sticky_bud

Hey oldhat thanks for that method. its pretty close...

Ya eco-friendly prolly not, but I use the ziplock so I can blow it up like a baloon, this works as a mini green house.

The bag also helps keep the moisture from evaporating too quickly.

In my experience the plates would take longer to warm up and then retain too much heat once heated.

I try to keep em really warm but not cook em.

For me using the ziplock bag is easier to control the heat.

Oh yeah, a ziplock bag being plastic, you could theoretically wash it and re-use for every batch of seeds over and over...


Thanks for stoppin by. Heres a phatty for ya

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swordfish

I like your ziplock idea. Recently trying to germinate some flower seeds for a little practice. I have sunflowers and some garden flowers that come in packs. I also use a seedling heat mat but need to lay some towels or potholders over it, as the mat gets quite hot and has burned or dried out some of my test runs on the flowers. These seeds are disposable and offer me a better learning curve to mess around with different methods. Someone somewhere suggested that in addition to avoiding the paper towels with ink in them they buy a better brand as well that's softer (Charmin-factor). I snickered at this, thinking does the bean really need an extra soft version of a paper towell. I know better to use one with ink patterns but never considered the softness factor as well or whether it's worth considering.
I have found great luck with medical guaze, it's like a sterilized cheese cloth, pure white, soft, and in my humble opinion slightly better than paper towels. It's also true that porcelin plates can get quite toasty when you sandwich the beans between the plates and not moniter the temps precisley.
Anybody skip these type of methods entirely and line a tray with jiffy plugs and see what comes up? Seeds planted directly in a plug? If you arranged them in a tray with a heat mat under it. I havent tried this method yet but am considering it, unless someone gives me a good reason to stick to germ'in your seeds first I might try this approach and see how it goes.

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oldhat

Right on!

I really do prefer the plates since they let you carefully pull up the flap and inspect them.
As Morris Day of the Time said "Easy Access, Baby!"

I don't think they stay any warmer in the bags, in fact I would think the ceramic plates hold heat longer.... I just keep the plates in my room which has a heater.

I do like they fact they get a tiny bit of oxygen this way too- and I am focused on doing all I can with sustainable, re-usable kinds of methods. The bottom line is both methods can get the job done.

PS the cheap plastic in ziplocs is definitely not meant for re-use. It gives off a constant stream of nano-plastic-poo. Nor is the plastic in those water bottles that no-one should use.... but I digress.

sticky_bud

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ch33ch

i have had a bad experience with jiffy planters. i would not recommend them unless you trash the peat pellets that come with it, sterilize the crap out of the plastic stuff, and find some peat pellets that come in some kind of sealed packaging. all this because the one i was using( which killed at least 100 plants) was exposed to a million shoppers and dust and all that bad stuff, before it was purchased for me. there was no plastic wrapping or anything to keep the peat pellets from contamination, and the greenhouse lid was stacked on the bottom, to prevent crushing during shipment.
so.. I planted rows of N. Rustica, midewivan sacred, n. glauca, humulus japonicus/scandens, havana tobaccos, other tobaccos developed for resistance to diseases, and tiny sugar lumps tomatoes. the first crop died and i had no idea what damping off was, so i thought i killed them with excessive sunlight or heat. i replanted and kept it more indoors, protected from direct sunlight, and after a couple weeks they started dying off again. i thought there were some tiny bugs involved, but what it turned out to be was the fungus that causes damping off. anything i transplanted from that jiffy planter eventually died, except for one japanese hop that i initially believed to be my first tiny sugar lump tomato, but i had to save its life, by ripping a paper towel and using it to prevent the cotyledons from touching the damp soil, because i thought they were affected by the rot/mold/fungus., i should upload a pic. that plant has half mutated leaves and the other side comes out with non-mutated bud-like leaves.
and i thought it was the mini-tomatoes at first.. until i saw bud leaves coming out of it!
sorry for the incredibly long post. the moral of this story is: sterilization is key. if my plants don't come out of seed packets i always wash them, i trust h2o2 a little more than trying to wash them with antibacterial soap, and not dropping them down the drain.
if you can find peat pellets that are protected from the outside world, go for it! i don't get out much, so i don't know if they sell them like that.. i do know that they should, otherwise your plants will get sick and die, like my ~100 tobaccos(i ran out of n. glauca[tree tobacco] seeds, and 2 plants coming from what you refer to as "beans"
they got the wilt, or damping off the same as everything else in that soil.
the japanese hops is the sole survivor.
needless to say, i switched planters and used bagged potting soil to get my tobacco seeds going. they're doing just fine now, without that dirty jiffy.

Floydism

just grabbed the schultz taproot power

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Good luck on your crops everyone !

Journal-1:bagseed (male/failed)
Journal-2: Hashberry/Orangebud (current)

Floydism

success

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Good luck on your crops everyone !

Journal-1:bagseed (male/failed)
Journal-2: Hashberry/Orangebud (current)

mcribbz

Man I just wanted to say thanks. I have never germed a seed in my life and using your method so far 7 of 9 have popped and the other 2 have only been in about 30 hours so I still have hope for them 2. Now if I can just get them to sprout up in my rockwool.

SunDay

Thanks a lot. i normally use two plates to germinate but this time used your method and it worked perfect

sticky_bud

right on ya'll

spread the word

thanks for stoppin by everybody!!

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