BEST Budget-Friendly SEED STARTING Supplies 🌱 | Easy & Affordable Tools for Seed Success!

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Looking to start seeds without breaking the bank? In this video, I’m sharing my top picks for budget-friendly seed starting supplies that are easy to use and perfect for beginners or seasoned gardeners alike. From affordable trays and soil options to simple tools that make the process a breeze, these essentials will help you start seeds successfully and grow strong, healthy plants.

In this video, you’ll discover:

My favorite affordable seed starting supplies
Tips for choosing the best trays, soil, and tools for beginners
Budget-friendly ways to set up your own indoor seed starting system
Get ready for a successful growing season with these easy-to-use, cost-effective seed starting tools! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more gardening tips and DIY projects.

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Planting Zone 8a Wylie, Texas

She’s a Mad Gardener is a YouTube channel exploring projects in the home including but not limited to home gardening, DIY decorating, holiday decor, easy recipes, and so much more.

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hey y’all it’s Amanda and this is my Texas Zone 8 Garden and today I’m going to be talking about all of my suggested must have seed starting supplies okay so I’ve been seed starting for quite a while eight eight nine years now a while and I’ve learned a lot totally learned a lot lot um I have also evolved over time with my seed starting supplies I’ve become less pix picky and more focused on functionality and more focused on cost so all the supplies I’m going to be talking about today are supplies that I feel are absolutely necessary but they’re all budget friendly okay so before you go by every single thing you need for seed starting I suggest starting very simply just by a few very basic products try out seed starting and decide if you actually like it because I feel like a lot of people discover over time that it’s extremely timec consuming which I don’t necessarily mind especially in the winter months I love doing all that and it can be really expensive if you’re really investing a lot in the seed starting supplies all the supplies you’re going to see are supplies that I have invested in over multiple years I did not go by everything at once I’ve also tried a ton of products that I didn’t like so once one thing that’s really nice about the list you’re going to see is it’s all the stuff that I really really like and that I use on a daily basis I also want to make sure that you all understand that I’m not receiving any kind of Kickback from any of these companies um basically these are supplies that I really love and that I use they’re not supplies that was given to me by a company they’re not supplies that I’ve been paid to talk about these are supplies that I absolutely truthfully honestly use for myself and suggest for others and then last thing is last year I put um this video out in January this year I wanted to put it out in November prior to Black Friday sales and P prior to the holidays in case you want to add these to your Christmas wish list and then you’ll be ready to go in January in the past when I’ve started this talking about this in January a lot of people have had to get on and they’ve ordered all their stuff and they end up being kind of a couple of weeks behind where I’m at so this will allow you if you get your supplies going this will allow you starting in January to really just kind of line up and start seeds right when I’m starting them which is really fun to kind of just grow along together because it’s really fun to gauge how quickly our seeds are growing versus somebody else’s we can deal with problems and we can also celebrate our successes okay so the first thing we’re going to talk about are seed starting trays or the cells that you’re actually going to start your seed trays in I use these very basic seeding trays from Amazon they come with the dome which has an adjustable humidity um aspect so when it’s open you’re allowing the humidity out and when you’re keeping it closed you’re keeping all the humidity in it also comes with a reservoir and that’s this part right here so this is what holds all the water and then it comes with a set of 12 seed cells all in one I’m currently propagating in this particular set and it’s actually looking really really good now I start with these smaller sea trays I used to do the big 72 to um sell CA trays and found that it’s just too much for me and for my needs I typically like to start these smaller ones it allows me to can be very precise with the seeds because I’ll just put 12 of the seeds that I need in this particular one instead of having to sew 72 of one particular seed so some of y’all might be asking well Amanda why don’t you just put multiple different varieties of seeds in the 72 um cell tray the reason behind that is that most seeds need different amount of humidity different amount of heat um certain amount of days for germination some take longer some take um a short amount of time it also exposes all those seeds to any kind of fungus that one of the seeds might develop so I really like to work in smaller little batches which is more appropriate for myself as a small home Gardener now the set typically comes in set of five or six or 10 I think I have about 30 um is what I kind of stick to which works for me it also comes with sets of tools which is really nice these little tools it’s little Scoops um little dobbers I have heard some comments that they find it hard to pull the seedlings out I use a little spatula thing that it comes with to pull the seedlings out and that works really really well for me and most of these trays that I currently have are three and four years old and they’re still wonderful haven’t had to throw any way because they’re broken been very very happy happy with how long these have lasted considering the price and the price is low which is great Okay so we’ve got our basic seed starting um uh trays right here so the next thing we need is soil to put in it now I do not use the typical seed starting mix soil and that is something you can use this is what I’ve used in the past Jiffy seed starting mix and I still have some of it just because I haven’t used it um and this is definitely what a lot of gardeners suggest and basically this is a very very fine grained soil that um works really really well for seed starting mix it does not have any kind of fertilizer or nutrients in it whatsoever so once your seeds have sprouted you do have to get after it pretty quick fertilizing them but I no longer use this and I no longer use it because I think it’s expensive and I don’t think it’s necessarily necessary for seed starting now I use just a basic potting soil my favorite potting soil is a burger bm7 potting soil that I get from homegrown in Farmersville that you don’t have to use that particular um variety of potting soil either what all you need is a fine grain potting soil that’s what you need you need something that doesn’t have massive pieces of bark um in it you need it just to be fine grain even if it does have massive pieces of bark you can pull those massive pieces of bark out that’s not a problem and basically I use that potting soil and it works great for my needs do I think I would have more success with seed starting mix buying the like expensive kind maybe but not enough success to Warrant me spending more for the seed starting mix I’ve been very happy with the amount of seedlings I get just from using the potting mix and you’re going to hear a lot of different things as I’m talking through this video that are going to differ from other people and I think it’s really important to remember that just because something works for one Gardener does not mean it’s a cover all for everybody I highly encourage you to try some different things find out what works best for you and don’t be disappointed if it didn’t work for you there might be a different method a different tool or a different product that works better for your situation and that’s what these are these are the products that work really really well for someone like myself who’s on a budget and I have a very small Gardener a very small garden and just kind of working with the way I am as a person and these products have all been successful for me for multi multiple years now there are a whole bunch of seed starting tools that you can purchase um I have found that you can really just get away with something as simple as like a pen make a little hole put your seed in cover it back up no problem my hands work great too I work mostly with my hands the um seat starting trades I showed you earlier they come with a set of tools which is great sometimes I use them sometimes I forget them it really just depends I don’t necessarily believe in the fancy tools for seed starting I think you can get just like I said very basic pencil pen and hands so don’t fall into that trap in the beginning buying all that stuff because you can really just be more costeffective sticking to your basic supplies in the future if you want to be fancy or you want pretty you can totally invest in some of those but in the beginning just start simple now the most common question I get about seed starting supplies is what like do you use Amanda what are the lights what lights do I buy and I completely agree that that’s probably the most confusing aspect of starting seed lights and I probably tried six to eight different types of lights over the years and more than anything I found that the cheaper lights actually work really really well for me I don’t buy the fancy grow lights anything that’s termed grow lights I don’t buy I feel like they tend to be four to five times more expensive than the shop lights that I’m going to be using a lot of people will talk about well do you have the full light spectrum that you need for your seedlings and your plants and stuff so far so good for me haven’t really had any kind particular issues I also don’t grow very specific things like something like African Violets that need a very specific light spectrum um from the lights I don’t do that I’m basic seed starting and what has worked best for me are some very basic uh shop lights now I’m going to put a picture um here and these are also L Linked In My Amazon storefront so these are shop lights not grow lights these are something that you put out in your garage and utilize they have worked great for me and they are my current favorite ones When selecting lights you need to have they need to have at least 3500 lumens that’s the amount of sunlight that they’re putting off or light that they’re putting off at least 3500 lumens however more is better in my opinion the lights that I currently have below and that are listed in my Amazon store have 13,000 lumens 13,000 lumens a lot of lumens they put off a ton of light um which works really well for me they’re about 4 feet long which fits all my shelves really well and if you’ve been following for sometime you even know that I have lights underneath my dining room tables for taller plants and these lights are great it’s typically two sets of these lights so two lights um in a container and it’s typically around $50 um for those two which I find to be a fairly good price um I just checked today and there was a $10 coupon on Amazon if you’re interested in checking it out um to order those but these are the lights that I like they’re easy to hang up they’re um you know they’re kind of combersome because they’re shop lights and they’re not as pretty as probably grow lights are but that doesn’t really matter to me functionality is super important so these fit my needs and they fit my budget and they want more than anything help me produce beautiful Ste and plants but yeah lights is something that really confuses a lot of people and so I wanted to keep it simple this time and just be like these are the lights that I like get these lights you’ll be good now I think it’s really important to remember that when you have these shop lights for growing seedlings they need to be on minimum 14 hours a day actually minimum 12 hours mine are on 16 hours a day it has to be on a significant amount of time to get seeds starting the basic 8 to 10 hours is not going to work so that is something to consider I have mine set up to timers um so I have them set up to um my echo and they come on at a particular time and they go off at a particular time um but they are on 16 hours a day now a lot of people ask well can I just start my seeds in a window most likely no um your window would have to have a significant amount of light coming in through that window every day most likely you’d want a south facing window so that it gets light all throughout the entire day truthfully especially during the winter time that sunlight is typically not enough to really get seeds germinated so I highly suggest that if you want to start seed starting you start with these shop lights don’t go buy a bunch of seeds and all the seed trays and all the soil and then pop everything onto your window hoping for the best because most likely they’re either not going to germinate or they’re going to be very leggy seedlings and I will have a future video where we will talk about different things that you might deal with with seedlings regarding problems and that kind of stuff basically a leggy seedling is one that gets really stretched out and then it just Falls over but yeah I get lots of questions about the windows for me it’s a no like it’s not going to happen it’s not going to happen in my house I don’t have the perfect spot and I have a house that really does face true north and south and I still don’t have a really good spot for it so be aware of that situation don’t get confused and spend a bunch of money and start all of them on your window sill I highly suggest wait save up get the um lights that I’m suggesting and go for it that way okay let’s talk about some more detail supplies potting up containers potting up is the process of basically taking these little bitty seeds that we started in these seed cells taking out the plant and putting them into a larger container I just reuse all of my Nursery pots and I’ve used them for years and years and years I like the little 4×4 or ones I keep my quarts I basically keep anything and everything there’s 1 two 3 four five six six different types here whatever works for you I highly suggest saving these instead of investing in new ones um it reduces the amount of plastic that we are you know putting into our Earth and it’s cheap free right so just save all that stuff and use these as your potting up containers for later on in the process when you have beautiful seedlings that need to be going into a larger container okay next on the list are 10x 20 um trays um water water reservoir trays the 10 x 20 is the standard 10 um inches deep by 20 inch long they tend to be or I guess this is the depth 10 inch wide 20 in long and about a 2 to 2 and 1 half inch depth these are really great for a number of reasons they’re really great for um putting in your potted up containers and then you can put water at the bottom and it sucks up the water in the containers just really great even these containers as um you’re going along if once all of these are sprouted and they’re good to go you can take them out of their basic water reservoir and you can put six of them in one of these containers and then you only have to water this one container instead of six little individual ones which works really really great I have purchased a lot of these 10 x 20s over the years and I really love the um quality of the particular one that I have in my Amazon shop I think it’s like like a rue Rooter or Rue something tray they’re really really good a little bit more expensive but these guys are strong these guys are strong they’re not super bendy um there are some that you can get by like Jiffy don’t do it don’t do it at all in fact here’s a jfrey top and you can see how thin and flinty this um is and so um I I highly suggest just getting the nicer ones because the cheaper ones they’re going to crack they’ll barely last you year now I do have some large 10 X2 domes that is for when I started a whole bunch of seeds for my friend Kristen who has a much larger property for me and that is the point in time where I will typically start 72 of one variety um but I don’t use these very often so if you’re going to be working with these don’t feel like you have to buy the lids to the 10 x 20 you’re not going to need them they you’re only going to use the lids at the very beginning of germination and then we take those humidity domes off after after that but definitely you need to have at least a pack they typically come in sets of uh 10 at least a pack of 10 by 20 um water reservoirs or uh seed starting trays okay next is a um soil mixing tray now you don’t have to have this you can use a big bowl you can work outside whatever works for you I work inside on my dining room table which is an antique that belongs to my grandmother so I need a tray um to work on now now you can get those hard plastic trays that a lot of the other Garden YouTubers use those are pricey and they’re cumbersome for me um because they don’t fold down or reduce in size and I have limited space and so what I’ve worked with is just this basic flat green seed starting tray it has snaps on the sides so that the edges come up when you’re working I love it because I can even leave soil in it crumple it up and just put it away out of the way it’s also easy to take outside clean off dust off whatever it’s also quite large which I really like that too um because it covers more space than some of those just um hard plastic um containers this one’s obviously very cost-effective it is waterproof so I can put soil and water in here and not get it all over my table this guy is going on its third season and I have not had a replace it no holes no cracks no nothing and I use and abuse it like this is how it looks most of the time I just I just stuff it into a corner this has worked great for my needs and it’s very very cost effective option as opposed to the larger big hard plastic ones I’m having to pull all the things down okay so next on my list is a heat mat heat mats I get a lot of questions if a heat mat is necessarily so this is a heat mat seedling heat mat they’re typically about the size to fit those 10x 20 containers fit right underneath it just like that for these smaller containers that I suggest six of them will fit on each heat mat which works really really good heat mats are a necessary expense and I do feel like this these are the more expensive things sometimes you can get some deals on them I have one two three four four is plenty for what I need I did not buy all four at once I bought them over time which I think is important to point out um you can even find a lot of this stuff on Facebook Marketplace especially heat mats so check that out so heat mats are necessary because we all Garden in different places right I Garden in I I start my seeds inside some people start in basement some people start in their garages um some people start in uh greenh houses outside everybody starts in different places right but seeds need diff they have different requirements for temperatures to be able to germinate some seeds like zenas they need warmer um temperatures in order to germinate so a seed starting that is necessary for that um a lot of these um will go up to like um 80 degrees um 80 to 85 Degrees which is really great some seeds they need um they don’t need the heat so you don’t have to put the heat mat underneath them but they are a necessary expense in my opinion if you want to get really great seed um germination so a lot of times you’ll see see me with these set up all along this back area where I’m starting all my seeds and I can see them quickly and I’m moving things on and off and all that kind of stuff you really only need this this heat mat for the germination or the starting process getting it started once it has germinated typically you can go ahead and move that seedling off of the heat mat and allow it to continue on now I say that based on how I grow inside if you grow in a much colder place that might not necessarily be the situation but for me mine’s indoors so typically during the winter we’re at 65 70° inside and so it’s no big deal to get them started on a warmer Temp and then pull them off and allow them to continue to grow now there’s much larger seed mats where you can get them like really huge and big that doesn’t work for me um it’s too big and it doesn’t really work for the amount of seeds I’m starting those work better for like farmers in my opinion or homeowners who are producing t T and tons and I produce a lot of seedlings I produce thousands of seedlings and these these do it for me these are totally fine only need four of them I stagger all when I’m starting all my seedlings I don’t start them all at once and that also really works really best for me instead of starting everything at once but yeah heat mats definitely required you’re going to need them based on the variety of seats if you don’t want to spend the money on the heat mat then make sure the seeds that you select to start don’t need warm warmth in order to germinate okay a couple of odds and ends um that I use as well uh I have sticky traps and I use these to deal with fungus knots which are necessary evil with seed starting I don’t boil my soil to start off with because I just don’t want to it’s an extra it’s an extra step that I don’t deal with and so I use sticky trops um all over on all my seedlings and these work really great to keep the fungus knot population down which is really nice I also like to use just a basic plastic label I will use multiple sides so a lot of times you’ll see one variety of seedling on one side and a different variety on the other so I like to use them multiple times um to label my seeds before I get rid of them I also like these bamboo skewer picks these are actually for like or derves um appetizers and they have this cool little loop on the top and this little Loop comes on done and and you can wrap it around a tall seedling that might fall over and use it as little a little mini seedling um steak you get like a thousand of these in one so you’ll only have to ever buy one container ever um or maybe you go in with friends to get some of these which would work as well and then the last one is my favorite fertilizer which is Alaskan fish Emulsion fertilizer and this is a concentrated um fertilizer that you water down and you water your seedlings with it it works great smells terrible but works awesome several of y’all told me I need to try super Thrive so once I am finished with the Alaskan fish Emulsion I will move to Super Thrive it doesn’t smell as bad still smells pretty stinky but not as bad which is great either of those would be awesome I’m sure there’s other concentrated fertilizers that work really great for seedlings this is just what works best for me okay set a little bit on the supplies um I did want to approach a couple of things soil blocking I no long longer soil block I use to soil block quite frequently I don’t enjoy it I don’t like the process hurts my hands I get frustrated with it um I find it more time consuming um yes you don’t have to buy seed trays but the amount of time I have to give up for actually creating soil blocks is just not worth it for me I’d rather just buy the seed starting trays um and I have very strong hands and my arms are very strong and it kills my hands and I just I don’t want to I don’t want to do it so if soil blocking works for you absolutely also if you’re someone who’s going to produce you know tons and tons and tons and tons of seedlings I can see that soil blocking would work really really well you can start um more it takes up less room I mean there’s a lot of great benefits on it I just don’t enjoy it hurts my hand and I don’t want to do it so I don’t which is something you should really think about with gardening I am very adamant that there’s no one only one way with gardening you need to work for your way find out what works best for you take these ideas from different gardeners like myself or whomever and then rearrange and rework them to work what’s best for you just because something’s super popular or a big time um YouTube Gardener doing this doesn’t mean you have to do it if you want to try it that’s great if you don’t not interested and I want to spend the money on something that’s great too if you want to watch how it evolves for a couple of years before you jump on that band Rag and try it out absolutely but really definitely be flexible in that you don’t have to absolutely mimic every single thing that you see another Gardener do you know what works best for your garden you know your space and you know your environment even if you’re a new beginner Gardener you’re going to learn so much from each failure every single failure isn’t a failure it is a teaching lesson so you’re going to learn what works best for you and what doesn’t I can’t tell you how many times I’ve messed up I’ve messed up more than I’ve succeeded especially in the beginning tons of screwups and mess ups and I’ve gotten less and less and less as I’ve you know Garden longer and then I’ll try something new and I’ll have all these scps again and then I’ll get less and less and less as I know more about it so part of the gardening experience is the failures versus the successes so don’t get down if something doesn’t work out right away for your seeds starting all right I hope you guys enjoyed that I also recently did a video with a tour of my uh growroom space so I’ll put that link Down Below in the video description I also have the link to my Amazon storefront down below if you’re interested in trying them out um TR seeing the links and ordering anything from it feel free to do so I do get a very very very small um uh percentage watch the percentage it’s like one to two cents per dollar um which is fine and great but if you don’t want to use those links and you just want to like look it up and then go straight to Amazon you can do that too either one works fine for me I just want you to be able to access the supplies that I’m talking about Okay so we’ve talked about the grow room we’ve talked about the supplies and we’re going to be starting seeds soon we’re going to be focusing in the beginning we’re going focusing a lot on perennials starting a lot of perennials now so that have larger plants come March April May when I determine it’s time to plant them out be starting a lot of perennials we’re also going to be starting some basic annuals including geranium and patunas and those will be for early spring planting it’s going to be fun I’m really excited to really get stuff going um it feels really good cuz typically I’ll wait till January in the past years um to start stuff last year I started earlier in November and December and it was so much easier and so much better I am so glad I did that and I will be doing that from now on it felt less stressful trying to get everything going I also saw green beautiful things earlier on in Winter which is really nice which is the time when I wish I was gardening but I can’t be out there gardening which is really really great it allowed me to spread it out all of my seeds starting videos I will just be doing a few different varieties of seeds and I will walk you through the process no matter how simple the process is I will go step by step showing you how to start these different seeds a lot of people love the seed starting um series that I did because it’s just really easy for them to follow along you know they can just grab on the seeds that whatever I am starting they can start the same thing follow the exact same process and go for it um so I really get looking forward to getting all of those started all right you all drop your comments below let me know what seed starting supplies you feel are necessary and what you think are a waste um we’re all going to have differ opinions on that also if you feel like there’s a particular product that you think is just Superior to everything else let us all know about that as well as always make sure you like comment and subscribe to the channel every time you like and comment it helps SC my channel so much if you don’t feel comfortable leaving a comment just drop an emoji below letting me know you made it the end and that you say Hi also make sure you are definitely subscribed to the channel because we are going to be basically producing videos at least four to five times a week and so you want to receive an alert or message every time that I am posting and be sure to check me out on my social media Outlets including Facebook Instagram and Tik Tok as always she’s a magad gardener or decorator or anything else that she wants to be thanks y’all