We started with plant propagation early in February, now it is end of February and we already have 18 °C outside temperature. In our balcony greenhouse it is already really warm. We think that natural light and warmth are still better than artificial plant lighting and heating air. That's why we moved the first plants into the balcony greenhouse. At night it is still cold but since we have built our balcony greenhouse directly in front of a balcony window we can open the window if it is very cold, then it is heated by room temperature to about 10 °C . When the sun is shining we reach 30°C and more in the greenhouse even at low outside temperatures.
After 8 days it was checked whether the seeds had already germinated and how the young plants were developing. Some seeds have a long germination time, like coriander, stevia, lovage, eggplant, strawberries or parsley - after 8 days nothing could be seen. The others have already progressed well.
At the beginning of February we started seeding. We sorted our sowing calendar by sowing time and started with the first 28 sorts. We also paid attention to the growing conditions - rather cold, about 15°C and warmer about 22°C.
We used an easy to handle, stable and clean substrate material called Eazy Plug®. They consist of a special mixture of organic materials and are compostable.