Once you sow your seeds, you need somewhere to put the cell trays. This heavy-duty, adjustable metal shelving unit gives me a place to hang lights and spread the seedlings out once they are potted up.

Most people underestimate the amount of light seedlings need. I get seeds off to a strong start with these phenomenal LED light fixtures.

I can’t begin to tell you how fantastic these lights are. They are feather-light, cool to the touch, height adjustable, and give off an insanely high lumen count. I also love that you can link them together. This way you don’t have to use up every outlet in the room!

Seedlings do best when they get 14-18 hours of light per day. This outlet timer allows me to “set it, and forget it”.

This particular timer is useful because it can receive a three-prong plug. That way I can plug in a power strip that will handle both my lights and my heat mats.

These durable heat mats from SeedFactor are big enough to handle two, 72-cell trays.

Grower note: Once the majority of the seeds have germinated, it’s important to turn the mats off. Seedlings grow best in slightly cool temperatures, and excessive heat during seedling growth can result in weak, spindly growth.

Heat mats may not be necessary when starting seed in the summer for fall planting.

Don’t be fooled by “creative” seed starting systems. Peat pots, eggshells, newspaper or any other alternative seed starting container is a recipe for weak and diseased seedlings.

Always start seeds in sterile, plastic seed starting trays. This is how I started seeds when I worked as a propagator in a commercial greenhouse.

I like the systems that include the cell tray, a carrying tray, and a plastic humidity dome.

My favorite system is the Ferry-Morse Pro Hex available at Home Depot and Lowe’s for less than $6.

Traditional seed-starting mixes are nearly all peat. This makes for a lightweight soil mix, but it can be challenging to work with.

My biggest problem with high-peat mixes is that they are difficult to moisten. When you try and water these mixes, the water just sits on top of the soil surface and takes forever to soak in. This irks me to no end and dramatically slows down my seed-starting workflow.

The soil mix that I swear by is sterile, lightweight, and drains really well. Miracle Gro Cactus and Succulent Mix is much cheaper than soil mixes marketed for seed-starting, but it consistently delivers superb results for me, and I won’t use anything else to start seeds.