Where To Start My Seeds?

[menollyrj]

I'm trying to decide where to put my little "greenhouse" to start my broccoli & cabbage. I have a few choices and would like your input.

Option 1: The woodstove room. Advantages: Large window to supplement grow lights; warm temperatures. Disadvantages: Warm ALL the time, sometimes over 80 degrees; cluttered, so I'd have to move furniture/boxes.

Option 2: The basement. Advantages: Not too warm, plenty of room. Disadvantages: No window.

Option 3: The garage. Advantages: Window to provide outside light. Disadvantages: Cluttered (moving stuff again...); cold nighttime temps since basement is unheated.

I only have two grow lights, so I would like to supplement with outside light, but I'm leaning towards the basement as a choice because of the temperatures. What do you think?

-Joy

[EDDIE BUCK]

Kill two birds with one stone, LOL. Throw the clutter thats in the garage in the basement. Set up your "little greenhouse" next to the window in garage. Then get a heat mat or heating cables to set the seed trays on. If that window will not get full sun for most of the day, set up your grow lights as well. Good luck Eddie

[Callieslamb]

your seeds in the basement under the lights -while you clean out another space for them in garage.

Or - start in basement and keep in basement. I used to grow all of my plants this way. Under the lights in the basement. When they got larger and the weather was a bit mroe cooperative, I put them outside in a cold frame to finish off until planting time. Use aluminum foil on cardboard around the plants to direct more light to them. Make one side moveable so you can access the plants when you need to take care of them.

[menollyrj]

I think I'm going with the basement. I'm afraid of the garage since it has been down in the low teens lately. I may move them outdoors on sunny days, but who knows? I've not grown my own transplants before (unless you count my dismal wintersowing experiment), so I'm learning as I go. I suppose I can always move them if necessary...

Thanks guys!

-Joy

[Danaus29]

Basement under lights. That's the way I do most of mine. When weather permits (temps above freezing) set the plants outside in a sheltered area and move them back indoors for the night. Eliminates the hardening off time when you do it that way too.

[Paquebot]

Throw "greenhouse" away. Build a simple cold frame outside and plant your brassica family in that. The seeds don't need a lot of heat to germinate and you won't have to worry about not enough light.

Martin