Build a Seed-Starting Shelf

By Tom Larson
Published on March 1, 2008
article image
Adobe Stock/Liza
two floor shelves with small bright green microgreen edible sprouts grown indoors under a white light lamp

Build a seed-starting shelf to grow seedlings with this easy-to-build lighted unit.

For years, I made unsuccessful attempts to start tomatoes and peppers from seed. Each time the seeds sprouted nicely and appeared to be off to a good start. But, as the safe time to harden off the plants approached, they were usually spindly and weak. When it was time to set them out, I’d make another trip to the garden center to buy tomato and pepper plants.

Persistent as I am, a year or two later, I’d try again, each time thinking that I had found some better way. I had the required sunny south window, so inadequate light didn’t strike me as the problem until I noticed that in March (when I planted the seeds), sunlight bathed my seedlings, but as the sun climbed higher in the sky, the patch of light grew smaller and smaller until the overhang on the south side of the house blocked it entirely.

Based on this observation, I decided I needed a different approach to providing light for the seedlings, so I built a shelf system using inexpensive, fluorescent shop lights. I had the system ready to use in the spring of 2000, and I’ve used it with good results each year since. In planning the system, I included a lower section as a place to over-winter herbs in pots. After a winter under lights, rosemary, basil, sage, thyme and oregano look a bit bedraggled, but after a few weeks outside in the spring, they thrive again.

A Simple Seed Starting Shelf Project

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