This is the shelf I have. It's a Husky 5 shelf heavy duty shelving system. It can hold up to 1,000 lbs per shelf, so it's more than enough for some plants and lights. Once we get the shelves rearranged, there will be about 1.5' between each shelf, which is more than enough.

The only complaints I have about it are:

• It's 48" wide, so it's 2" shy of being able to fit 5 trays on it. As such, I let the trays on each side stick over an inch
• I wish it had one more shelf, as that would be perfect. I haven't been able to find a replacement or add-on shelf anywhere for it.

I wish I had seen this one when I bought mine, as I would have liked gotten it instead.

It's the same brand and same type of shelf. The only difference is that it is 60" wide instead of 48". That means you can fit 6 trays on each shelf.

Since it was time for the peas to start popping up, I needed to add lights to the third shelf where those plants are sitting. So on Friday I ran to Home Depot and picked up everything I needed to add two more lights to the shelf. I now have three shelves of plants with 2 lights on each. 

And it was a good thing, too, as by Saturday morning there were a whole bunch of peas that had popped up. Now they'll have the light that they need.

So, I started more seeds today. It's an ongoing process to grow seedlings, as some plants need more time, some you grow early in the season, some you start later. As such, I usually have seeds going into dirt from January through April - even later if I do a fall planting.

A question I see a lot from people who container garden is what to do with the soil from last year that is in their containers. Do they get rid of it? Reuse it? What? It seems like every year once we get close to growing season that this question comes up.

There are a lot of options. If you have a compost pile, you can dump all of the old soil that doesn't have plants currently growing in it, bulbs that will come back each year, etc. This gives it a chance to be reinvigorated by the nutrients it picks up from your compost heap. But what if you don't have a compost heap?

A friend asked me today how I attach my lights to my shelves where I grow my seedlings.

The shelves themselves aren't solid - they're a grid. So I bought some s-biners and chain. S-biners are similar to a s-hook, except that they have a closure that you can open by pushing, just like a carabiner. This means I don't have to worry about bumping a light or chain and the hook slipping, causing the light to fall.