This Trick Germinates Seeds When It's Too Hot!

What's growing on, gardeners? On today's Two Minute Garden Tip, I'm going to show you a garden hack to help cool season seeds germinate more effectively indoors when it's too warm inside your house. Last week, I showed you the dramatic difference when starting seeds indoors in the spring versus in the fall. In the springtime, we're starting mostly warm season crops like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash that like warm soil temperatures and a very chilly home, so we often have to use seedling heat mats to warm up the soil and get maximum germination. But in the fall, things are different. We're germinating cool season crops like brassicas, lettuces, and cool hardy herbs that like cooler soil, but our houses are way too warm and things don't necessarily germinate well. And I showed you that while I was germinating my seeds underneath my LED grow lights on my seedling heating mat, the seedling heat mat was off. Had I turned it on, things would be way too warm for germination. And while the ambient room temperatures in late summer are awesome for brassica germination, I had wonderful germination of those seeds, my lettuces did not germinate at all because my office, unfortunately, is just too warm where my grow lights are. But luckily, there is a trick you can use to reduce the soil temperature. Instead of watering in my seed starts with tepid water like normally, I'm going to actually take ice cubes and I'm going to lay them down on top of the seed cells and that is how I am actually going to water them. This will slowly melt and allow that cold water to drip into the seed cells because, hey, I have to water them anyway, so why don't I just use really cold ice water instead? It's going to be the same amount at the end of the day. Once the ice cubes are there, I will simply put the lid on and then I will slide them underneath the grow lights. But, of course, on top of the seedling heat mat that is not on. And this method does seem to be working, whereas before my initial seeds didn't germinate at all after seven days, I'm starting to see some romaine seeds germinate after only three days in this little container. So just like with the seed cells, I'm going to water this by putting a few ice cubes in there and that should be all the water that's needed to slowly drip in there over a couple of hours. Keep in mind, I would never recommend this ice cube method for any of your warm season transplants like tomatoes, peppers, squashes, cucumbers and melons because they are all sensitive to frost and freeze. But these plants are all brassicas and lettuces. They are all tolerant of frost and freeze, so the ice cubes melting on top of them are not going to cause them any harm. It's simply simulating the soil temperatures of early spring when these plants naturally germinate anyway. So get creative. There is always interesting ways that we can increase the germination rates of our seeds at any time of year. And that's today's two minute garden tip. If you're new to the channel, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spread shop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and custom designed apparel and other gear. Your support is greatly appreciated.