this is my first year growing from seed. so far i have tried peat pellets, peat pots w/ seed starting mix, seed cells w/trays, seed trays. i personally like the cells in the tray. it's just as easy to bottom water. i leave one of the cells open to pour the water into the tray then all the cells soak up the water that they need. the peat pots are either too wet or too dry - i just can't seem to get those to work for me. so far i've lost every seed that i've put in the pellets, either by drying out, mold, or damping off.
everything that i have in the cells and the seed trays (that sit in another tray) are doing well.

Maybe a stupid question, but do these cells have holes in the bottom so the water can get in there ?

Dennis

all the cells that i have, have holes in the bottom. then i place the cells in a tray (1020 tray) that i water from.

well, I've used just about every method and the best success I had was with the park biodome. quick, 100% germination and healthy plants. I stopped using that for a few years because I wanted to cut costs. that's when I switched to seed trays. the results weren't as good, but completely acceptable. it required a little more vigilance. I put the seed trays inside another tray that had no holes, and kept some water in that. I top water too, with a gentle mist. This year I've started a few things in the biodome (petunias, actually!) because some of the seed is very expensive ($14 for 100 pelleted shockwave petunia) and wanted to protect that investment, as it were. I've been *considering* doing jiffy pellets again, but maybe only for cuttings and things that don't like transplanting. I'm not sure why they never really worked well for me - couldn't regulate the moisture level properly. I priced it out, and Park's sponges cost the same per jiffy pellet, so since I already had the domes I didn't feel bad spending the money. But, that's only 180 plants started with the sponges - the rest of the 3000 seeds (help!) are in seed trays with varying sized cells, depending on the plant and its growth rate and root needs.

I only grow petunias, for now because they need 8-12 weeks, and I decided to stick with what I know, the Jiffy peat pellets. I'm gonna buy them at Wal-Mart, they are $5.95 for a 72 pellet dome. Those pelleted seeds are expensive, but I rather pay a little more then have to handle them not pelleted. I had almost 100% with these peat pellets. Is $5.95 a good price or could I get them anywhere cheaper (I'm Dutch and very cheap).

Dennis

$.08 each is a reasonable price, especially if it includes the tray and dome (and you're not paying shipping costs to order the supplies).

That is a good price. Just the pellets by them selves come 25 for $2, so it is almost cheaper to buy the entire dome with the pellets included!

It's the whole set (pellets, dome and tray). I'm gonna buy 12 of them to get my petunias started this week.