Is window light enough for germinating seeds?

I'm pretty much a newbie at starting seeds. My DexH starts and grows all kinds of seeds using just the light from south-facing windows. I've invested a lot in seeds and germinating supplies, and I really need this to work. Do I need to get shelving and lights to grow seedlings, or will the light from the windows be enough? What kind of lights and fixtures do you recommend. I might want to get up to 8 trays per year.

Thanks, Julie

I am not going to tell you that it won't work.What I will tell you, is you will have better luck with lights.Heres why.The sunlight through a window is not as intense,as artificial lighting directly over seedlings.You are limited to sunrise to sunset.Which is what like 8 hours maybe.Seedlings like 16 hours of light per day.You can't get that with mother nature at this time of the year.You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars.This is not what I do but a suggestion for you.Use cinder blocks and 2x4s to put together a shelves.Like a cheap bookcase.I would use 2 shoplight fixtures over the flats(front to back).Each shoplight fixture will take 2 florescent bulbs.So you would have 4 bulbs over each flat.The shoplight fixtures never come with bulbs.You have to buy the bulbs separate.Regular cool white bulbs are fine. I would think you could build a 2 tier shelves for 8 flats for about $80.00.Maybe less if you already have some boards around and you shop around for the best prices.Lights should be several inches above the plants.Buy some hooks for the lights and buy an appliance timer to turn your lights on and off.The cool thing is you can always buy more boards,blocks and lights and make it larger if you want.Plus you can take it apart when not in use.You will have bragging rights,your seedlings will do way better then your Ex.Edge

Lily, Edge is right. You CAN start seedlings with just window light but in our zone the sunlight is still so weak at this time of year that they'll most likely become leggy and crooked and floppy. They need more intense light (about 2" from the top of the seedling is ideal) and they need it for longer periods than the sun can give us. Um I think I just repeated what Edge said. LOL sorry, what I really wanted was to show you my cheapo light system.

If you're only starting a few things you can really fix up a light on the cheap. I had 7 shelves (4 of them are home made) already going in the basement but I ran out of space. I needed one more shelf but I didn't want to spend a bunch more money - plus I had no place to put it. So I went to Walmart and bought one more light fixture for $10 and a set of bulbs for $5 and brought them home and got creative. I stacked a couple of chunks of wood under my church pew at either end and stuck the light on top of them. It worked beautifully, was inexpensive, and is completely out of the way.

Now I've run out of room again, LOL and I had to stick the flats in longways. But I just rotate the cells around daily and the seedlings seem to be happy enough with that system.

Yeah,you can rig up anything.My first year was peat pots inside a sweater box.I set it on top of saw horses and hung lights over them.Crude,but it worked.You can get as simple or as elaborate as you want.Edge

I started with an old fish tank and it's hood light. (one step up from a sweater box!). See what you have lying around.

I've had a lot of success growing seeds with this very simple setup. I have a 2' grow light from Walmart that was around $10 right on the wall. Right beneath it I use a bulletin board. On the bulletin board I pin little plastic or styrofoam cups right under the light. I sow the seeds in these cups and move them down the board as they grow. I poke little drainage holes in the bottom and when I water, the excess drips right down into my Peace Lily and Dracena that sit underneath on the desk. The cups are great in that you have lots of room to write info like seed name, time they were sowed, how many seeds, etc. Last, I made a reflector out of aluminum wrap and put it above the light to reflect the extra light back down.

I love this method because it doesn't take up any floor space (of which I have very little free). As soon as my seedlings have a few adult leaves and are a few inches tall, I move them to a windowsill and start a fresh batch. This isn't the best for a lot of seeds at once, but then again I don't have room for that many seedlings until the weather gets warmer.

On a side note, if anyone tries this, don't put the cups so they directly touch the light, This could be a fire hazard.

I have 4 shelves purchased from Home Depot with brackets mounted on the wall in my office. They are 4ft long x 12" wide. Usually there are books and other things on them. When I sow seeds and need light, I empty the shelves and hang my shop light fixture with flourecent grow tubes from chains that are winded around the shelf above and attached with hooks to my light fixtures below. So far I only need one shelf but I most likely will need the others as well.

To grow your seedling on a window sill only work for houseplants that do not need the intense light that outdoor plants need. Not only is the light not enough, but even if it was further along in the season with a stronger sun, the heat would be too intense on a windowsill, even for houseplants. There is no movement of air to cool them.

I agree with edgeoftheworld

I usually sow hardy perennials in my coldframe in the fall. This years I decided to test some old seeds using the baggie (Deno) method, instead of wasting seeding mix. Surprisingly, all germinated in spite of their age. Some from 2002. Now I am on a roll, the reason for my light setup.

Yuck! Expecting 3-6" of snow, starting tonight, through Tues. At least my seeds in the coldframe will benefit by the cold. They were sown October 2008

Here is my setup that is getting crowed

Here are some of the cleared shelves. You can see the chain that will hold the fixture. I lowered the shelf since then and hung the light.

When I first started seeds, I had one of those portable greenhouses . . . without the cover anymore. I just hung some of the 2' shop lights from walmart over each shelf, and voila! Since it was near an outlet already for the lights, I was also able to plug in a heat mat w/thermostat for some special seeds.

I can tell you one other disadvantage to growing with window light only... if you get to the tiny green things growing stage with the shorter days and then get an unexpectedly sunny day that's a bit longer, while you are not home to notice, you will come back to find steam cooked greens lying limply on the soil. I'd sort of failed to notice it had been cloudy and the first sunny day, that was that. Steamed everything flat as a pancake. sigh. Talk about learning the hard way !

Lily-bud
You can start seeds without any fancy light set up. When seeds need light to sprout, it only means to surface sow. Most small seeds have to be surfaced sown because they would never make it up to the top if buried. Seeds will sprout in a moist kitchen paper towel and inserted in a ziplock bag., which is the way I start most seeds. Certainly, there is no light in there.

Once they germinated, that is when they need 16 hours of light to keep from getting lanky.

Well, I feel like a complete idiot for asking, but first let say when I started my seeds indoors I just would put them in the little greenhouses or pots and went with it. Some made it, some didn't. Okay, my idiot question is: when you are talking about "grow lights" do you mean plan old fluorescent lights? I admit I never have used them because I never quite understood how to use them. But when I read all of your ideas I think I getting it.

Gee, I'm sure glad I joined, I think I'll learn a lot...

Yeah,regular florescent bulbs,cool white.Shop lights.Keep the bulbs several inches above the plants.Edge

Thank-You Edge-I'll give it a try. I have anther question. I may of started some of my seeds with too much moisture, I know you are suppose to be careful of that but now I have mold in some opened pots, what can I do if anything to make sure they germinate?

Make sure you remove all the mold from the top of the soil. This won't completely stop the mold from coming back, but it will help to keep it from spreading. I've tried fungicides in the past when I overwatered, but never found any that really worked. So, the best thing is prevention. Let the soil dry out some. Seeds need to be moist, not soaking wet. If you have problems with watering too much, try misting with a spray bottle. It's a lot harder to overwater this way, just make sure you mist enough to reach the seedlings. After they germinate and produce leaves, water regularly. If you only top-mist after they germinate, you will only keep the top of the soil moist and the seedlings will have shallow roots. I don't know how to make sure your seedlings will germinate, I guess you'll have to wait. You could try reseeding now (without disturbing the seeds already in the soil). That way, if your first batch doesn't germinate you won't have to wait as long for the second. Just make sure if everything germinates, you thin the seedlings. What kind of seeds are you starting?

When I start seeds in flats, I water the flat the day before. By the time I sow the seeds, the moisture is correct. I then stick the whole flat in a plastic bag, or use the dome that came with the flat.

Here is a handy gadget for watering seedlings and seeds. It is a gravy/grease thingy. Has a rubber bulb to draw up water into the tube. It works great.

Blomma-wish I had thought of using that years ago when I first started seeds. I would try to be really careful about watering, and end up drowning the little seedlings or poor it wrong and hit the seedling really hard and break it. I got it down now, but I think I might still try the dropper.

I use large black plastic shelves from Wal-Mart. Many kinds are available. Most have lips on the edge, so water leaking from the plants will stay put. I mounted grow lights, also from Wal-Mart, under each shelf. I have a lot of seedlings going but they are still very leggy.

My seelings are also leggy. I have the shelves from Home Depot that you mount the hardware on the wall and brackets hold the shelves. They are adjustable. I also have grow lights mounted in a shop fixture from Walmart. above the shelves hanging from chains.

The reason the plants are leggy is not the light. It is how it is mounted on a shop light. They are too close so the light don't spread out. A fixture for grow lights is wider and have the tubes placed further apart to spread the light out. The seedlings in the center are not leggy, just those on the edges. I now rotate them around.

Years ago I used to have the grow light fixtures and they really work better to prevent plants from getting leggy. I just didn't want to spend the money for them right now. They are not cheap.


This message was edited Apr 2, 2009 5:19 PM

I use a tablespooon dipped into a bowl of water to water the seedlings and it's working great. Not too forcefull a splash at all...

Can someone tell me what leggy seedlings means? In the pic... left hand side.. are those "leggy"?

momstergina,yup those are leggy,so are the ones in the middle,looks like you need more light.

I have found that after years of trying to grow things in my windows with little luck I went to lights and will never go back. What a difference the lights make. This is what my husband built for me out of PVC Pipe this winter... I love it! It is full of plants now, and they are doing great.

Does leggy hurt them?
I won't be able to do lights until the toddler is old enough not to yank the plants down :)
For now they're up on the garden window.

The plants are growing tall and thin reaching (streching) to reach more light.This makes for a weaker plant.I don't know what kind of temperatures you have outside.What about constructing a simple cold frame for outside.My parents kept my sister and me from destroying their stuff when we were young.They simply put a lock on their bedroom door.They kept everything in there,they didn't want are grubby hands to touch.I'm sure there were other reasons as well.Edge

Bedroom lock isn't really practical when you have teeny ones who are with me or need access to me. The bedroom is a bit of a hub. NO room for growing in my bedroom anyway. I think that it can wait a little while -- he's 16 months old. Family before plants :)

So my plants may be a bit weaker then... let's see how it pans out this first year. Most everything is direct sown outdoors for us. I'm having issues w/ my tomato seedlings though. The Roma's look okay, but the others may not be so great.

Thanks!

MomsterGina Good for you about Family before plants. Children are only ours for a little while before they are grown and head out on their own. Plants are forever, when you are ready.

Since my plants are also somewhat leggy, I will trim down to the 2nd pair of leaves when I am able to put them outside. They will send out side shoots. I cut off the lower side shoot. The one left behind will become the new growing point. You can do the same with tomatoes. When

Sounds like a plan, thanks, blomma!

Family before plants, for sure! But what a wonder, when the two collide! My son loves to help me plant outside - and has even started growing his own african violets from leaf cuttings - and he's 5! My DD is just under 3, but loves to help water . . . (she's not much into dirt - yet!). ^_^

Syrumani Collide?? Consider yourself lucky that your son is interested. That is great! He'll take that gift of knowledge that you give him into the next generation. I bet your daughter will follow her big brother's interest also. That interest may keep them out of trouble when they reach teen years. A 5-year old starting African violets from leaf cuttings? Did he learn that from you? Who know where he'll go from there. Maybe produce a unique Iris someday.

I have 4 married kids. My daughter and son are both into gardening, and also share my love for photography. We all have digital cameras and exchange photos online. My 6-year-old granddaughter is now also getting interested and helps her Dad with weeding. My other 2 kids aren't interested. I figured 2 our of 4 ain't bad.

Here is my DS in November, after insisting that I not toss a leaf . . .

I can't find the picture just now, that I took when he saw there were babies . . . but I will keep looking!

My boys aren't huge into it yet, but I hope they will pick up some interest. I know that the first thing they ever grew (radishes) they ate them all...and normally aren't even slightly interested in radishes. So I hope being involved gets them to eat even more fresh picked produce AND learn about growing.

13yr is helping (sometimes) to build things for the garden.
10yr is insisting the radishes are his to grow but otherwise uninterested.
7 helped me plant and water today and helped fill the big containers.
16 mos is busy putting dirt from one container into another :) and handing us nails and tools.
A couple of photos showing the 3 interested boys http://www.flickr.com/photos/36510457@N07/sets/72157615511909827/

Hey, Mom Gina, I think you have a real creative solution there. Not everyone can provide the optimum environment for growing plants from seed and fortunately, quite often the plants forgive us!

I love to look at http://tinyfarmblog.com/ for pictures of how it's done right! by someone who has the ability to devote time energy and available funds to doing it right.

At the same time, creative solutions are often what we need. I happen to have discovered that my windows work fine for seedlings, thank goodness. I have a rather large cucumber in my kitchen window right now that germinated from some compost over the winter! and is now setting fruit! and the durn thing is so big, at first I figured well, it won't make it all winter and I'll compost it but now it looks like it may make it til it is actually warm enough to put it outside. I had no idea it would set fruit, my goodness! LOL! Kept it in the window for a long time just because it was a green plant in winter, now it is rewarding me. Nice flowers too. ;-)

So then, although I have successfully wintersown a large number of things, my morning glories had not germinated nor had my hyacinth bean, so I soaked some of those and sowed them in little pots inside ziplock bags and put them in that same (West) window and low and behold they germinated in three days.

So now, I have sown tomatoes, peppers, another cuke, and some floxgloves (two varieties germinated outside but this one did not) all in little pots, in ziplock bags,in that big west window. I do move them to the East window in the mornings but it is that West window that gives them the longest stretch of sunlight.

I know, I know! this is not perfect, not the absolute best way to do it, but. It is what I can do right now with the resources and space I have and I do know that slightly leggy seedlings are probably the least bad thing that can happen to a plant and that most often legginess is correctable once they are outside.

I do hope one day to have a growlight system set up, a real greenhouse, and heck, for that matter, my own little piece of land instead of always renting. Meanwhile, I garden best as I can with what I have. I think it is wonderful that the life force of plants and soil and seasons is strong enough that imperfect methods work just fine most of the time.

Thank you for all the great information that you have given me. Today I am actually starting seeds, since having knee surgery and other obstacles since I first posted this thread. I figure I'm so late getting started, it's almost time to plant them outside. (We are, however, predicted to get snow for the next 2 days.)

I made a shelving unit for seed starting from pieces I found at Lowe's. I came up with the idea of using 2 stools and laying a 4' long board across the top of them, and another 4' long board across the lower bracing pieces that are about halfway up the legs of the stool. I hung 2 fluorescent light fixtures from the underside of each shelf.

I'll post a picture when I get the whole thing up and running.

Thanks again for your help.

lily,here are a few pics of how we put ours together,its my first yr doing flouresent,having really great luck,happy,happy

Kylaluaz, Thank you!
For some reason my 4th type of tomatoe is doing well right now in the window. Much stockier and started second leaves... *shrug*
I'm going to check out the blog :)

Cool! My tomatoes germinated the other day.....

Check out the tomato forum here at DG too, lots of great information there -- even for those of us with jerry-rigged systems of necessity the mother of invention, *grin*, there is a lot that can be applied from some of the extremely experienced tomato growers. All very good to know.

ciao,
Kyla

I will, definitely. I've been on here a few hours over the last few days and I just cannot seem to get to everything I want to read.. SO MANY forums! Great stuff.

momstergina, i think kyla is on to something with the east west window thing,hope your seedlings are doing better!!and remember when you are ready to set up lights you dont need the expensive growlights ,4ft shop lights and 40 watt bulbs 2 cool or 1cool 1 warm.also if you garage sale look for used fixtures,collect your supplies until you are ready,spread out the cost a bit.great luck.cant wait to go sow seeds with my 2 youngest grandchildren ,leo 4 has already asked me ,when are we going to plant seeds gramma,soon leo soon !!!

At our home, the one East window (aside from the patio doors) is a garden window that juts out from the house and gets the most sunshine. Our 3 west windows are also garden windows but actually get NO sunshine because of the Japanese Maple, patio and garage.

We're trying to figure out how to use an existing light fixture we just took down. It's small, but better than nothing!

My roma's may be starting their true leaves now. One tomato variety in the window looks way better, stockier and with leaves. But the two other varieties started earlier look impish. I wonder if I should start them over again. ???
Luckily my container eggplant are leafing wonderfully in the window.

I am going to compare some direct sown broccoli, kale and cauliflower with some leggy window seedlings I planted in the same large container to see how the plants compare during their growth.

I'm seeing seedlings starting every week outdoors and getting so excited!