>>92181The pro's are that you have a controlled environment. The temperature and air humidity are always optimal, I get to choose the duration and quantity of light my plants get, no pesky pests or animals messing with my seedlings, ..
More seeds successfully germinate and more seedlings mature into 'adult' plants in my experience.
The cons are the (admittedly small) costs and all the micromanagement. The lamps do use up some electricity, but the cost per plant is negligible. I already break even compared to buying seedlings from a nursery if I produce 12 tomato seedlings; I pregrow about 35 every year, for multiple households. The biggest disadvantage by far is the extra effort that goes into it; it being high maintenance. Watering the plants, adjusting the height of the plants so they don't get burned by the lights, filling the trays with appropriate dirt, transplanting the seedlings once they're big enough, ..
I prefer sowing directly at the spot in my vegetable patch, but like I mentioned my tomatoes need the head start due to the climate on my location. (Nightly frosts can persist well into May.) The same goes for peppers or related crops. The only other time I use it is when I have rare seeds or cuttings, thus wanting to optimize the success ratio of early cultivation.
Pic unrelated; one of my beds with young spinach. There's quite a lot of organic matter in
the soil of this particular bed as you can see (
>>91148 >>91494).
