If you've ever had a tray of seedlings that looked like this, you'll know exactly why it's important to know the germination times for different seeds:

seedling tray leggy sprouts tipping over different germination times micro soil blocks 1
Some seeds sprouted quick, and became leggy.

Other seeds were slow to sprout, and the humidity dome had to remain on to help them germinate.

This is the problem with mixing seeds of differing germination times in the same tray. A lesson I've learned the hard way multiple times.

Now I know that a seedling tray should only contain seeds which take the same amount of time to germinate. This way the humidity dome can be removed after germination and I can get the sprouts under some LED light before they get leggy.

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For this reason I've compiled the following list of germination times for seedlings based on my personal experience.

Note that these times reflect the warm temperatures in my seedling room, and may be different for you. Some sites claim tomatoes take 5-10 days to germinate, while mine have always all sprouted by day 4. My seedling room is 78F (25.5C), theirs may be 62F (16.6C). If you're starting seeds in a cold garage or basement, keep in mind your germination will take longer.

Water filtering and pH, airflow, ambient temperature, germination mats, soil composition, light, etc. are all factors here that will skew germination times quite drastically.

It's not the times that are actually important here though. Rather, it's the groupings of seeds with similar germination times. Knowing which seeds take the same amount of germination time as others is the crucial piece of information that lets you group the right seedlings together in trays.

Here we go!

2-4 Day Germination:

4-6 Day Germination:

6-8 Day Germination:

8-10 Day Germination:

10-12 Day Germination:

12-14 Day Germination:

14-21+ Day Germination: