Lay out a couple of paper towels, and fold them into about the size of twice as big as a plastic zipper bag. Place a few seeds on the paper towel, then fold THAT into the size that will fit into a plastic baggie. Pour a little bit of water over that. Then, place the paper towel with seeds, into a baggie, and zip it closed. THEN, place the entire bag onto a heat mat.
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I knew about germinating seeds resting on wet, paper towels in Ziploc baggies for a few days but the heat mat part is new to me.
For how long do you leave the baggies with the wet seeds on paper towels on it?
📷 An excellent, informative post with great photographs📸
Keep up the good work!
@bluefinstudios
Upvoted and curated!
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If you take a peak at an earlier post, where I start me seeds in soil, Seed Starter Trays, in the image of the shelf, and trays, you can see an LED light above, then the tray, then at left of each tray a black wire left bottom. That goes to a thin black heat mat, under each seed tray. I kept the heat mats on, and entire shelf covered in plastic sheeting, to help retain heat and moisture for my basement seed starting.
For the Papertowel method, since the squash and pumpkin, etc all have lower germination rates (maybe 1 of 2? or 2 of 5 seeds germinate?) I can see which seeds will germinate before taking up space in soil Seed Starter Trays.
Not sure if you saw, but there's some 200 plus seedlings going on (tomato, pepper, zucchini, cucumber, squash, brussels sprouts, tons of herbs and more)... so, each seed cell is prime real estate!
@ninahaskin Most seeds will germinate faster with heat. Vegetables can germinate in 50 ºF soil, but ideally prefer 80 or so! I do my seeds in the basement ona shelf, and that's between 50 and 60 right now. Cool, but doable. Take Tomato, for instance. At 50ºF that's close to 40 days. At 60, it's more like 15, and at 80 it's 6 days, on average.
The Cukes, squash, and pumpkin I did above, would take 30 -40 days at 50ºF, so, I can cut that to a week or so, by using the heat mat. It raises the temps about 20ºF compared to ambient.
I use the heat mats under my seed starter trays, too, for the same reason: Faster germination. These Ziplocs will be opened in about 6 days, (I'll hold them up to the light each day at 4 days on... to check for germination) and then, I'll take the seedlings, and plant them into 3 or 4 inch (7cm to 10cm) pots, and eventually, after hardening off, into the 10 Gallon (37 liter) Grow Bags outside.