My in laws got me a seedling heat mat for my birthday. It's something that I've wanted for awhile. I learned in my classes at school that to sprout seeds and root cuttings you needed cool tops and warm bottoms. So I decided to set up the heat mat in my cool basement with artificial lighting. The ideal lighting is a full spectrum light bulb but I'd heard that using a cool florescent and a warm florescent light bulb in the same fixture works just as well which made sense so that's what I'd planned to do. I didn't set it all up immediately because I didn't have the different light bulbs and I kept forgetting to look for light bulbs when I went to the store. After two days I couldn't wait any more and just used what I had, regular old florescent light bulbs. I had planted a few things the week before but planted the rest of my vegetables and put them downstairs in my makeshift growing area.
The light should probably be closer to the plants (it's probably an inch or so high)but in just 3 days so many had sprouted (including some tomatoes that said it would take 15-20 days to germinate!)
By four days nearly everything had sprouted and by the fifth day they were outgrowing the humidity cover.
(This is the fourth day)
So now my plan is to work some of them out of the humidity and in to the cooler air adjusting them to real life. I'm so excited about this new way of starting my plants. It's soo fun to see the things I learned in school working and being able to use the knowledge I thought I'd forgotten.
Stay tuned in coming years I'm going to tweak this and have it down to a science. Who knows what will move into our basement!
2 comments:
Brei said...
That is so cool! I wish you could teach us everything you know!!
jensen said...
hyrum is SO big...and i love his smile!