This is a convenient way to maintain a desirable temperature your plants need.
Diy seed germination heat mat.
When starting seeds providing the right amount of heat is crucial yet difficult as the room you use is warm during the day but cool at night.
Setting up light shelves.
The way you choose to keep your seeds and new seedlings is vital for their growth and development.
The results will amaze you.
Once the vegetables are grown your heat mat can help you with home brewing and fermentation later on.
The best way to maintain temperature.
The temperature varies on what you are growing.
Soil water and warmth.
Providing a heat source under the seed tray urges the seeds to germinate in a hurry.
Heat mats can really help speed up germination for many seeds especially tomatoes and peppers.
A well built bottom heating mat can help you a lot to keep your seeds and seedlings warm.
Commercial heat mat surface temperature thermometer placed on top of soil.
To control heating times use a thermostat or timer.
When you are learning to grow from seeds often you might see reference to a heat mat for seedlings.
Diy heat mat seeds need three things to germinate.
It has a thermostat to dial into the exact temperature we need and we can easily adjust it if needed.
73 75 degrees f soil temperature.
The germination mat helps keep an even germination temperature between 65 80 f.
Commercial heating mats and cables are made just for this purpose but christmas lights work equally well.
Whether you buy a seedling heat mat or put together a diy alternative i hope you ll consider adding extra heat to your seed starting shelf this winter.
Of particular interest is the temperature comparisons of the store bought heat mats and the diy plan.
Noticing that i would have to drop a lot of dough for heat mats i decided to go with this plan instead.
80 82 bottom temperature gap between heat mat and seed trays.
For additional information on seed starting see my previous article seed starting 101.
This is a readers favorite post our how to site.