This year I have been experimenting with letting my vegetables self-seed! Can you believe how lazy I am? I figured if I like mustards on this patch, I will like it again next year. So far I have had volunteer lettuces, radishes, mustards, cilantro, shiso, chard, even beans! In a few weeks there will be squash volunteers. See how much money I save not buying seed? Seriously, this has several advantages, since the flowers from some of these crops attract pollinators, other beneficials, and also look pretty cool. I pick them (lets say radishes) but let one of the specimens flower, seed, and even though I collect the seed that I can collect, most of it has gone on the ground, ready to sprout next year at this time and place! Other winter crops I seed directly: carrots, all brassicas, all beets and chard, lettuces (if I do not have enough sprouting on their own), artichokes I both seed directly or start in small pots. I also seed directly beans, peas, all legumes actually, and all squash. All cucumbers too. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are the only vegetables I start in small pots inside. I use the same plastic pots that come with nursery purchased plants, start them by a window, then transfer them to the front porch to harden. As far as what mixes, I use whatever I have at the time. But no peat! I have had good luck with either my regular garden soil, or potting soil, or a mix. I also sprout my tomato seeds that I saved without fermentation. I tried fermenting last year and it spoiled the seeds, I have gotten better results without fermenting, but don't tell anyone in the tomato forum or I might get kicked out of it. Oh yes, if there is a spacial brassica I would like to 'baby' like cauliflowers for example, I do start them in pots in the early fall, mostly just to keep the varieties from getting mixed up, and to be able to bring the seedlings inside if the sun gets too brutal. But I still think the self seeding method is the best! let the garden go feral!

You can use store shopping bags, though keep in mind that many are made to break down in sunshine over time. If you can see through them then they will allow enough light. I have used the bags from the stores that are heavier, such as the large bags that tp comes in from Costco. It is heavy and one side has no printing and is just the right size for one of my large plastic containers. Our grocery stores recycle bags so I go through all my plastic bags saving the heavier ones for various uses and recycle the rest. Many shopping bags are very thin and tear easily. They get recycled. Target has great bags for reuse as they are a bit thicker. But they are opaque, not good for winter sowing. I like to keep them for moving divided plants. There is a bit of aha! moment when I find a completely clear strong bag.

I don't understand the purpose of the drop cloths, and like Larry, I'm concerned about the fire risk. Raising seeds indoors will lose its appeal really fast if your light-shelf set-up burns down the house. Tomato seedlings should be grown on at cool temperatures after the seeds germinate. The ideal temperature for them is 65 degrees. Leaving seedlings on a seed germination mat is risky and can damage them. I have a seed germination mat and rarely use it. If I'd known how easily 95% of the plants I grow from seed would germinate indoors without a germination mat, I never would have bought one. Some years I don't even dig it out of storage and use it at all. When I do use it, I move the entire flat off the mat once 50% of the cells in the 72-cell flat have germinated seeds in them. About the only vegetable seed I'll use the germination heat mat for is pepper seeds, particularly older seeds I've had a few years. I often germinate my tomato, pepper and other seeds in zip-lock bags like George mentioned. As long as I remove them from the zip-lock bag before the plant stems and roots become intertwined with one another, they don't mind being moved from the bags to the flats of soil-less mix. I find it very efficient because I'll have full flats with each cell filled with seedlings, instead of having flats with some empty cells because the seeds in them failed to germinate. I prefer to grow seedlings on for a few weeks in conditions that are fairly cool. Because the guest room where I put my light shelf faces the south and has big windows, I struggle to keep the room from getting too hot for them. To keep it cool, I close off the HVAC vent in that room so that it isn't getting any heat when the heater is on. I let them have a couple of hours of early morning sun and then close the drapes so that the room doesn't heat up too much. I keep a fan running 224/7. When you raise seedlings indoors in a room that is too hot, they quickly grow into monster plants, and that's not good for them. When they grow large quickly, they outgrow the available space under the plant lights. When that happens, what are you going to do with them? I used to move mine to my screened-in back porch, but once we built the greenhouse, that became the place I put them when I kick them out of the nice warm house. They might get warmer in the greenhouse than I'd like during the day, but then they get very close to freezing temperatures in there most nights, so that keeps them from growing rampantly like they would indoors. It is so early to be starting tomato seeds indoors that I get a headache thinking about it. You only need to start them 6 to 8 weeks before your recommended transplanting date. The OSU-recommended planting dates for tomato transplants are April 10-30, with the April 10th date being intended for folks in far SE OK and the April 30th date being intended for folks in far NW OK. The rest of us have to chose an appropriate transplanting date somewhere between April 10 and April 30, based on where we live in the state and on our local soil temperatures and air temperatures. Sometimes, in a really hot winter with an early last freeze, we can put tomato plants in the ground up to a month early and get away with it, but years like that are few and far between---maybe once or twice a decade, and it just happened in 2012, so I don't know if we'll have another year like that any time soon. I usually start my tomato seeds on Super Bowl Sunday, and that can be far too early for me in years when the air and soil temperatures stay cold deep into spring. And, it can be almost too late in a year like 2012 because it means my seedlings will barely be big enough to be transplanted early. So, I feel like it is the exact right time to start them since it isn't precisely right for long, cold springs or short, warm winters. It is right in the middle. If I started tomato seeds as early as you have, my husband would lock me in the cellar until the insane urge to start seeds now had passed. That is because he knows all too well how crazy it makes me to have big, healthy plants indoors that cannot go into the ground for another month or two. Because our weather is so erratic, even when I start them on time, I sometimes cannot put them into the ground for another 2-6 weeks beyond the preferred transplanting date. The last time we had a year like that, it just above drove me crazy, and I just about drove him crazy. So, since you started your seeds so early.....welcome to the insanity! Dawn

122) Chiggers love the sweet perfume of OFF! Wear it well at clothing openings and about the ankle. (Deer ticks are optional here but plentiful.)