New LED Lights & Early Seed Starting

This post is mostly a late winter update on what I've been working on garden-wise. I got a new LED panel from Amazon and I've been doing some tests, and I've given myself the all-good to start some of the super early stuff, like peppers! Ive also been making my plans and organizing my epic tomato seed start.

All my tomatoes laid out, trying to see how many of each do I want, what am I going to start them in, etc.

For testing my LED lights and starting my peppers, I bought 4 mini greenhouses from Dollarama. I'm not a big fan of the peat pellets for early starters, as they can dry up super quick and the roots often outgrow the tiny pellet very quickly, but in terms of checking if my lights work ok, they'll do. * I will say that peat pellets (which can be purchased in organic form) are perfect for plants like beans, corn, peas and other quick to grow seedlings that you might want to organize nicely in a raised bed.

I think I'll use these again later with new pellets for  all my varieties
of corn, peas and sunflowers. I can make a big label for each small greenhouse.

 This year I added two seedling heat mats and so far I've been pleased with my propagation among the peppers using the mats, it seems to be helping, although, I've never not had good germination from my seeds in the past.

Hydro-Farm Seedling Heat Mat - Bought it on Amazon

Ou! So pretty, and boy does this thing throw light in the room.
I can't say its super powerful for seed starting but it seems to do the trick.

Ready to go!

Testing the light using some old seeds, they worked great!

My new pepper seedlings and my newly planted fish pepper seeds.

I took them out from under the LED light for further inspection,
yellowed seedling would indicate a lack of light.

The seedlings are now about 2 weeks old and doing great, the secondary leaves have come on and I run a fan every other day to keep them strong.

Handmade seedling labels!

Here's a neat tip; cut up your old yogurt containers into seedling labels. Why pay $5-$6 dollars for a package of one-time-use labels, when you can make your own for free. Make sure you tapper the end of each so they stick into the soil nicely, and then use a fine-point sharpie to write the name.