Hi Janice,
To clear things up, I grow my own plants because I can't find the
varieties
that I want in the stores and nurseries. They are not exotic plants,
but
many are heritage types, which are not readily available.
Last year, I planted four trays of vegetable and flower seeds in my
crawl in late March. My crawl is kept reasonably warm by the heating
ducts running through it. I also put the trays on heating pads. I put
out the resulting small plants in a cold frame before leaving on
vacation.
Despite instructions to friends and neighbors to water them, they dried
out
and I lost most of them. If I had a better automatic watering system,
I could have left them in the crawl space, under lights, picking an
optimal
height of the lights to allow for plant growth. The problem remains
watering.
Your idea about using towels might work.

Sherwin D.

Janice wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 22:50:19 -0600, "B & J"
bjskeff@removecox-internetcom wrote:

"Sherwin Dubren" wrote in message
...
I have had a perpetual problem in that my vacations always seem to fall
out when I'm in the middle of seed starting from trays. I don't want to
impose on relatives or neighbors to keep them watered. I have seen
these
special trays with reservoirs at the bottom and some kind of wicking
system to keep seedlings from drying out. Does anyone have any
experience
with these trays? Also, how long can one expect one of these trays to
continue moistening the seedlings, as sometimes I go away for several
weeks.
I have tried wicking systems and feeding tubes with a siphoning
effect to water my potted plants, with limited success. I can't use my
bathtub, since there is no way to bring light to the seedlings. Does
anyone have a better idea?

Sherwin D.

Many seed catalogs sell seed starting kits, which include a plastic tray,
cells for planting seeds, and a clear plastic cover that keep seedlings
moist as they sprout, but they can also be found at many of the gardening
sections of stores such as Lowes or WalMart where they are much more
reasonably priced. I use ProMix as a starting medium and have little trouble
with damp off, but I don't put these starting trays in sunlit windows where
the seedlings can fry. Instead I place them under grow lights. I don't like
to leave the trays covered too long after the seeds start growing, but I
have gone as long as three weeks after planting the seeds. Beyond that point
the seedlings need drier air than that under the plastic.

John

How many seedlings are we talking about here? How far along in the
sprouting process? Not sure where you are, and if you've already got
seeds planted and coming up now or if this is something coming up for
you, so it's a hit and miss answering.

If you've just got a tray or two: take them to someone else's house if
you don't want to impose on them to come to yours.

Are you starting varieties that you can only get via starting them
yourself, or are you just starting seed for "fun"? If they're not
special, not otherwise available in your area varieties, consider just
buying plants later.

If they're a special variety, and you have any kind of a relationship
with a greenhouse, approach them to see what they would charge you to
start the seed and tend it for you while you're out of town. Most of
them are *not* going to be amenable to you bringing in already started
plants into their greenhouse due to any diseases or pests you may
bring in with them. But you *can* ask. One year I just wasn't able
to start my own seed, and I provided seed to the owner of a
greenhouse, and I had her start them, and I purchased the resulting
plants from her as if they started them from their own seed, since
they had done the work of growing them. I had planted the seed at the
greenhouse myself and labeled them, thereby using their equipment to
sidestep the disease issues, but did not use her workers and take them
from their job doing what she needed done, and then I left them there
after watering them and I was done until they needed transplanting,
and I could have skipped that by just planting in the pots directly.

Anyway, that's something to explore.

If you are in an area that's warm enough that they'd do well in a
cold frame with some sort of watering system on a timer to keep them
moist. I wouldn't trust much in the way of a watering system hooked
to a water source that, if things went wrong, could flood your house
if left unattended. You could use an old towel that's soaked and then
allowed to run the majority of the water off then laid down on a
plastic, and the plants which have just been soaked up to their rims
and then let them drain the majority of the water out, should be set
on the wet towel. Then set a bucket on something to elevate it a bit
a cinder block maybe and use a small piece of tubing to siphon over
water from the bucket..play with the height and size of the tubing and
towels.

Personally, I would not want to go away and leave plants of any kind
other than cacti maybe, unattended, but most definitely not seedlings,
even if you have seedling set up with florescent light systems, the
height of the lights has to be changed every few days to keep the
light 2" off the top of the seedlings to keep them growing stocky and
not burned from growing up into the lights, nor spindly from being too
far from the lights so growing rapidly trying to reach it and falling
over. If you're relying on window light, then they need to be turned
daily to keep them from laying down trying to reach the light, or
plastering themselves against a window that gets cold at night.

well I've said too much now, but .. we need more info to make concise
suggestions..or at least *I* do. LOL

Good luck!