germinating seeds on windowsill ... avoiding water damage?

kunekune

In preparation for moving to our new house at the end of May, I am starting off some seeds for my vege garden (it will mostly be in pots this year). I've got modules for the seeds (is that the right word? they come in a pack of 15 and are squashy thin black plastic) but they have holes at the bottom, of course. I need to put them on the landlord's nicely painted windowsills, and we're keen not to lose even more of our deposit than we're already expecting. For when they are moved into slightly-bigger-but-still-temporary-pots I have saved a couple of the thin plastic carry things from the garden centre and lots of old garden centre pots, but my modular thingies won't fit in those. Any ideas for a cost-effective way of keeping the water off the wood?

I don't drive and I work full-time so some adaptation of what's in the house would be best (or something I can get online cheap and fast). I have quite a few plastic drawers from those storage towers, and also a good supply of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. I'm assuming that if my 'tray' is too small I can chop the large module thingy into smaller pieces.

Cheers!

PS: I have of course, bought/ordered far too many seeds for my windowsills, and possibly for the number of pots I can sensibly fit into the new garden, but that's a challenge to be dealt with later when/if they germinate!

Lotus-eater

What about just sticking cling film under them, it's not ideal, but it would do the job.

kunekune

Hmmm (spending much too much time thinking about this, I am supposed to be working!!!!!). What if I wrap the lid of a shoe box in cling film and then rest the seed tray on that? I guess cling film is safer than a plastic bag because it hasn't got any colour in it to leach onto the paintwork. Then I can use the lid again for the next batch.

Rummer

I bought large plastic trays from Ikea the kind you put on your knees and they were under a pound and worked really well!

olly300

Rummer wrote: »

I bought large plastic trays from Ikea the kind you put on your knees and they were under a pound and worked really well!

I use similar trays from Wilkinsons. I think they were something like £2.50 for a pack of 4.

kunekune

Ikea is too difficult to get to. Just looked at wilkinsons online shop: the big ones have sold out and the only ones they seem to have left are either too small or have holes in them. D*rn.

Primrose

I use large cheap plastic trays for my very wide bay window sill and long narrow plastic trays (available from garden centres) for narrow window sills. Once you get going with all your little pots and trays of seedlings it's amazing how many of these you need. Be careful not to put anything like newspaper under the trays as I've found to my cost that the newspring can come off onto the paintwork and is very difficult to remove.

olly300

kunekune wrote: »

Ikea is too difficult to get to. Just looked at wilkinsons online shop: the big ones have sold out and the only ones they seem to have left are either too small or have holes in them. D*rn.

Try a pound shop, or go into Wilkinsons the store as unless you are doing a larger order it's not worth buying them online.

fishie2

I used cat litter trays from the pound shop seed trays fit just right

retrocircles

I also use Ikea trays. Very cheap & do the job well!

kunekune

Well, what I ended up doing was using a mixture of things. Because of living in a very small town with very few shops, not driving, the job, and the kids, I can't easily get to the shops you mention, which often means spending more money by going on line (though I guess I save a lot by not driving too, it might balance out). The nearest Wilkinsons is a £4 return bus fare plus a 20 minute walk! Ikea would take at least an hour and a half in each direction and I don't think the bus goes all the way.

I used the inserts from the garden centre plus some recycled pots for the bigger transplanted seedlings and then for the smaller ones, I put some in small pots in a plastic drawer and the others are in pots in the (solid) plastic lids from some cheap propagating units that aren't going to be used for a while (I got a lot of them, LOL). There's a towel underneath as extra protection.

Thanks for the ideas, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I wish I could try these things, it must be so much easier when you have independence with travelling!