Re: Okay, serious stuff

Most of these heat mats are very low wattage, Donna. They are used to warm the soil, not fry it.

On Wednesday, March 9, 2005, at 07:04 AM, Donna wrote:

Do I have to give my fire safety speach here? Yes, You
can plug in a zillion things via surge bars and other
items..... but you can only turn 'on' the capacity of
the outlet wiring! :)

Donna

--- james singer <jsinger@igc.org> wrote:


Cyndi, consider plugging a surge bar into the timer
and heating pads
into the surge bar.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Johnson
Cyndi D Civ AFFTC/ITSR
wrote:


I have a little setup for starting seeds in my

greenhouse with a

couple heat
mats. I don't put anything between the heat mats

and the wood; if it

got hot
enough to hurt the wood I would have cooked seeds

for sure. I have been

using the plastic trays without drain holes to put

peat pots in. That

way I
can water from underneath until the seedlings are

up and ready to be

moved
out. I like the idea of the foil trays, though,

the plastic trays tend

to
crack after a couple of seasons and replacing them

with the aluminum

would
be easier.
My problem is that I really only need the heat on

during the night. The

greenhouse is plenty warm enough during the day so

I have timers on

the mats
to turn them on in the evening. I don't have

enough power outlets

available
to plug in more than two timers so I'm limited in

the number of seeds

I can
start. I suspect there are better ways to do this

but I'm cheap enough

that
I don't want to spend a hundred bucks or so to get

a more flexible

system
(this is probably one of those "penny-wise

pound-foolish" cases).

I also don't have lights over the seed trays

pretty much for the same

reason. That seems to work out okay, although I'm

sure they would grow

a
little faster with the extra hours of light.
I don't put any cover over the trays either, the

water at the bottom

keeps
everything sufficiently wet. I do have to remember

to check every day

and
make sure they're not drying out.

Cyndi

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net

[o*@hort.net] On

Behalf
Of james singer
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 12:17 PM
To: Chat
Subject: [CHAT] Okay, serious stuff


I think I'm going to clean up a big part of my

garage workbench and

install a seed-starting station. I've got seed

beds outdoors for big

stuff, like palms and loquats, but no really good

place to start small

seeds--peppers and cacti and such.

The bench has fluorescent shop lights overhead and

they can be altered

so they can be lowered and raised as need be.

The top of the bench is 2-inch by 12-inch pine/fir

planks. I want to

lay down heating mats or heating coils. What, if

anything, should I put

between the mats or coils and the wooden planks?

I think I will put something like cookie sheets,

the kind that are

shallow pans, on top of the mats/coils so I can

control both irrigation

and humidity. I do not intend to enclose the

growing medium [some

variation on peat pots, unless someone has a

better idea] in a tent or

one of those little "greenhouses" since the garage

never gets below 50

degrees.

What else do I need to consider? What would you do

differently? I've

never started seedlings indoors before [bet it

shows, eh?].

What say ye?

Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]





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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]





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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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