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I never consider heat ! My peppers seem to take forever to start and most of the time they never come up!
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Bob,

Take a look at this, https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31716&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The Mad Hatter system, seems to be working.

Eric

For about 20 years, I used heating pads under my seed-starting flats. Then my son moved out on his own and left his old waterbed here. When I dismantled it, I discovered the heater under the mattress. It has since become my very favorite means of providing bottom heat to seeds.

THG has approximately 25 previous threads discussing ways to provide bottom heat when starting seeds. There are lots of great ideas in those threads.

Yeah, you need to be browsing around our new seed starting forum a bit more!

I just responded to someone else's question about this, here:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32004

DoubleDogFarm wrote:Bob,

Take a look at this, https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31716&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The Mad Hatter system, seems to be working.

Eric

Thanks Eric. Yep, this way has worked out very well so far for me. I have a little forest of peppers downstairs.

If you do not have room for this setup, I seen yesterday at Menards that they have a combo pack out now with the tray, dome, and a heating pad for it. It was like 25 - 30 dollars or so. I do not know how well it worked but I was real tempted to get one hehe.

T.M.H.

I made my own heatpad when I saw some of that outdoor weatherproof tube lighting on sale(3$ for 10') made a small bed out of 2x4 and plywood, coiled the light tubing like radiant floor heating, on top of that went sand, and on top of that some plastic to keep it dry. seed trays go on that. when its 20 outside, 25-30 in the greenhouse, the heat pad I made is at about 60. when its 32 outside the heat mat is at about 70. the whole thing cost me about 12$ and its 2ft wide x 5ft long. so it can hold a lot of plants. usually peppers because they grow too slow in the cold.

A small compost box that gives off heat for a few weeks to set your plant boxes on top of! I was thinking of a 6 inch deep maybe 2 by 3 foot box that will have a working compost inside something like the hand warmers except the compost is activated when a slat is removed from the box! It would also be a source of future potting soil! That would be a good seller for a store! Heat generation is worth its weight in gold with the price of fuel or electric these days!

So have you started that experiment yet, Bobberman?
Please take detailed notes and record temps -- initial temp, control/unmodified soil temp, max temp achieved and duration for which the increased temp was sustained, etc.

In the old days they would use large cold frames with a deep layer of manure under the planting soil layer to provide heat from decay.

here is a good description [[Livingston and the Tomato]

https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/30141


I knew a guy in Long Island that used to grow orchids in cold frames that had heat tape in the bottoms. The cold frames were sunk down into the ground about two feet with the glass just a few inches above ground IIRC.