Al wrote:
I was hoping to tap the experience of those of you who use heating
pads for your seedlings...after years of having a great spot next to
the furnace to start seedlings, I've moved to a new house without a
basement. I've already snagged a corner of the garage to start my
seeds in this year, but I realize that with the loss of my furnace,
I'll be needing to start 'em over a heating pad. The question is
this: I prefer to start my plants in 2x2 peat pots, NOT flats. All
of the conventional wisdom about heating pads assures me that they'll
do the trick with flats, but do they heat the soil enough for a 10-20
degree raise in temperature for seeds that have a couple of inches of
soil between them and the pad?

Any advice based in experience would be appreciated before I go buy
the darn things.

Thanks,

Al
I use a regular home heating pad to start my seedlings. I put the pad
in the bottom of a cardboard box, place several sheets of newspaper
over it and place meat market styrofoam trays on the paper (to keep
everything dry). I put my seed trays (styrofoam egg cartons) in the
meat trays and cover the top of the box with plastic. The heating pad
is set to low and the temperature in the box (monitored by a
thermometer stuck into the planting mix) can be adjusted by adding
more newspaper over the pad, setting the pad control to a different
setting or making a vent hole in the plastic. The box is then placed
under a two tube shop light that is on a 16 hour timer, this seems to
work OK for me.
Bill