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William Rose · 30-04-2007, 06:33 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible,rec.gardens

In article ,
zxcvbob wrote:

wrote:
I have been procrastinating about starting from seeds. But there
is no time like the present. Especially inspired by the recent
thread about it.

Anyway, I have seen some people talk about heating pads. But,
would it work OK to just put the the seed tray on top of the
refrigerator?

It is getting towards winter here, in another month. And I only
heat the room where I am personally located. It can get rather
cold in the kitchen at night.

Note that, my local climate is OK for spinach, broccoli, etc, to
go outside during winter. They just grow slow.

Thanks...

The best results I've ever had was this year when I took some
unusually-hard-to-sprout pepper seeds to work, planted in a Tupperware
container and put them on the back of my computer monitor during the
days. I took them off at night and removed the lids and let them cool
off and breathe. I got almost 100% germination in about a week and the
seedlings are now strong and healthy. Last year the same seeds took
almost a month to get maybe 10% germination and the seedlings were weak
not a single one survived. The bottom heat was the only difference.

On top of the fridge is probably pretty good; it depends where the
condenser coils are.

Bob

Last year I got about a 50% germination rate on all seeds when I put
them in a drawer under our water bed. This year with a hot pad and grow
lights I'm getting about a 90% germination rate. Different plants have
different needs.
- Bill
Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)