When to plant eggplant seedlings

Of all the vegetable crops grown in gardens, it is eggplants that are considered the most difficult. These plants are very capricious: eggplants need a lot of light, constant high air temperature, a certain level of humidity, nutritious and loose soil. It is quite difficult to create ideal conditions for the growth of eggplants, and besides, it requires a lot of effort and time of the agrarian.

These fragile plants must be transferred from one soil to another as soon as possible, which is almost impossible when buying seedlings, but it is quite feasible within the framework of your own summer cottage.

About when to plant eggplant seedlings in 2019, how to do it right, and how to care for these complex plants – in this article.

eggplant requirements

To understand when to sow eggplant for seedlings, you need to know all the weaknesses of this culture and the requirements that it makes.

So, For normal growth and development, eggplants need:

1. As much sunlight as possible. In cloudy weather, plants do not develop. Eggplants do not like dense plantings and shaded places – each bush should receive its own dose of sunlight.
2. constant temperature air at +25 degrees. If at night the temperature drops below 20 degrees, the plants will not develop as they should. And at 15 degrees, eggplants die altogether.
3. Light and loose soilrich in nutrients and oxygen. This requires additional care measures from the gardener: the ground between the eggplant bushes needs to be regularly fluffed, loosened, these plants love hilling and mulching the soil.
4. Regular watering – the ground under the blue ones should never be dry. Watering eggplant is necessary based on weather conditions. On average, this is once every five days. At the same time, the water for irrigation should be warm (about 23-25 ​​degrees), and it is better to water the plants in the early morning.

Terms of planting

Calculating the timing of planting eggplant seedlings is one of the most difficult tasks. Here you need to take into account several factors at once, each of them should be discussed in more detail.

Vegetation period

The growing season is the time that passes from the moment the seeds germinate to the appearance of ripe fruits on the bushes. Eggplant has the longest growing season compared to other vegetable crops (tomatoes, peppers). This time is from 100 to 150 days.

It should also be taken into account that after this time, the eggplant will only reach the stage of technical maturity, that is, the vegetable can already be eaten, processed or canned, but, in fact, the blue ones are still “green” during this period. From such fruits it will not be possible to collect seeds for the next season, for example. Until full biological maturation, blue ones need another 15-20 days.

In most of Our Country, the climate is considered unfavorable for growing heat-loving crops. And that is exactly what an eggplant is. Basically, farmers in the middle zone and the northern part of the country grow eggplants in greenhouses, greenhouses or under film shelters. But there are also daredevils who receive high yields by planting seedlings in open ground.

In this case, it is better to choose seeds of early ripening or ultra-early varieties. As a rule, these eggplants are less productive, but the plants are more likely to have time to give their fruits in the conditions of a short and cool summer. The ripening period for the blue ones for the regions of Our Country should be from 90 to 110 days.

Germination time

To the growing season, you must also add the time of seed germination. For good seed material, this period is about 10-12 days. It is in this gap that the first fragile sprouts appear from the soil.

Seed preparation includes::

• rejection;
• disinfection;
• food;
• pre-germination.

To choose the most “worthy” seeds, all the seeds from the bag are poured onto the table and carefully examined. Good eggplant seeds have even edges and are uniform in color. When immersed in water, such seeds should not float to the surface.

Having chosen the best “candidates”, they are placed in a linen bag and immersed in warm (about 28 degrees) water for a day. After that, the bag is removed from the water and placed on a saucer, maintaining a constant tissue moisture for 4-5 days.

After the specified time, the seeds should hatch. If more than half of the seeds from the bag have hatched, the material can be planted on seedlings.

Now it’s time for the second stage – disinfection. To do this, the seeds in the bag are dipped in a strong solution of manganese (1%). You can’t keep them the same for a long time, 20-30 minutes is enough. After that, the seeds are thoroughly washed with running water.

In order to strengthen the seedlings and accelerate the germination of seeds, the bag with them is lowered into a container with a nutrient solution. It can be a purchased special mixture, but you can save money by dissolving a few beds of wood ash in a liter of warm water. To saturate the seeds with nutrients, it is necessary to hold them in solution for one day.

After that, the seeds are laid out on a moistened cloth and wait for several days until they hatch.

Growing eggplant seedlings

Growing eggplant seedlings is not so difficult, it is enough to know a few simple rules. About 75-85 days should pass from the day the blue ones are sowed to the moment they are transplanted into the ground. This period includes the development of seedlings from the moment the first sprouts appear until the day when the plants will have 7-8 true leaves and a few buds, and the height of the plants will be about 20 cm (65-70 days). Plus, to this period it is necessary to add 10-12 days for seedlings – from sowing seeds into the ground until the first greenery appears.

In total, it turns out that the seedlings should be about 75-85 days old by the time they are planted in the ground.

You need to grow eggplant seedlings in compliance with a number of rules:

1. Before planting seeds in the ground, they need to be prepared.
2. It is better to plant eggplants immediately in individual containers – the culture does not tolerate picking.
3. Seeds do not need to be too deep – a groove of 0,5 cm is enough. From above, the seed is sprinkled with a 1,5-centimeter layer of dry, loose earth. So, the seeds will receive the necessary dose of oxygen.
4. For the first 10-14 days, keep the seed pots at a constant temperature at 28 degrees for germination.
5. After the appearance of half of the seedlings, the seedlings are transferred to a cooler room – 21-23 degrees. This climate is maintained for 5-7 days. At this time, the eggplants are forming roots, and too high a temperature will cause the plants to stretch upwards instead of rooting.
6. Then the temperature must be raised to 25 degrees and maintained at this level day and night.
7. It is important to monitor the degree of illumination of eggplant. The blue one, planted for seedlings in winter, runs the risk of not getting enough light, so the plants need to be illuminated with electric lamps, about 10-12 hours a day.
8. Fragile sprouts should be watered only with warm water from a spray bottle so as not to erode the soil. The ground in pots with eggplant seedlings should be constantly moist.
9. When the seedlings have 2-3 true leaves, they can dive (if necessary). Before transplanting into individual containers, seedlings are abundantly watered with warm water.
10. Strong eggplant seedlings, about 20 cm high, with 7-8 leaves and the first buds, are quite ready for transplanting to a permanent place (in a greenhouse or in a garden bed).

How to grow eggplant

Another point that must be taken into account when calculating the timing of sowing eggplant is the method of growing plants.

So, you can plant blue ones in unheated greenhouses or hotbeds two weeks earlier than in open ground. At this point, the weather conditions should be such that the plants have enough sunlight and heat.

Therefore, when growing them in greenhouses, you need to open the greenhouses for ventilation in time so that the plants do not overheat, and close the doors early in the evening to keep warm air inside the greenhouse.

Climatic features of the region

An important factor is the peculiarities of the climate in a particular region of the country. If in the south already in the first days of May it is possible to safely plant eggplant seedlings in open beds, then in the rest of the country you will have to wait.

The gardener must independently assess the climatic features of his region by analyzing the weather over the past few years.

As a rule, in central Our Country, eggplant seedlings are planted in beds in mid-May. Accordingly, blue ones can be transferred to the greenhouse here at the beginning of the same month.

For Western Siberia, the end of May (27-31 numbers) is considered the right time for landing blue ones in the ground. Residents of more northern regions will have to wait until the first decade of June or plant eggplants in a closed greenhouse at the end of May.

The best sowing dates

Considering all the above factors, we can calculate the optimal timing of sowing eggplant for seedlings in a particular region:

• farmers in the southern part of the country can start sowing seeds already in early February, and for greenhouses – even in January (after the 15th);
• the middle zone of Our Country begins to plant eggplant seedlings in late February and early March;
• March is considered a suitable period for the north.

When growing blue ones in a greenhouse, at least two weeks must be taken away from the specified period.

Determining the correct timing of sowing seedlings, of course, is important. But the process of growing eggplants is much more complicated and responsible. After all, only by growing healthy and strong seedlings, you can count on a good harvest.