You do not need "grow lights" per sey... I linked a pic of my indoor set up..and I use office lights from walmart. What

I forgot to do to my light stand and I HIGHLY recommend is make sure you have a tray to catch the water on each shelf.

a lil fan is good helps prevent damp off.. a soiless mix is good here too.

Here is a link that might be useful: my lights

I haven't started seeds for a few years due to scheduling problems, but I have a similar set-up to OTT. It's important to have height adjustable lights, and mine are on chains like OTT's, but hooked directly to my wooden shelves. Mine are 4 foot shop lights with one warm and one cool bulb if I remember correctly. I have mine in front of a tall kitchen window that gets good light as well, but the shop lights are on for 14 to 16 hours a day.

I use square pots since they have least amount of wasted space and put them in trays so that I can carry them over to the kitchen sink and water them with the sink sprayer (on low), let them drip and then return them to the shelves.

I actually sprout the seeds, a couple per pot, lightly covered with kitchen plastic wrap, in their final pots (3 1/2" approx) on top of the refrigerator where the heat from the condenser helps helps provide optimum temperatures since most of my seeds are for warm weather crops. For leeks and onions I plant in flats, not individual pots, and separate them at the time of planting. Once germinated, the plastic gets removed and they get put on the shelves. Like OTT I use a good quality soilless mix made for seed starting, usually from Johnny's, and not something from a big box store. After the seedlings have a bit of size and I am past worrying about damping off, I remove all but one plant per pot.

OOhhh, Fancy!
This is mine, hanging out in it's natural habitat, the basement.

Two regular sized flats fit on the rails below the lights.

I am short on time today, so I won't describe my set-up. The key point I want to make is that you need to carefully time your planting so that your seedlings are not started too early. I plan for 2 dates. The time in March when I can put out the cold hardy items and the last frost date in May. It is far better to err on the side of planting sightly later and having small starts to put out than to plant too early and have to pot-up gangly plants that have been under grow lights too long,and now are crowded because they take up so much more room per plant. I think they advise 6 to 8 weeks for peppers and tomatoes, but I have learned to go with 6 weeks. That is not true for everything that says 6 to 8 weeks. I do a lot of planting 8 weeks before last frost.

Two words for ya - winter sowing.... or is it one word? Wintersowing?? LOL

Anyway, check out the winter sowing forum here. It may make you decide on a whole 'nother way of seed starting. I haven't started a seed inside in 8 years, since I found that forum.

At least check it out before you spend any money on an indoor set-up.

Good luck and have fun! It's nice to be looking forward to next season already!

Dee

I like MG's use of the PVC pipes to build the stand - no warping like my wooden one, though we also have some of those Rubbermaid shelves like OTT . . . gives me some options rather than trying to rebuild (or actually ask DH to rebuild) my wooden shelving.

Dee - Do you just start perennials or also warm-weather annuals like tomatoes and peppers via winter sowing? If I started most of my warm weather crops with winter sowing, I'd get no veggies. I start lots of perennials and short-season annuals that are happy in cool soil as direct sow where I want them, often sown in fall for spring sprouting, which I guess is a form of winter sowing, but I indoor sow or buy starts of things like peppers and tomatoes.

I sort of agree with Asarum, but I find that I start peppers earlier than tomatoes since they take a bit longer to get going. So I have the onion family started in Feb, the peppers in mid-March, the tomatoes in early April and the squash and melons in early May.

I start all my veggies by wintersowing, as well as perennials and annuals. I do start the veggies later - maybe late March or even into April, as opposed to January or February. Lettuce and spinach do get started in February, peas get started in March, as well as (if I remember correctly) onions and beets, and then tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cukes, squash, etc. get started in April and even into May. I have to tell you the plants really do catch up quickly, even if they are smaller when they are first put out in the garden.

Annual herbs I start in April also. Annual flowers depend on the flower. Things that do well direct- or fall-sown get wintersown in February (calendulas, snaps, poppies, rudbeckias, celosias, amaranthus, dahlias) or early March, if I'm behind (heh heh, which I usually am!). Zinnias I usually do in March also. Asters and sunflowers I usually do in April.

Nothing's set in stone for me. I pretty much look in my seed box on any given day and ask myself what I feel like sowing, but I do follow the above general guidelines.

I just never had any luck with starting things indoors. If they didn't die of damp-off or get too leggy or die from neglect, I would bring them outside to harden off and completely forget to bring them back in, and they'd die overnight. Wintersowing has really changed my gardening world, so I do like to let others know about it in case they'd like to try it. I know it's not for everyone, but just in case, I always like to mention it.

Dee

When I first started to sow seeds, I was told that milled spagnum moss would prevent damp off. I have always used a thin layer on top of the seed starting mix, and have never had damp off.

I asked the question in another thread but this might be a better place. WHERE do you put your light systems?

Dee, thanks for the list and time you winter sow. I tried wintersowing one year and never transplanted anything.

I haven't had a lot of things to harden off and I'm lucky to have a semi-heated oversize two car garage. I load my garden cart with my plant purchases and wheel it outside in the morning. After I park my car at night, I can fit wheel it back in.

This is my first year starting vegetable seeds. I found this website (might have even been a link from someone else on GW, can't remember) that I think will be helpful in terms of starting seeds indoors, outside, etc.

Dee, that is great info about what works for you for WS. Do you think any of the vegetable seeds could be planted directly in the bed or do you always start them the "proper" WS way in jugs and then transplanting?

Defrost, I have my grow lights in a bedroom upstairs.

Here is a link that might be useful: Seed Starting Calendar

Defrost, I'm not sure I understand the question. When I first started growing things under lights, maybe 25 year ago now, the first book I read on the subject said that one of the great things about lights is that they can be set up practically anywhere. The only real limitations is that they should be somewhere reasonably warm, and they required access to electricity. That's really about it. My first setup was on a shelf over the TV in the living room. The author of that book had pictures of her setup on a shelf over the toilet in her main bathroom. I've seen major garage setups, but those can get into heating issues. My garage spends much of the winter hovering around freezing, and that just isn't warm enough for a lot of seedlings. I'd say that idea is to find somewhere that normally stays above about 50F.

I've never understood elaborate hardening off schemes. I usually just throw seedlings outside in the shade some day it is expected to stay above freezing for a while. Then a couple of days later, I move them to more sun. Tender plants aren't going out in April anyway, so there isn't a big rush.

thyme2 dig, I never tried direct sowing any of the vegetable seeds, so I'm afraid I'm of no help there - well, wait, let me amend that. I didn't direct sow in fall, if that's what you mean (or, obviously, lol, in the winter!). I have direct sown peas and beans and beets, off the top of my head, in spring. But now I pretty much winter sow everything but green beans.

Even if stuff can be direct sown in spring, it's so much fun to wintersow and get my hands in the dirt in the kitchen when it's cold outside, so I do it for that reason as well as for the good results I have!

Dee

T2D -

Thanks for the link!

thyme2dig, that's a terrific seed starting link. I've printed mine out. It's much more detailed than the one I used on the Farmers Almanac page.

mad-gallica, I know if sounds like a simple question that doesn't need to be asked so I'm probably over-thinking this. My husband suggested the basement but I hate going down there since it's dampish, with a low ceiling, old foundation, etc. I thought the upstairs bathroom would be good since there would be convenient water AND I'm in there at least twice a day so I wouldn't forget to check on seedlings. There's just enough room for a set up with 4' lights due to sloping ceilings.

This is one of those topics that suggest my husband and I don't speak the same language. I kept referring to shop lights but he scavenged some office type fixtures that hold 4 bulbs. He told me "not the same kind of light fixture". He will also have to be reminded that the lights have to hang on chains so I can adjust the height as the seedlings grow.

I flunked winter sowing this year. I don't want to neglect seedlings in 2012 like I did this year. Need to put the light system where I HAVE to pay attention to it.

Just I have run into people who seem to think that plant lights need to go in a plant light room....

I actually bought one of those 4 bulb fixtures to start rose cuttings many years ago. It was a lot more expensive than the shop lights, and took considerably more expertise to set up. Hanging it on the chains was, um, interesting. I still keep expecting it to just give way and fall. Something to keep in mind, is that it isn't the light that necessarily has to move. In my very first setup, the light stayed still, but the plants moved up and down on Kleenex boxes, phone books, egg cartons - anything reasonably sturdy and handy. I never had lights on chains until I built that very official PVC light stand.