It is not difficult to germinate the seeds and make your own seedlings for transplanting them into the garden, instead of buying them from a nursery. Plants are grown in nurseries, for germination you can make a seedbed . Let’s see how to make the environment in which our future horticultural plants can be born and spend their first days of life very simple, a simple box and some soil.
Suppose in this article that we want to make a simple seedbed, suitable for home garden, we can simply use a small box where the seeds will germinate. A few days after germination, the seedlings will need to be moved to larger containers, such as typical black pot tubs. Let’s discover together why it is useful to make a seed box and how to handle it in practice.
Contents [Ocultar]
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Starting from the seed: savings and satisfaction
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The advantage of transplant
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What to use to build a seedbed
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The right soil to plant
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How to plant garden plants
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Move seedlings: peel
Contents
Starting from the seed: savings and satisfaction
Do-it-yourself seeding in a nursery is a useful system for gardeners, as it provides both economical and space-saving It also allows for better planning of what is going to be grown. For time reasons, seedlings bought from the nursery can also be transplanted, but buying seedlings is much more expensive than buying seed bags. For this reason I explain below how to build a nursery in which to germinate the seed, the discussion continues in the nursery, after reconditioning the seedlings in jars, until transplanting into the garden. In addition to saving money, satisfaction seeing the seed germinate is priceless, so I invite you to try to put the following guidelines into practice, you won’t regret it.
The advantage of transplant
Transplanting the seedling has several advantages over direct sowing in the ground, placing the seed directly in the garden. Are here:
- Fewer fungal diseases and parasites . Sowing allows the seed to germinate under more controlled conditions than in the field (sterile soil, regulated temperature, established humidity). Seedlings grow healthy, seeds are not eaten or moved by animals and insects.
- Time saving and better programming . By controlling the temperature that the seedlings develop before, the land in the garden is used more rationally if crops can be programmed and this allows more crops to be harvested from the same plot.
- Save space in the garden. Transplanting makes better use of space in flowerbeds: planting in the ground may not cause some seeds to germinate, leaving empty spaces in the rows. Seeding also saves space in the seedbed itself.
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Better weed control. When transplanting, already developed seedlings are placed in the ground, which find clean, plowed soil. This makes weed control much easier.
What to use to build a seedbed
Plant sowing is a simple and economical system, to make a box of inert material and a little soil is enough, we can then start with sowing. Ideally, use materials that are not too damaged by humidity and that do not promote the development of mold, so that they can be reused. A plastic or polystyrene box it’s good. Wood is less suitable because it absorbs water and can harbor fungi, while iron rusts.
The right soil to plant
For our planting, we must use non-acidic black peat soil, mixed with a fraction of light soil. White peat is acidic and not very good for vegetable seedlings. A good “recipe” is to mix black peat, orchard soil and silica sand , in almost equal parts. Alternatively, you can also buy ready-to-use potting soil Better that it is a specific soil for planting and that it is organic. In any case, the support must be very fine if you decide to produce it yourself, it is good to sift it.
Soil for the first phase of sowing is not a necessity: an interesting alternative to using soil is to germinate the seeds in the box.
How to plant garden plants
Sowing in the nursery is very simple: the box is filled with 3 cm of soil , purchased or self-produced as explained above. The planting soil should be slightly damp , absolutely not soggy. To give measured water it is preferable to use a sprayer such as detergents for cleaning glass, care should obviously be taken if detergent containers are used to dispose of residual chemicals.
Once the soil layer is wet ready, place the seeds in cracks a few millimeters deep then cover them with a veil of well-sifted earth. The advice is press lightly the soil on our seeds, without compacting too much.
After placing the seeds in the ground, cover them with a sheet of TNT until you see the seedlings emerge. To germinate the seed, only the ideal temperature is necessary . The appropriate temperature varies from vegetable to vegetable, for example for tomatoes and peppers it is around 25 degrees. To grow, the seedling will need not only heat but also light, so only the first phase can take place indoors.
So, after germination, you should keep our box in a lighted place in the seedbed, you can also use artificial lights, such as neon lights or leds. It is necessary to check often that the lighting conditions are correct, if the light is not sufficient we will see the seedlings “turn”, that is to say stretch slightly upwards, and turn yellow due to lack of photosynthesis. .
Before sowing, it may be useful to soak the seeds, normally they are soaked for 24 hours, to soak the tegumeto, an interesting idea is to soak the chamomile.
Move seedlings: peel
When in our nursery the seedlings will have open both cotyledonary leaves it’s time to transfer them by planting them in larger pots. As long as the plant has only these first two leaflets, it can move without trauma, because its small roots are not yet fully developed. When the first true leaves emerge, on the other hand, lateral roots are also extinct which could break during transplanting.
The move operation is called To recover and it is not difficult to carry out: the soil is moistened and the seedlings are pulled out with a stick, however, the operation requires delicacy, since the young crops have just formed.
Seedlings, after growing in nurseries, should be kept in containers in small cups or jars , which are kept in the nursery. Here, the roots are expected to wrap the bread of the earth well so that they can be transplanted into the open field without problems.