How To Prepare The Soil For Seedlings Yourself

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Experience shows that not all gardeners and summer residents took care of the components for seedling soils in the fall. And today, when the time for sowing seeds for seedlings is approaching, they take the land, wherever and what is horrible, without thinking at all about the consequences. Meanwhile, if you turn to the recommendations that appear in specialized publications for gardeners, and to the experience of colleagues, then you can get out of this situation without much difficulty.

The analysis shows that many summer residents and gardeners, without having prepared the soil in advance, quite successfully store it from household waste, which has both vegetable and animal origin. Most often they use potato peelings, stale bread, leftovers of porridge, various leftovers of meat and fish, sleeping tea, etc. All this is collected in a bucket, slightly moistened, mixed, and sprinkled with peat, sawdust or ordinary earth on top. In the presence of heat, air and moisture, the contents of the bucket quickly rot and compost is formed, and no foul smell is emitted. At the same time, there is no mold or other harmful microflora.

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If there is no peat, sawdust or earth for dusting, then you can use dried leaves. Since the contents of the bucket must not be dry, you can use kitchen rinses after soup, vegetables, etc. to moisten the bucket.

In this case, a good soil for seedlings is obtained in about 2.5 months. It smells like humus, or rather, ordinary forest land. About a month before use, no new components are added to the bucket, but they must be mixed, and at this time the compost is being prepared in the next bucket. At the same time, the compost turns out to be clean, you can take it with your hands and fill it in the right time for seedling containers: boxes, cups, etc.

From my own experience I know that on such free soil you can grow any plants without fear of their disease. I know that some gardeners successfully prepare soil for seedlings in the form of a mixture consisting of two parts of dried grass and 1 part of chalk and crushed eggshell, sprinkled with ordinary soil, which also makes up one part of the volume. By slightly moistening the mixture or adding a little solution of mineral fertilizers, you get a very good substrate, suitable not only for seedlings, but also for growing various crops, for example, on your own balcony.

A very simple seedling substrate is used by the author of this article. I cook it just from sawdust or shavings (70%), sand (20%), ash and mineral fertilizer. As the latter, complex fertilizers have justified themselves: "Garant", containing 11 nutrients, "Kemira Lux" (9 elements) or mixture No. 2 according to Mitlider (6 elements). The consumption of these fertilizers averaged 2.5 g per 1 liter of water.

Experience has shown that for growing seedlings of tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and other crops, the use of plastic cups from sour cream installed in plastic boxes intended for food products and measuring 50 x 40 x 7 cm was well justified. Moreover, the box with seedlings was made with a perforated bottom and was installed on lining in a second drawer with a solid bottom. This was done so that the roots of plants, located in cups with drainage holes, do not suffocate from excess moisture, and the excess solution could flow into the lower box and be reused for watering and feeding seedlings.

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Care for seedlings with this method of growing it consists in watering with the indicated solutions, carried out every other day, since the woody-sandy-ash substrate dries quickly. Seedlings grow faster than in ordinary soil, and after 1.5 months, the substrate under the action of the solution acquires a dark brown color, reminiscent of chernozem. When transplanting seedlings into a garden bed, the substrate ensures quick survival of plants in new conditions of their life and encourages them to accelerate growth and development.

Based on my experience, I can name the following advantages of such growing seedlings in comparison with traditional ones:

• the substrate costs almost free, since wood waste and sand are available in unlimited quantities;
• the substrate has excellent drainage, aeration and moisture, which accelerates the development of the root system of plants;
• the substrate is free of pathogens, sterile and does not need to be disinfected;
• the seedlings on the substrate are strong, do not get sick and are ahead of the growth and development of those grown on ordinary soil.

Anyone who does not have time to prepare the above substrates, but has the means, can successfully use the bioorganic fertilizer "Living Earth", which is always available for sale.

The soil is sold in packages with a capacity of 5 liters or in packages of 10 tablets. In the first case, it is enough to fill the glass with fertilizer, and in the second - just put 1-2 tablets in the glass and fill them with warm water, which the tablets quickly absorb and fill the entire space of the glass. At the same time, for looseness and aeration, it is useful to add sawdust or sand in a dose of up to 15%, mix everything well, after which you can plant seeds, and then both germination and development of seedlings occurs without any of your intervention.

If "Living Earth" is not on sale or it does not suit you in some way, then you can successfully use bioorganic fertilizers "Violet", "Microparnik", "Peat effect" or others, adding to them for looseness and aeration the above sawdust or sand in the same dose.