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Many vegetables with a long ripening period are grown through seedlings. Among them are tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, eggplant, celery root. Cabbage is also grown through seedlings to get an early harvest.
Sowing seeds of vegetables for seedlings
Eggplant
Eggplant seeds are useful previously in Epine-extra (1). And already germinated (for this they need to be kept in a damp cloth for a couple of days in a warm place, for example, on a battery) they are embedded in a moistened substrate to a depth of about 1 cm.
It is useful to cover the pots with foil or glass. Eggplants love heat, so they need to be germinated at a temperature of 25 – 30 ° C. Seeds usually germinate in 7 to 14 days.
When to sow: from February 20 to March 5.
Peppers
Their seeds can also be treated with Epin-extra (1), germinated and planted in boxes at a depth of about 0,5 cm. They germinate for a long time, from 2 to 3 weeks. And they are sensitive to temperature. Just like eggplants, they need heat – 25 – 30 ° C.
When to sow: from February 20 to March 5.
Tomatoes
Experienced gardeners have been preparing the land for tomatoes since autumn, mixing black soil with humus, sand and peat in proportions (3: 3: 1: 1). But you can buy ready-made soil for seedlings.
Seeds can not be germinated, but it is useful to process them by soaking them in Epin-extra (1). They are buried in the ground to a depth of 1 cm. The soil must be well moistened. After sowing, spray the top layer well with water from a spray bottle. Keep the seed boxes in a warm place, you can cover them with foil on top. The first entries appear after about 7 days.
When to sow: from 15 March to 5 April.
cucumbers
Usually cucumbers are grown without seedlings – seeds can be sown immediately in open ground at the end of May. But if you want to get the harvest early, then you can get confused with seedlings. Experts advise pre-soaking the seeds so that they swell, and then hardening – keeping 2 – 3 days in the refrigerator or in the snow – this increases the resistance of plants to adverse weather conditions in the open field and increases the number of female flowers, and hence the yield (2) .
When to sow: from March 20 to March 30 – for greenhouses, from April 10 to April 20 – for planting in open ground.
Cabbage
All types of cabbage are cold-resistant plants; they can easily withstand even quite significant spring frosts. For example, white cabbage seedlings tolerate short-term temperature drops to -5 °C (2). Therefore, in late April or early May, seeds can be sown immediately on the beds. But if there is a desire to get a crop ahead of time, then you can grow cabbage through seedlings.
When to sow: early white cabbage varieties – from March 10 to 20, broccoli and cauliflower – from March 20 to 30.
Root celery
Celery also has a long growing season. Seedlings should stay at home for about 70 days, they are planted on the beds at the very end of May.
When to sow: from February 20 to March 1.
What to plant seedlings
The soil. Basically it doesn’t matter. Ideally, of course, a fertile layer of good garden or garden soil (3). But, as our resident expert says, gardener Andrey Tumanov, if in the fall you are too lazy to collect garden soil for seedlings, you can buy any soil in garden centers. It has already been prepared, optimally processed, the composition, as a rule, is balanced in terms of mineral organic fertilizers.
Capacities. What containers to take, also does not matter much. Now many stores, even grocery supermarkets, are opening departments for gardeners, where they sell peat pots or seedling tablets. Seedlings from them are then very convenient to plant immediately with a pot in the ground.
Special pots, plastic cups with a volume of 0,2 l and 0,5 l, plastic containers, mayonnaise buckets, etc. are also suitable.
Do I need to dive seedlings
This debate continues year after year. There are many pros and cons of picking. But, alas, inexperienced gardeners confuse a pick with a transplant. It would seem that the difference is not great, but significant.
A pick is a transplant of a seedling into another pot, during which the tip of the root is pinched. Tomatoes love this procedure, but peppers and eggplants can not stand it. Picking is contraindicated for them. In general, most gardeners will be inclined to believe that picking is too troublesome, which does not give tangible results even in tomatoes. So you can not bother – why do you need extra work?
Popular questions and answers
We talked about growing seedlings with agronomist-breeder Svetlana Mikhailova – she answered the most popular questions of summer residents.
Sources of
- State catalog of pesticides and agrochemicals approved for use on the territory of the Federation as of July 6, 2021 // Ministry of Agriculture of the Federation https://mcx.gov.ru/ministry/departments/departament-rastenievodstva-mekhanizatsii-khimizatsii- i-zashchity-rasteniy/industry-information/info-gosudarstvennaya-usluga-po-gosudarstvennoy-registratsii-pestitsidov-i-agrokhimikatov/
- A group of authors, ed. Polyanskoy A.M. and Chulkova E.I. Tips for gardeners // Minsk, Harvest, 1970 – 208 p.
- Yakubovskaya L.D., Yakubovsky V.N., Rozhkova L.N. ABC of a summer resident // Minsk, OOO “Orakul”, OOO Lazurak, IPKA “Publicity”, 1994 – 415 p.