I've always heard, that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

It isn't the way I've been taught to do it, or the way that I DO do it, but, if it has proven successful for you, onward and upward.....

That being said, if you wake up one morning and some, if not all, of your seedlings are dead, you'll know why.

My main concern would be your seed starting mix. MG garden soil has stuff in it that may cause your seedlings to die from damping off, among other things.

Susan

Agree with Susan and as mentioned in other threads here, there isn't only 1 right way, just some ways that are well proven to work better than others.

Been doing it as a commercial business for almost 50 years now and making a good living out of it as well as for our acre or so of gardens here at home. And while I sure wouldn't use MG, especially the MG Garden Soil that says right on the bag "not for use in containers", we do:

routinely clean and disinfect the greenhouses and all the equipment and containers,

use heating pads and grow lights (yes, even in the greenhouse),

and transplant seedlings for many very important reasons - all discussed on various forums here and supported by decades of botanical research.

But there are no seed-starting police that will come to arrest you if you don't do all those things so the choice is yours.

So have you been lucky? Very much so IMO and I wish you continued good luck.

Dave

PS: the fencing discussion would best be discussed on one of the more relevant forums.

I am trying to imagine your bedroom floor covered with all of those seedlings you are starting this year. My bedroom floor isnt nearly big enough!

Are you starting plants for a lot of friends? or planning on selling them? 600 plants is an awful lot to be dragging outside every morning, not to mention the amount of garden space they will need as they grow. If you dont have room in the yard for a small green house (neither do I) then you sure dont have room for 120 tomatoes, even planted way to tight, thats over 1000 sqft.

Like you, I am a relative newbie. This will be my 4th year with a vegetable garden, and like you, every year I have been expanding, and starting more and more seeds. Its exciting and addicting. You dont have to follow all of the recommended ways of doing it, but yikes! you may be biting off more than you can chew.

No it is not that you were lucky. You planted seed that will germinate at your house temperatures, you did not mind taking them out into the bright light of the out of doors everyday. As long as you stick to growing vegetables you will succeed even if you break a few rules. Keep it up. Al

Like one of the future post, "If it ain't broke dont fix it. As far as cheap fencing goes galvanised chicken wire( 2ft.) is about as cheap and long lasting as you can get. You can get little 3 ft metal fence post and the chicken wire at local garden centers like Lowes, Menards or Home Depot. Good Luck.

I think I am going to split my seeds in half to do a little experiment. I will clean and disinfect all the cell packs and trays. But than I will do half the seed in the Miracle-Gro garden soil and half in a seed starting mix. I'll have to do a little research for that unless someone wants to recommend a good mix. That way I can see which has a better germination rate and seedling survival rate.

Dave I realize that the fence question was better off in another forum. But I had just come in from doing some clearing in the garden and was fighting with Max trying to get him to stop digging. My fingers were already flying across the keyboard and I just couldn't get them to quit.

As in the other posts above your best bet is chicken wire and get stakes of wood or metal for the four corners to help support the chicken wire.
I don't bleach my plastic pots. I do however wipe my cutting tools down sometimes with alcohol as I read this in some thread.

I was doing some looking around on amazon and saw this heat mat and was wondering what some of you think of it.I like the idea of being able to get it in a length and width that I choose instead of having to get several different ones. Do you think that it will have adequate power to cover say a 6' length?

Here is a link that might be useful: heat mat

Not enough specs are given to make a guess. No wattages mentioned for any of the sizes. No thermostat control, only claiming to raise the temperature over some unknown temperature. I would not risk my money for as little as is known. It would have been better to start your own thread, as this has no relation to the original post. Al