Customer Reviews

Jiffy 5035 Professional Heated Greenhouse 72-Plant Starter Kit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this starter kit in conjunction with a hydrofam growing light, and I have NOT been disappointed. Granted, as with all peat pots, the little indentation for seeds sometimes gets expanded into, but a meat fork (with round tongs) easily does the trick of getting a hole the depth you need it. I'll go down the list of features here for you.

1. The greenhouse.

It comes with 72 peat pods, which are pretty generic as far as I'm concerned. They don't have the same "netting" as the 25-cell one I got from my local nursery had, but it's the same concept. As mentioned, some of the indentations for seeds get expanded into, and the things damn heavy when you're trying to lift all of the expanded pods out in the tray so you can drain off water, but its sturdy enough you don't see things tipping over or falling out, or the tray twisting to dump stuff all over the floor like you might expect. It stays flat enough, short of actual sag. I started my 25-pod greenhouse a couple of weeks ago, and have yet to need to water it, and so far all but maybe 3 sets of seeds have sprouted and grown strong - and those 3 that haven't, I have to admit - I saw tiny sprouts, and probably messed with it when I should have.

2. The trays

There's a total of 3 trays with this kit. There's one that the heating mat fits into, with a little indentation in the side for the cord. If you're confused as to which direction to lay the mat, just used that as your guide. If it seems not lay flat, that won't be a problem once you put a full tray of expanded pots on top of it. The second goes on top of the heat mat, and is a grooved watering tray for bottom-watering. The third is the tray that actually holds the pods, so it's easy enough to "transport" if you find you need to drain some excess water when you re-water them down the road.

3. The heating pad

Again, no problems here. The pad keeps things the perfect temperature for most of what I'm growing. [I'm still looking for a heating pad to give my peppers, tomatoes and artichokes sufficient heat (which my source recommends about 80 degrees for germination, and a decrease in temp for growing).] I started 2 plants less than a week ago, and started the rest today. Half of my amethyst basil sprouted within a few days, the rest sprouted (along with multiple sprouts in the earlier germinated pods) by the end of day 4. The impressive part? My 25% viable white sage, which I've been told typically takes up to 2 weeks to sprout, has sprouted within 4 days. Crossing my fingers for its survival!

All in all, it IS a good starter system. The way the trays are set up makes it easy to transfer your pods to slightly larger pots - and while you wouldn't necessarily be able to fit ALL the pods into enough pots to fit into the tray, you will still be able to fit some and use the heating pad and bottom-watering feature. I wouldn't expect to be able to hold them too long once they get going - because once they get going, the grow QUICK!

As the rest of what I've planted sprouts, I'll update with sprouting times, times to transplant to bigger containers, etc. I couldn't be more pleased. I figure I'll get myself another one as soon as I can afford it!

Like one of the other reviewers commented, the heating mat packaged with the tray is not the one the tray was designed for (at least in the package I got). It does not look like the heating mat pictured on the box and does not say Jiffy on it. The cord comes out one of the short sides, not at the end of one of the long sides as needed to match up with the hole in the tray. So the mat does not fit in my tray unless I cut another hole in the tray which will weaken it.

I already started adding water to the pots when I noticed this so I'm not gonna try to return it. I'll just make it work, but really annoying as the tray is clearly designed to allowfor a cord, but the wrong mat is packaged.

I just purchased this kit at home depot for a couple dollars more than amazon and planted a number of veggies and herbs on Sunday. Less than 48 hours later, my kale had already sprouted and the chard was poking up through the dirt. Now I'm at 4 days since planting and nearly all of the 72 pellets have sprouts. I'm soo impressed with this kit. I've never had much luck growing from seeds and now my seeds have all sprouted so incredibly quick!

To address the other reviewer's comment about the heat mat, it does seem to be a bit smaller than the actual tray. However, it goes inside the base, which has in indented area to set it, and under the actual tray. The mat and the base do an excellent job at distributing heat to all the cells. I have no complains about it and highly recommend it. I posted some pix of my tray so you can see. :)

I wish I'd seen other reviewers' comments before I ordered this starter kit. As they said, the heating mat and the tray do not match. The tray clearly has a notch for the cord along the long side, but the cord on the mat is attached on the short end, so they don't align. To make it work, you have to either cut a notch in the tray or just push down until the tray deforms. Nor did I receive any assembly instructions. We weren't sure if the heating pad went under the bottom tray or inside it. If it's inside the tray (our final decision) and there's a water leak, you'll have an electrical hazard on your hands. For the price, I expected better quality.

This was my first time using something like this and it worked very well, too well because I was not expecting it to really work work and thus almost missed the plants growing out of the container and onto my shelf! Works, and I will definitely be using it again.

The main reason I bought this set up is because I wanted the seedling heat mat. The heat mat works perfectly. The plastic tray that comes with the heat mat was designed for a different style heat mat and they do not fit together as they should in order to transfer the heat properly.(the place where the cord attaches is different.) For that reason, it gets a 3. The dome/plastic tray is of very flimsy quality, which I expected, for the price. If I had it to do again, I would have bought one that holds small pots instead of jiffy pots, with a higher domed clear lid. I bought the cheapest set up, and that's what I got. No, I would not buy this product again.