Recently, I was fortunate enough to receive some Lee Valley Self Watering Seed Starting Kits. A friend of my Mom's was looking for a good home for them and had 10 (!) kits to give away. Unfortunately, it is because he has gone blind but I was still grateful to be the recipient.

Each kit consists of a polystyrene resorvoir, a growing stand with a capillary mat draped over it into the water, a 24 cell seed tray and a clear dome that fits snugly on top.

I've already sowed a number of different seeds in a few and the yellow, double hollyhocks were the first to come up. I filled the unit with water and ProMix on March the 3rd, the hollyhocks germinated in 5 days and have been growing steadily since. The mix has stayed consistantly moist during the whole time and I've not had to add any additional water since!

There is a little water level indicator that comes with the kit that is missing from all of mine. Since the previous owner was almost blind, they were of no use to him and frankly I've found it is just as simple to either view the water level thru the pouring hole at one end or just stick a finger in. The water level in mine doesn't even appear to have barely dropped in 12 days in spite of keeping the ProMix perfectly moist.

It is a very efficient unit and I would trust it completely to keep my seedlings watered if I had to leave home for a few days.

I have a greenhouse and start thousands of perennials from seed every year both for my own acre garden and for my yearly plant sale. So my method for starting seeds is usually to broadcast a large amount of seed across a flat of ProMix and prick out the hundreds of seedlings to pot up later.

These kits only have 24 cells so they are not as useful for starting vast amounts of seed but they are perfect for starting something for which you don't have much seed or as in the case of most hobby gardeners, for starting smaller amounts of plants.

The biggest catch of course is the price...$22.00 each or $19.60 each if you buy 3 or more. But I can see someone who only needs a few being able to justify the cost as they are sturdy enough to use year after year and they would allow you some freedom of worrying about watering if you wanted to go away for a weekend.

I could have never spent $200 for ten of them but I'm certainly very happy to have them!

Here is a link that might be useful: Lee Valley Self Watering Seed Starting Kit