It's still pretty wintery up here in zone 6 (WA), but I got excited at the current 50 degree weather, so I decided to start some seeds indoors. I planted a bunch of tomatoes and melons, as well as a squash. The exciting thing is, however, the fact that this year was the first time that I planted my own tomato seeds that I had successfully saved from last year. You have to ferment tomato seeds if you want them to sprout later, and I had never got around to trying it. The good news is, I did it, and it worked, and here they are:
Obviously I'll be thinning that out considerably pretty soon. Right now, they are in an old plastic tray, with a heat mat and inside a makeshift plastic "tent" with a grow light on a timer. My basement tends to be pretty cold (like maybe 58-60 degrees inside the tent sans heat mat), do you think that it would be best to leave the heat mat on, or turn it off once the plants start to grow leaves?