HOW to Germinate Seeds with WHAT Equipment

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Getting the equipment together for germinating is fun, as long as you don't wait until you need it to set it up. It takes longer than you think to work out the space and electrical access for the lights, fan and thermostat regulated heating pads.

When we seriously started to grow food, we had
limited funds, so made use of things we had on
hand to make our seed germination nursery.

5) HOW to germinate seeds

Dixie cups, egg cartons and tin cans can all be pressed into service to start a vegetable garden full of life sustaining nutrients. Fancy equipment and the "best of everything horticulture" is not required. Here is the set-up I used in 2008 to produce more food than we could eat that summer and fall. I had an old grow light that I put into a clamp-on shop light shade; used a piece of plywood on saw horses for a surface located near windows and placed the whole stand over an electric plug-in radiator to provide a consistent heat source.  You can see the thermometer I used to monitor the set-up on the table, just one that had been on the back porch for years. The fan provided air as tomatoes need air movement to sway their stems when they are germinating to grow strong.

Under the Dixie Cups, we had metal cookie sheets with sides from the kitchen. Over top of the Dixie Cups, we  covered the seeded Dixies with sheets of Saran Wrap plastic film to hold in moisture and create a small greenhouse. Each Dixie Cup had a Popsicle stick with the plant name and date the seed was planted.

Tomatoes like to be transplanted, in fact I usually transplant them four times by the time they have gone into the garden.  Working with what we had, tomatoes were started in Dixie Cups, transplanted into recycled tin cans, then into cut off gallon water jugs and finally placed into the garden where they lived until the frosts of autumn.

Here are tomato plants in the later stages of growth
before going into the garden, having been transplanted
into cut off water jugs from recycled tin cans. Although
the Dixie Cups in the photo hold other plants, Dixie cups
were the first stage for the tomato plants as well.

If you are the frugal side of life, watching every penny, then this is the way to go for next spring's seed germinations. Your money should be spent on seeds, a grow light if you don't have one, a shop light to hold the grow light, a heat source and a thermometer. The rest of the equipment can be saved between now and then. Save various sizes of tin cans and larger cans or jugs dependable on what you have. A tip for those in hard straights is to take a walk around the neighborhood on recycling day and get what you need out of other peoples' recycle bins. Buying a box of bathroom size Dixie Cups and the Saran Wrap type plastic wrap will complete what you need to germinate in the spring.

Now, when things get better financially, or if you can afford to invest now, here is the equipment I just LOVE for seed germination. Park's Seed Company's Bio-Domes. They are really great. Problem is, the first year I went to buy them, in February, when I needed them, it was way too late to get them.  They had been sold out since before Christmas! Now, Park's Seed company seems to be ready for the demand, so they should have them, but don't wait too long to order, so you are high on the wait list should they have any thought of running out.

With a 60 well Bio-Dome, you can start 60 plants at a time. That's probably enough if this is your first attempt at serious food production.  But, if you are ambitious or experienced and want to try many types of plants, I can share that I own three 60 well Bio-Domes.  That's because I like to start plants with different optimum germination temperatures, and three 60 well Bio-Domes allows me to have the flexibility to germinate at three different temperatures, all