Get Your FREE Top 5 Gardening Secrets For Beginners

Get It NOW!

Backyard Vegetable Gardener

  • Home
  • Beginner
  • Hydroponics
  • Raised Beds
  • About Me
You are here: Home / Gardening / Seed Starting Indoors: Must Have Seed Starting Supplies

Seed Starting Indoors: Must Have Seed Starting Supplies

in Gardening, Indoor Gardening on 02/11/24

Post may contain affiliate links. Click to read Disclosure . Click to read Privacy Policy.
  • 2.8Kshares
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Flipboard
  • Twitter

Beginning your seed starting indoors properly can either make or break your entire growing season and gardening season.

Many people are starting their new seeds indoors to get a head start on the growing season of their new plants in their growing zone.

If you don’t know your growing zone <—- make sure to click here to enter your zip code and find it now. It will make it much easier for you to know what and when to plant your healthy seedlings in your area.

Want to jump start your garden? Or are you a beginner & want to start off right? This will help: Seed Starting Indoors: 8 Must Have Seed Starting Supplies!

Must-Have Supplies For Seed Starting Indoors

For a couple of years, when I first started growing herbs and vegetable varieties, I would buy from a local garden center or the local nursery that happens to be right across the street. I would walk over and pick out what I wanted.

Last year, I decided that it would be a good idea to start my own seedlings indoors so I could control how they were raised. I ended up with so many that I put a notice on a neighborhood app and had several people come and take my extra seedlings.

I felt great about that! I quickly learned that although the seedlings looked like healthy seedlings, some of them had pests attached that I didn’t see until they were a bit older, and some didn’t thrive well at all.

If you want to grow a lot of plants in your garden, buying several packs of seeds is considered cheaper than buying young seedlings from nurseries and garden centers.

Starting seeds indoors allows you to get an early start and to determine the perfect time to start in order to get the outside in your growing season, which really matters if you live in an area with a short growing season.

If you’re interested in growing peaches, check out these helpful tips and tricks.

All About Growing Peaches

The whole process of starting seeds indoors can be intimidating, but, you can do it! Keep this in mind: If you don’t gather your supplies first, the process can be harder and take much longer and may not work out as well. And don’t worry there’s no real seed starting equipment! lol

Here’s a video I made on how you can be your own seed starter:

YouTube video

To help you with your gardening journey, I made a list of the must have seed starting supplies to get you going:

Seeds

Seed saving is an excellent way to cultivate varieties of plants that perform best for your indoor garden. You can save seeds from previous harvests to use in your next planting. This enables you know how your plants and harvest should look based on the way they behaved last season.

Two hands holding small seeds
The seeds of course are the most important part.

However, if you are just starting, purchased seeds will do. Start with easy to grow plants like tomato, cabbage, or hybrid seeds.

According to Wikipedia:

In agriculture and gardening, hybrid seed is used produced by cross-pollinated plants. Hybrid seed production is predominant in modern agriculture and home gardening.

You can buy seeds anywhere, from Amazon and Walmart, to the local feed store or market. You can also buy them from many places online all over the country.

When buying seeds I try and look for things like – bush or vining – which am I prepared for? Also, I look at disease resistant seeds to help with that sort of thing, and plants that grow well together and compliment each other.

Heirloom seeds are great, too! Heirloom means the seeds have been passed down for at least 50 years and have been open pollinated – meaning they haven’t been crossed pollinated to make a hybrid seed.

Want to jump start your garden? Or are you a beginner & want to start off right? This will help: Seed Starting Indoors: 8 Must Have Seed Starting Supplies!

Keep in mind that all seeds are not the same – there are large seeds and very fine seeds. The larger ones are generally planted deeper in the soil and the fine seeds are planted very near the top or on the top.

Also with fine seeds be careful of any wind or drafts – they can blow away super easy.

Also I have often spilled too many at a time and ended up with tons of tiny seedlings all crowded together and I HATE pulling out some and leaving others… it makes me feel bad – lol.

Seeds Of Change Pepper Seeds

Gaea’s Blessing Red Cherry Heirloom Seeds

Rebel Gardens Heirloom Carrot Seeds

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Germinating Potting Mix

Want to jump start your garden? Or are you a beginner & want to start off right? This will help: Seed Starting Indoors: 8 Must Have Seed Starting Supplies!

A germinating mix is a garden soil mix with a fine grain and no large clumps.

The texture of the seed-starting mix that you use is important to get the best results and for making sure that your seedlings will easily grow strong, new roots.

Premier Horticulture Pro Seed Starting Mix

JRK Super Salt Tolerant Grass Seed Mix

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Burpee Organic Coconut Coir Concentrated Seed Starting Mix

Seed Starting Trays With Clear Dome Lid

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

To get great results, you can use seed starting trays with a clear dome lid. Although you don’t need seed trays with lids, they help in retaining the moisture, which is important for good seed germination and the germination process.

You can’t let germinating seed soil dry out or the seeds won’t sprout.

There are other options you can use, too. Instead of a clear dome lid or plastic cover, you can also place your starting seedling trays inside clear plastic bags.

This aids in retaining the heat and moisture for your seedlings.

Hydrofarm 72-Cell Insert Dome Jump Start Hot House With Heat Mat

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Loveday 10-Pack Mini Propagator With Humidity Dome

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

MIXC 10-Pack Seedling Starter Tray With Dome And Base

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

You Might Also Like This: 
Learn how to start and maintain an indoor herb garden: Creating An Indoor Herb Garden!

8 Tips For Creating An Indoor Herb Garden

📥 Ready to map out your spring planting?
Download the free Companion Planting for Herbs Cheat Sheet to make sure you’re pairing the right plants together from the start.

And if you want a system to plan your entire layout, prep tasks, and growing season…
👉 Plot, Plan & Plant Planner

Heat Mat

Seedlings in green pots on a black heating mat.
Many seeds benefit from the added heat a heating mat can provide.

To improve the germination rate and plant growth (the speed at which your seedlings sprout), using a seed starting heating mat with a thermometer is a great way to keep a warm location for your new seed.

A heat mat does not cost a lot and it does not take up a lot of space. It only requires you to use less than 3 square feet of space and you can get one for less than $30.

VIVOSUN Durable Waterproof Seedling Heat Mat

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Ohuhu Planting Heating Pad

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

VIVOHOME Seedling Heat Mat With Digital Thermostat

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Pallet Rack Trays

beige trays stacked on a white background
Trays under your seedlings provide many needed functions, from protecting shelving to keeping them from drying out.

If you don’t have plastic trays under your large containers or small containers, the water and soil surface can ruin your shelves, tiles, and floors.

These pallet rack trays can reduce your growing footprint by up to 50%. A good rule of thumb peat pellets is one of the best ways to collect and redirect runoff to reduce the occurrence of standing water.

I have also used aluminum baking pans for this. If you use porous individual containers for your seed starting, you can just add a 1/4″ or so of water to the pan, and the seedlings will soak up what they need when they need it.

10.5 Inch Plastic Plant Tray

BangQiao Planter Pot Saucer Tray

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

ZEONHAK 10 Pack Plant Tray

Labels

Seedlings growing in black pots with handwritten labels
Labeling your seedlings is very important.

Make sure to have something to mark which seeds you planted by using plant labels. I am so bad at this. I forget, and then I spend time wondering what I put where. Don’t make that mistake!

I do that even in the garden – I have to wait and see some times what pops up :/ … This is the best way to tell the difference between your garden plants and know if they are vegetable seeds or flower seeds and to know what types of vegetables they are

You don’t need to use cute labels at this point as you’ll need to switch to a different kind of weather resistant marker once the seedlings are good for transfer.

Also, using a sun fade resistant marker will make sure that the names don’t run off or fade on your markers… this happened to me, too…

KINGLAKE 100-Piece 4-Inch Plastic Plant Labels

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

HIDGrow 100-Piece Colored Plant Labels

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Delatanus 200-Piece 4.7-Inch Reusable And Waterproof Plant Labels

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Shelves

Black metal shelves in a kitchen with a white wall background
Shelves can come in quite handy wherever you decide to start your seeds.

For seed starting indoors, I recommend using an adjustable wire shelving.

This allows you to customize your whole setup. It also makes it easier to provide adequate light, such as fluorescent lights and supplemental lighting overhead.

You can start with smaller ones, which costs under $25 or if you want a more intricate setup, you can use larger shelves too.

Homebi 5-Tier Wire Shelving

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Whitmor Supreme Wide Stacking Shelf

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

AmazonBasics 6 Cube Wire Storage Shelves

Must-Have Products To Start Seedlings Indoors

Lights

a plastic greenhouse doused with purple hanging lights
Lighting is one of the most important things for your seedlings

A good rule of thumb is: don’t leave this item off your list. Not having a dedicated light source for your seedlings is the easiest way to result in weak plants with long flimsy stems. They will find light when they need it and then stretch toward it and then will make “leggy” seedlings that are too tall to sustain anything heartily.

When starting seedlings, you don’t need to invest in a fancy grow light. In fact, a simple fluorescent light with a bright light white bulb will do!

But, light hangers are worth your investment. They make adjusting and hanging your light super simple.

Roleadro 1000W LED Grow Light With UV & IR

Make sure you have these indoor gardening supplies to succeed with your indoor garden!  This list covers indoor seedling starters to indoor gardening lights.

Hydrofarm Agrobrite Fluorescent Grow Light System

Make sure you have these indoor gardening supplies to succeed with your indoor garden!  This list covers indoor seedling starters to indoor gardening lights.

LED Grow Light for Indoor Plants

I use some very similar to these, I love the timer, adjustable, bendable arms, and the clamp. The clamp is super strong and the timer has several options to choose from.

This is the best double ended grow light I have used and I love it.

420LED Plant Light with 75″ Extendable Tripod Stand

For an even bigger set up you might like this one. It has a stand that stretches a full 75″ to cover multiple areas at once. It also has a remote control which comes in handy, too.

This is the best 300w led grow light for the price. Right now it’s on sale and there’s even a $10 off coupon you can click to get additional savings.

You Might Also Like This:  Must Have Indoor Gardening Supplies For Your Indoor Garden!

Must Have Indoor Gardening Supplies For Your Indoor Garden!

Seed starting indoors can be a fun experience, as long as you are prepared. Just remember, before you start, make sure you have all that you need.

Are there other items that we didn’t mention above or are you looking for other tips? I would love to hear from you!

You can also find gardening products I use in my videos here <---

I now have an Amazon Influencer’s storefront. I put the products I use, in my posts and Youtube Gardening videos, there. Shopping there is free and the site gets a percentage of sales. Thanks!

You can go to my storefront using this secure link <----

If you need seeds, this is the company I use <--- and if you use code: farmer1 at checkout, you'll get 10% off your order!

Want to jump start your garden? Or are you a beginner & want to start off right? This will help: Seed Starting Indoors: 8 Must Have Seed Starting Supplies!
Want to jump start your garden? Or are you a beginner & want to start off right? This will help: Seed Starting Indoors: 8 Must Have Seed Starting Supplies!
Want to jump start your garden? Or are you a beginner & want to start off right? This will help: Seed Starting Indoors: 8 Must Have Seed Starting Supplies!

Learn More Now:

  • DIY Houseplant Bug Sprays
  • 7 Herbs That Grow Well Together In Pots
  • Growing Vegetables In Bags Of Soil
  • How Much Soil In A Pot Is The Right Amount?
  • True Low Light Houseplants Do Exist
  • Best Soil Amendments For Raised Beds
  • Sunburned Seedlings? Don’t Let This Happen To You
  • Start Your Own Family Food Garden
  • Gardening Apps For Android
  • Vermiculture DIY Worm Bin


Add a Comment

« Flowers You Should Be Growing In Your Vegetable Garden
Ways To Compost »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Df Thumbnail

Hi! I'm Dian, a wife of 30+ years, Mom to 4 grown kids, "Nana" to 8, and a Master Gardener. I LOVE reality shows & vegetable gardening & talking about both. You can read more here

  • Raised Bed Gardening
  • Container Gardening
  • Hydroponic Gardening
  • Herb Gardening
  • Garden Pests
  • Shop

Copyright © 2025 · glam theme by Restored 316

© 2014–2025 Dian Farmer All Rights Reserved. No content on this site may be copied and reused in any form or fashion without express written permission. Privacy Policy

  • Disclosure Policy
  • PR Info And Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Me