The Choice Of Seeds Of Vegetables And Flowers, Shelf Life, Preparation And Basic Sowing Rules

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

How to choose seeds, prepare them for sowing and sow them correctly

Before the start of the season, any gardener makes an audit of his seed stocks. It is necessary to check: what seeds he has (remained from the previous season or were collected on his own), what else will have to be purchased. In addition, it does not hurt to estimate the timing of sowing crops and analyze the mistakes of previous seasons, when the purchased seeds for some reason refused to germinate, so that the new season would be much more successful.

Shelf life of vegetable seeds:

• watermelon, melon, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin - 6-8 years;
• beans, peas, beans, corn - 5-6 years;
• artichoke, rutabagus, cabbage, radish, radish, turnip, beet, tomato, asparagus - 4-5 years;
• eggplant, batun onion, leeks, carrots, lettuce, spinach, chicory - 3-4 years;
• onions, peppers, parsley, rhubarb, dill, sorrel - 2-3 years;
• parsnips, celery - 1-2 years.

Shelf life of flower seeds:

• delphinium, phlox, marigold, primrose, verbena, nigella, arctotis, helihrizum, nemesia, aster, pansies, dimorphoteka, eschsholzia, calendula, carpathian bell and peach - 2 years;
• cornflower, pyrethrum, foxglove, middle bell, zinnia, mattiola, lobularia, cosmeya, helipterum, begonia, annual dahlia, fragrant tobacco, petunia, fiery red beans, snapdragon, purslane - 2-3 years;
• sweet peas, lupine, poppy, nasturtium, calendula, petunia, mignonette and chrysanthemum - 4 years;
• pinnate carnation, Turkish and Chinese, coreopsis - 4-5 years.

Approximate timing of sowing vegetable seeds

It is customary to sow tall and medium-sized tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and potatoes from mid-February to early March.

Low-growing tomatoes can be sown until about March 20.

Physalis - in mid-March.

Cucumbers, watermelons, melons, pumpkins and zucchini can be sown from the second decade of April to early May.

Kohlrabi can be sown from mid-April to mid-May.

Early white cabbage and early cauliflower are sown from the beginning of March to the end of April.

Savoy and Brussels sprouts - from early to mid-April.

Mid-season white cabbage is sown from mid-April to mid-May.

Sowing of late white cabbage and late cauliflower begins from mid-March to late April.

Black onion - from early March to late April.

Carrots - from mid-April to mid-May.

Beets - from mid-April to early May (in a greenhouse or greenhouse for seedlings) and from mid-May to the end of the first decade of June (in open ground).

Sowing dates should be chosen in accordance with the gardener's lunar sowing calendar.

Preparing purchased seeds for sowing

Most purchased seeds do not require any pre-treatment. If the seeds are not dusty and not inlaid, then it is enough to soak them for a day in ordinary (preferably snow) water. Or, even better, treat with growth stimulants such as Epin (7 drops per glass of water). Inlaid (covered with a colored shell), as well as small and dusty seeds (such seeds in remontant strawberries and in many annual flower crops) do not require any processing - they are sown only dry.

However, there are two exceptions to this rule.

1. Strong peel on some seeds (lagenaria, some pumpkin varieties, some herbs, etc.) must be scarified before sowing. damage - scratch. Without this, such seeds can sprout for a very long time (a month, two or more), or they may not sprout at all. For damage, you can rub the swollen seeds a little with a sandpaper or gently cut a little with nail scissors from the side opposite to the scar. This operation is dangerous and one must act extremely carefully so as not to destroy the internal structure of the seed.

2. Many berry, fruit, medicinal crops and a number of flowers, and from vegetables - horseradish and katran sprout only after stratification - long-term exposure of the seeds to a low positive temperature from 0 to + 5 ° C. Such seeds must either be sown in the fall (then they will be stratified under natural conditions), or mixed with a wet substrate (sand, sawdust, peat chips, moss) and kept at a low temperature and free air access in the refrigerator. For one part of the seeds, take 3-4 parts of the substrate. Stratification lasts from one to several months, depending on the culture.

Preparing for sowing seeds collected by yourself

The seeds can be kept in a weak solution of biological products (1 tablespoon of Rhizoplan, 1 teaspoon of Trichodermine and 2 tablespoons of black yeast) for 2 hours (cabbage and other cruciferous plants - no more than 30 minutes). You can also hold them in Planty's solution (1 teaspoon per 100 ml of water) for a day and spray with Epin (7 drops per glass of water). Immunocytophyte will help against viral diseases (1 tablet per 100 ml of water), in which it is enough to soak the seeds for 3-12 hours.

Basic rules for sowing seeds

1. Timely sowing. Sowing carrots, parsley, dill, lettuce and many other green crops should be done very early (late April - early May), as soon as the topsoil thaws slightly. At this time, the soil is moist, and the seeds will not die from drying out, which in the overwhelming majority of cases happens with a later sowing. But beets cannot be planted in cold soil - therefore, they can be sown in a greenhouse or wait for the soil at a depth of 10-12 cm to warm up to 7 … 10 ° C (late May-early June). Black onions can be sown at home for seedlings (if you want to get bulbs in the same year), and in a greenhouse (it is easier to provide sufficient moisture there), and right in the garden.

2. Not the slightest drying out, which in most cases is the reason that the seeds of difficult germinating crops (carrots, parsley) or requiring special conditions (beets, nigella) do not germinate.

3. Protection against frost, from which germinated seeds and even seedlings may die. Covering the beds with foil or covering material immediately after sowing can help.

4. Depth of seeding. Deeper embedding than is required for a given culture can prevent the friendly germination of seeds, and even lead to the appearance of only single seedlings. For many crops, the optimum planting depth is 0.3-0.6 cm. Small seeds, which are found in many flowers and in a number of spicy crops, are simply scattered over the surface.

Dry, wet or sprouted?

Any seed can be sown in three ways: dry, wet, or germinated. Sow dry seeds very quickly, but they sprout long enough. Wet seeds, let alone sprouted seeds, germinate much faster than dry ones, but sowing them is more difficult. And the process of soaking or sprouting should be treated carefully so as not to destroy the seeds.

To choose the best option correctly, you should be guided by the following rules:

• plants (turnip, radish, radish), the seeds of which sprout very quickly, it makes no sense to soak;
• it is absolutely impossible to soak very small dusty seeds;
• it is better not to soak the seeds of some plants (basil) that form mucus when soaked;
• it is worth soaking and even germinating slowly entering seeds (carrots, parsley), seeds that require a lot of moisture (onions, legumes) or have some special specific properties (beets);
• you should not soak carrot seeds if for some reason you cannot then thin it out - in this case, it is better to choose sowing with granulated seeds or seeds on paper strips (granulated seeds and seeds on paper strips cannot be soaked);
• it is worth soaking the seeds if you are not sure of their good germination - then when soaked and treated with a growth stimulator (Epin, huminates, etc.), the seeds will sprout more amicably;
• it is worth soaking the seeds and treating them with stimulants, if you are late with sowing, then you have a chance to get a good harvest from early maturing varieties, despite the delay in sowing.

Liquid sowing of small germinated seeds

Usually, liquid sowing with sprouted seeds is practiced for carrots, but other vegetable seeds such as dill, parsley and onions can be sown in this way. Sprouted seeds are sown in a paste, which is prepared in advance, but not earlier than a day from potato starch (the paste must cool). The paste should be uniform, without clots, viscous enough and without a film on the surface to keep the germinated seeds in suspension.

For sowing, holes are made throughout the sown area. Then, in a bucket of jelly, carefully lay out all the seeds and take as a tool a stick to stir the contents of the bucket (you need to stir carefully, and it is better to do this not with a stick, but with your hand) and a glass (a glass with a spout is more convenient). Then the jelly is thoroughly stirred, the glass is quickly filled with it and the contents of the glass are poured into the hole, very quickly moving the hand with the glass along it. It all depends on the skill: you should mix your hand in the process of pouring extremely quickly, since the seeds will be sown too thickly. Immediately after sowing, the furrows are covered with loose soil. The seeding depth is 1.5-2 cm.

Sowing small and dusty seeds

Such seeds are found in remontant strawberries and in many annual flower crops. Many of them, moreover, do not have good germination and often get sick with black leg. Such seeds are always sown in not very high containers (for example, in spread jars, for example, "Rama") in very loose, moist, but specially compacted soil before sowing with the obligatory addition of Trichodermine from fungal diseases. The seeds are scattered directly over the soil surface and are not covered, as in this case they may not sprout.

Then the entire surface is wetted from the spray, but in no case watered, and the container is placed in an open plastic bag in a warm place. If necessary, the soil is periodically sprayed again from the sprayer. When shoots appear, the package is removed, and the container is placed in a lighted place. Water is still watered through a sprinkler, but not with ordinary water, but with a solution of rhizoplan and black yeast to protect the plants from the black leg. Then, in mid-to-late April, the plants are planted for growing in a greenhouse on biofuel, and in mid-May they are transferred to open ground.

How to sow seeds of nightshade (eggplant, pepper and tomato) and melons (cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini)?

There are two technologies for sowing such seeds: directly into the soil or into very loose soil (for example, in sawdust). In the first case, everything is very simple. A sufficiently deep container is taken, filled with moistened soil, and seeds are sown in it at some distance from each other, then they are sprinkled with soil, and the soil is rolled slightly. The distance between the seeds should be at least 2 cm, because the plants will be together for a long time.

In the second case, a flat, shallow container filled with wet sawdust is taken. Seeds are sown in it in the same way and again sprinkled with sawdust.

In both cases, the containers are placed in slightly opened plastic bags in a warm place (for example, on a radiator, if it is not too hot there). During the period of seed germination, it is desirable to maintain a temperature of about 25 … 30 ° C. With the emergence of seedlings, the temperature is reduced: in the daytime to 18 … 26 ° С, and at night - to 14 … 16 ° С. After the emergence of shoots, the packages are removed, the sawdust is sprinkled with a layer of biohumus about half a centimeter, and the containers are moved under fluorescent lamps. Grown at 12-14-hour daylight hours. When the first true leaf appears, the seedlings dive. It should be noted that the plants in the first case will develop much slower than in the second, and at the moment of picking, the seedlings from sawdust will have an unusually large root system, while the plants themselves will absolutely painlessly transfer migration to separate pots and immediately start growing. Seedlings from the soil will have an insignificant root system, which, moreover, will still be damaged as a result of transplantation, then it will come to life for two weeks, and only then will it begin to grow.

The number of days from sowing to emergence of vegetable crops

Culture	At t 12 ° С	At t 20 … 22 ° С
White cabbage, cauliflower, etc.	9-10	5-6
Leek	20-22	10-12
Carrot	15-16	6-7
Cucumber	-	6-7
Pepper	-	12-14
Parsley	-	14-15
Radish	ten	5-6
Salad	8	3-4
Beet	12	6-7
Celery	-	14-15
Tomato	25-27	7-8
Beans	-	9-10
Spinach	20	10-12
Eggplant	-	6-7
Peas	9-10	five
Zucchini	-	6-7

Why seeds may not sprout

1. The temperature is too low. The seeds of most heat-loving crops (peppers, eggplants, melons, watermelons) germinate well at temperatures of 25 … 30 ° С, and at temperatures below 15 ° С they may not sprout at all. And the seeds of carrots or parsley begin to germinate even at temperatures of 3 … 4 ° C. But still the best temperature for germination of most seeds should be considered a temperature of 21 ° C.

2. Insufficiently moist soil - after sowing, the top layer of the soil must not be overdried, since the sprouted seedlings can easily dry out and there will be no seedlings. The optimum soil moisture content is 80-90%.

3. Too wet soil - seeds can rot. This happens when containers with sown seeds are placed in tightly closed plastic bags, where the seeds simply suffocate and rot. To avoid this, the bags should be kept slightly covered and periodically ventilated.

4. Too great depth of seeding - in some crops this can lead to the appearance of only single shoots. For many crops, the optimum planting depth is 0.3-0.6 cm. Small seeds are generally simply scattered over the surface.

5. Pre-treatment of seeds. Purchased seeds have already passed all the necessary treatments. Therefore, additional keeping them in potassium permanganate, trace elements, ash solution, etc. can lead to the most unpredictable results up to the death of seeds.