How high is too high?

[journey11]

I put my flat of tomato and pepper seedlings seeds on top of a wooden box over top of the furnace vent in the warmest room in my house, trying to get the soil nice and warm to hurry things along. I was surprised when I came back a couple hours later and I stuck a thermometer in the soil to find it had reached about 102 degrees. Do you think I cooked or damaged them? I was aiming for about 85-90 degrees. My house itself usually stays around 78 degrees with the woodburning furnace going. (I should have left well enough alone...)

 

[so lucky]

I bet they are still OK. You wouldn't want to store them at a high temp, but since they were planted and damp......maybe they will be sprouted by morning!

Edited: Oops! I mis-read this; thought you were talking about seeds. But I bet they will still be OK.

 

[thistlebloom]

If they still look perky I'm sure they're fine. It doesn't sound like they were there long enough to cook them.

I forgot my peas were in the tray with my peppers and tomatoes on top of my heat box. They were already coming up this morning (the peas) and the soil is 85*.
I took them out and they're in a cooler spot.

 

[journey11]

Oops, I did say seedlings. I meant to say seeds.

 

[digitS']

I will see if I can copy and paste this from the other thread:

Days to Germination, University of Minnesota

Maybe with any luck, we can say that if 95° is okay, a few degrees higher won't be any monkey wrench in the works.

Steve

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Since they're tomatoes and pepper, I don't see why they wouldn't make it. Maybe just keep them in there, see how they do, and stand by with some reinforcements - just in case. Like Steve said, a few extra degrees shouldn't mess with them too much.

 

[NwMtGardener]

I dont measure my soil temps, but i have accidentally gotten the air in my seed boxes up that warm, whoopsies! Those seeds survived and did fine, but the soil probably wasnt as warm as yours... Good luck!

 

[Carol Dee]

I was aiming for about 85-90 degrees. My house itself usually stays around 78 degrees with the woodburning furnace going. (I should have left well enough alone...)

I can't chime in about the soil temp and seed germination. But I noticed how warm your home is. We are on natural gas and keep the thermostat LOW. 60 to 62 overnight and 68 during the day. We are always dress in flannels, sweats, etc... you know, layers of warm stuff. I would find 78 too warm and have a hard time sleeping. I dislike summer nights that do not cool down enough. But then again 60 feels balmy when it is -20 outside!

 

[journey11]

I will see if I can copy and paste this from the other thread:

Days to Germination, University of Minnesota

Maybe with any luck, we can say that if 95° is okay, a few degrees higher won't be any monkey wrench in the works.

Steve

Oh, gonna pin that chart, Steve. That's handy.

104 degrees = NG...equals No Go? No Good? Something like that, I'm sure. I'm glad I caught it when I did. It had only been maybe 2 or 3 hours on there. I really hope they come through because I had carefully counted out space for only 2 to 6 plants each of about 20 different varieties of things, a couple of which that was the last of the seed I had.

That's a big fat "DOH!" moment anyway.

@Carol Dee , yeah it can be either feast or famine with the woodstove. Either 80 degrees--gotta open all the windows...or let the fire go out and wake up freezing at 55. It's a nice toasty dry heat when you get it just right though. This time of year it's hard to get comfortable. The upstairs where we sleep is usually a few degrees cooler. With the days warming up we let it go out during the day and DH makes his way down to the basement grumbling every night when he has to bring in wood and go build a new fire, usually because I felt it was cold and made him go.

 

[digitS']

They were likely keeping the seeds at very consistent temperatures.

The "NG" means "no germination" but I imagine that the "dash" simply means that the seed was not tested at that temperature.

Steve