My Seed Starting Setup

[Jimche]

Here are a few pics of my new seed starting setup. Wanted lots of capacity for peppers and tomatoes, but did not want to spend $2,000 for two 4-shelf racks with lights and four 2'x4' heat mats. Instead, I spent about $600 in materials and way too many hours building these. The racks are just 3/4" plywood, trimmed in 1x2s, set into notched 2x3 supports, held together by lag bolts. The shop light chains run through holes in the lower half of the 1x2 shelf trim and are held in place at different settings by nails that pass inserted downward through the chain links. The heat trays are made of a masonite bottom, wood trim sides and aluminum sheeting on top, with about 35 feet of 1/2" rope light (not LED type) winding around inside. This rope light idea came from postings by others on this and a couple of other sites. The stuff I bought emits 5.5 Watts of heat per foot, giving about 190 Watts for each 2'x4' tray, which is in the range the commercially available units supply. It heats a flat of soil in my 72 degree house up to about 82 degrees. I found it important to make sure the rope light contacted the aluminum, so that it can be the heat sink. Otherwise, most of the heat is conducted out the back through the masonite, which the lights also contact. So, this has been a fun project. Now let's see if I can grow anything (newbie here)!!

[akgardengirl]

Very professional looking. I need something that breaks down to put away each year. I saw some instructions a long time ago to make seed starting shelves with plastic pipe. That might work for me since I only use 4 shop lights, a pair end to end. Looks like the nursery has its own room.
Sue

[BattleOfBennington]

ooOOOO I like that Idea

Originally Posted by akgardengirl

Very professional looking. I need something that breaks down to put away each year. I saw some instructions a long time ago to make seed starting shelves with plastic pipe. That might work for me since I only use 4 shop lights, a pair end to end. Looks like the nursery has its own room.
Sue

[Jimche]

Sue,
The pipe approach would be good for you. This one can be disassembled, but it'll take some time, even using a cordless drill and socket attachment. I wish it could stay up year round, but space is really limited .
Jim

[stormymater]

Wow! Those are magnificent dude! No kidding about wanting to keep those around all the time. Can you say centrally located jungle of tropical plants! Covetting hard! You did a fantastic job!

[kevokie]

That is a really nice setup! Good job!

[Polar_Lace]

Originally Posted by Jimche

Here are a few pics of my new seed starting setup. <snip>

Does my face look green to you? (no pic to show!) If so, that's not for St. Patrick's Day, and not for the leafy green things that will be growing in there.
It's Envy! I wish I had someone who could do that kind of shelving.

Originally Posted by akgardengirl

I saw some instructions a long time ago to make seed starting shelves with plastic pipe.
Sue

PVC plant light stand

Googled search:
PVC growlight stand plans

~* Robin

[akgardengirl]

That's it Robin..looks like I could build it myself. Thank you for finding it.
Sue

[newatthiskat]

That is a great light stand setup Jimche! Yup everyone is now jealous of you!
Polar_Lace thanks for posting that pvc light stand maybe next year?? HMMM
Kat

[ContainerTed]

I built one of these for a co-worker a few years back. It also had to be easy to disassemble. If you don't glue a joint, something could bump or stress the frame in one direction or another and the pipe can come loose from the "tee joint" piece.

The fix is to pick the shapes you want when in storage, glue those joints and then plan for using screws to reinforce joints that you don't want to glue. These stands are usually two flat sides with cross pieces. On the joints where you don't want to glue, use a course thread screw that will go thru the both the pipe and the "tee". This will allow your construction to take a bump and not come apart dumping your plants.

Ted

[Jimche]

to take a bump and not come apart dumping your plants.

Yup, sounds like the screws are a good idea!!

[amideutch]

If Jimche turns out to be half as good a tomato grower as he is a carpenter, look out. Very nice work. Ami

[Jimche]

Thanks, everyone, for the nice compliments. Can't wait to get some things growing! It is so nice to have a forum like this one with so many enthusiastic and knowledgeable tomato people. I'm sure we will have lots of questions for you all. Jim and Galina

[dcarch]

This is the best example of a seed starting setup I have seen both in the thinking and execution of the project. Congratulations! Thumbs up.

Having said that, in the spirit of exchanging ideas, and not as criticism, I hope no one is going to get mad because I have these suggestions:

• It does not look like the structure has much lateral stability. When it is fully watered, it gets heavy and possibly can collapse. It should be easy to provide bracing to prevent this from happening.
• If you enclose the setup with mirror Mylar, you will get a lot more light to your seedlings.
• If you enclose it with Mylar, you will not need electric heating. You are getting over 5,000 BTUs of heat from the light fixture alone.
• If you enclose it with Mylar you will need to water less frequently.
• For your heating system, it’s best if you paint the bottom of your aluminum plate black. Aluminum is a very good reflector, up to 95% reflectivity; it will reflect most of the heat to the Masonite board. The purpose of the aluminum plate is to distribute heat more evenly to the seedlings because it is also a very good conductor.
• It would be a good idea to install the heating light strips over (cheap) kitchen aluminum foil to reflect heat upwards.

I see you understand reflectivity is important. You have everything white, including the seed pots.
First class.

dcarch

[Barbee]

WOW! Nice set up!