Seed Starter Trays with Humidity Domes, Pack of 5

Five seed trays with separated cells, five catch trays that sit underneath, five clear humidity domes with adjustable vents, plant labels and a set of small gardening tools.

So you can sow in succession rather than all at once. Starting a tray a fortnight apart is what gives you a steady supply of seedlings to move into a system, instead of everything being ready on the same day.

They let you take humidity away by degrees. Seeds want warm, damp, still air to germinate. Seedlings want moving air, or they grow soft and are prone to damping off. Opening the vents gradually is how you get from one to the other.

Once most of the seeds have germinated and you can see green. Open them a little at first, more over the following days, and take the dome off entirely before the seedlings go anywhere else.

Because standing water kills more seedlings than drought does. Waterlogged medium suffocates roots and invites rot. The holes let the excess out and the catch tray underneath keeps it off your windowsill.

Yes, if the tray is indoors. The drainage has to go somewhere, and without a catch tray it goes onto whatever the tray is standing on.

No. You supply the seeds and the growing medium.

Whatever suits where the seedling is going. If it is heading into one of our hydroponic systems, a soilless medium such as rockwool or a starter plug transfers cleanly. Compost works too, but it needs rinsing off the roots before the seedling goes into a nutrient solution.

That is the main reason to buy them here. Seeds are usually germinated separately and moved across once they have a root, and these trays are the stage before the system.

Once it has a visible root, lift it out with as much of the medium as will hold together and settle it into a planting sponge or basket. Our hydroponic kits include tweezers for exactly this, because it is fiddly with fingers.

It varies enormously by crop. Salad leaves and rocket are often up within a few days; herbs like parsley can take two or three weeks. Warmth is usually what makes the difference rather than anything about the tray.

Not necessarily. A warm room is enough for most things. A heat mat helps with crops that want real warmth to get going, and it helps more in an unheated space in winter than it does on a kitchen windowsill.

Most do not, and germinate perfectly well in the dark. What matters is that light is there the moment they emerge, because a seedling that comes up in poor light stretches immediately and never fully recovers.

A fungal problem that collapses seedlings at soil level, usually within days of germination. It thrives in still, wet, warm air. Open the vents once seeds are up, do not overwater, and start with clean trays.

Wash in warm water and let them dry fully before stacking. Old medium left in a cell is the most common way disease carries from one batch of seedlings into the next.

They are made for repeated use rather than one season, which is the point of them against thin disposable trays. Handle the domes with a bit of care, since a cracked dome is the part that usually ends a tray's life.

Yes, once they are fully dry. Five trays and five domes take very little cupboard space stacked.

Marking what is in each row, which sounds unnecessary until you have three trays of near identical seedlings and no idea which is the coriander.

A set of small gardening tools for handling medium and seedlings at this scale. They are the sort of thing you use for filling cells and lifting a seedling without crushing it.

Damp, not wet. The medium should feel like a wrung out cloth. Under a closed dome very little moisture escapes, so trays usually need far less water than people expect in the first week.

For hardening off, yes. As a place to germinate seeds, indoors or in a greenhouse is more reliable, because the dome cannot hold a temperature the outside air is taking away.

No, and the original listing for this product said so, which is why we are answering it here. Germination takes days to weeks depending on the crop. Anything promising overnight results is describing something other than seeds.

Yes. A humidity dome is exactly what a cutting wants while it is making roots, and the adjustable vents let you wean it off the humidity the same way you would a seedling.

PVC. It is thicker than a disposable propagator tray, which is what lets it hold its shape when it is full of wet medium.

Yes. That is one of the practical differences from thin single use trays, which flex and spill when you pick them up loaded.

It depends on the cell layout of the tray, and rather than quote a number we would rather you asked us and got the right answer. What is fair to say is that five trays raise far more seedlings than an 11 site system needs at once.

If they are on a bright windowsill in spring, often not. In winter or in a dim room, yes, and seedlings show it faster than mature plants do. Stretched, pale stems mean not enough light.

It is sold as a pack of five. If a single tray is genuinely all you need, ask us before ordering rather than buying the pack and putting four in a cupboard.

Across Europe in 5 to 7 days after a 24 to 48 hour handling time. Free over EUR 50, otherwise EUR 22. At EUR 49 this sits just under the free delivery threshold on its own.

Tell us and we will replace it. Check the domes when it arrives, since they are the part most likely to be damaged in transit.