter PVC pipe stand they are sitting on has three shelves with two of these shop lights per shelf with the exception of the bottom shelf which I use for larger potted plants. This bottom shelf has a single fluorescent light fixture with four bulbs. The two bulb fluorescent light fixtures have one soft white and high intensity warm light.