I have my shelves in an unheated pantry. Granted we don't usually have southern temps this low (high 30's, low 40's) in our part of the country, but for the past several months they have been. As most of my seedlings are started in this unheated pantry, I noticed that the fluorescent lights themselves produce a goodly amount of heat. I raised the temps under those shelves recently to 70 degrees - not because of the seedlings, but because I wanted to heat up some fermenting sauerkraut - which needed that heat to continue to ferment. Anyway - I also use this approach for my seedlings. I enclosed the area around the seedlings with a cloth to further harness the warmth - and noted the thermometer registered near 70 degrees. Certainly warm enugh for broccolli and cole seedlings. You might try putting up some shelves, attaching fluorescent lights underneath, and see what the temp reading is. Bet it would work - unless your temps go way down - but another trick yet - I usually put my sprouted seedlings into yogurt sized cups, about 8 in all, which are then placed in a plastic shoe box (mostly to catch water). These boxes are easily obtained in various variety stores. A 2nd box placed over the top will create a greenhouse effect. I'll bet your little tads will be as cozy as a bug in a rug with this approach - and won't upset things in the OTHER nursery. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

If it ain't broke don't fix it. Few people are using spot lights so what we say for lights doesn't necessarily apply to you, and nearness to windows, walls, and even the color of your furniture and carpet make a difference.

Hmm, that's frustrating. I wonder about overwatering. Do you back off the water after germination? You don't want it to fully dry out, but you don't want it soggy either. For the beets, try soaking for an hour then planting directly. The main seedling stem breaking sounds like damping off. Controlling the moisture should help and watering with weak chamomile tea can help prevent that fungal disease.

No idea if this really works or if I just got lucky and something else kept the rust at bay on my hollyhocks this past year. I read somewhere online that if you sprinkle a good bit of corn meal around the base of the plant it will help control rust. I decided to give it a shot this year and my HHs were the cleanest they've ever been. Coincidence? Maybe. But it was a pretty inexpensive and easy thing to do and I will be doing it again in the spring when they come up! Also, I try and pull of any leaves that look like they are infected before they get horrible looking. It helps keep it from spreading. HHs almost seem to do the best in poor soil with little to no help from the gardener - the more you mess with them, the more you compost and water and all that the weaker the plants seem to be. It is almost like they need bad conditions to get really hardy. I guess that is why they used to just be grown up along outhouses and you see them sprouting from seed naturally in all sorts of weird places that don't appear to be ideal.