Soaking, Sprouting, Sowing Eggplant, Pepper And Tomato Seeds

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

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Growing seedlings, soaking and germinating seeds

The seeds in the jelly mixture should be evenly distributed

Depending on the situation, the seeds are sown dry, wet or sprouted. Each method has its pros and cons - sowing with dry seeds is carried out very quickly, however, seedlings in this case (if we are not talking about seeds that have a quick germination, such as mustard, watercress, etc.) are usually in no hurry to appear on White light.

Sowing wet seeds, let alone sprouted seeds, is quite difficult, but such seeds germinate very quickly (which means there is a real chance of getting an earlier and more significant harvest).

Naturally, growing seedlings (we are not talking about tomatoes or peppers - their seedlings are grown anyway) brings the moment of obtaining vegetable products even closer.

Which of the options to speed up the process to choose depends on the specific situation and specific cultures.

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In general, it is recommended to soak and even germinate slowly germinating seeds (carrots, parsley), seeds that require a lot of moisture (onions, legumes) or have some special specific properties (beets).

It is advisable to soak and germinate seeds of heat-loving crops (peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc.) - this will allow you to get earlier shoots and, therefore, extend the time of consumption of fresh products.

A good result is also obtained by soaking the seeds of early green crops (only with sufficiently large seeds, for example, Peking and Chinese cabbage, spinach, Swiss chard, borago, etc.) in order to get an early harvest in the shortest possible time.

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Seed soaking

For soaking, ordinary settled, or even better - melted snow water is suitable (the snow should be clean, preferably freshly fallen). The soaking process lasts for 24 hours at the temperature recommended for specific crops.

Soak the seeds in a wide flat dish, placing them between layers of a soaked cloth. Water should only slightly cover the tissue (with a large amount of water, the seeds will inevitably suffocate and die), and the tissue with the seeds itself should not dry out in any case (otherwise the seeds will also die).

In the conditions of dry air in apartments, it is quite difficult to ensure constant moisture content of soaked seeds, therefore it is safer to place a cloth with seeds on a layer of wet sawdust (or on another material that retains water well, for example, cotton wool), and then place containers with seeds in a wide, ajar plastic bag. In this case, you do not have to check the humidity level every couple of hours.

Germinating seeds

The tissue with the seeds is placed on a layer of wet sawdust

The duration of seed germination and the optimum temperature for this process depend on the specific crop. As a rule, germination is carried out until the rootlets of 0.5 cm in length appear in the bulk of the germinated seeds. Single seeds can have roots up to 1.5 cm long.

Upon reaching this stage, they immediately begin sowing seeds. If this is not possible (we are talking only about the seeds of carrots, parsley and dill sown in the ground), then you can slightly shift the sowing dates by placing the containers with seeds on the lower shelf of the refrigerator (+ 1 … + 4 ° C) directly in an open plastic bag.

And at the same time, regularly monitor the moisture content of the seeds. According to foreign scientists, such hardening of germinated seeds not only does not impair their qualities, but, on the contrary, helps to increase field germination.

It is safer to germinate seeds in wide, flat containers filled with wet sawdust between layers of cloth. You can, as is usually recommended, germinate simply in cloth bags, but then, firstly, the seeds dry out faster, and secondly, they will need to be thoroughly washed every day (right in the fabric), placing them under running water. When germinating on sawdust, the need for such washes practically disappears, with the exception of germination of hard-to-enter carrot seeds.

Large seeds (cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, corn) do not even have to be placed on the cloth - sawdust alone is enough. Moreover, seeds with fragile roots when germinated on sawdust without cloth are much easier and safer to remove before planting.

When using tissue, the extraction of seeds with slightly overgrown roots is fraught with breakage, since they often germinate through the tissue. A very good result during germination (as well as when soaking) is given by a single spraying of the seeds with the Epin growth stimulator.

How to sow wet and germinated seeds

Wet and germinated seeds are much more difficult to sow than dry seeds. If you wet the seeds, then you need to dry them until they flow (in no case should you overdry the seeds) and sow them immediately.

Large germinated seeds (for example, melons and many nightshade crops, beets, chard, etc.) are sown individually by hand. You can't sow smaller seeds (carrots, parsley) by hand - you have to resort to liquid sowing. For such sowing, an ordinary paste is first prepared (it should be homogeneous, without clots, viscous enough and without a film on the surface to keep the germinated seeds in suspension) and cool it.

In parallel, holes are made on the ridges. Then the sprouted seeds are sent to a bucket with paste, and a glass with a spout is taken as a tool. Before sowing, right next to the ridge, gently stir the jelly with seeds with your hand, fill a glass with it and pour the contents of the glass into the row-hole, quickly moving your hand with the glass along it. Then the jelly is stirred again, etc. Immediately after sowing, the furrows are covered with loose soil.

Unaccustomed to evenly distribute the seeds over the hole, it may not work, but after a few workouts you will adapt and you will be able to sow three large carrot beds in 15 minutes in this way.

Sowing seeds of nightshade crops (eggplant, pepper and tomato)

Seedlings grown on sawdust

have a powerful root system

I would like to dwell on these cultures. The fact is that it is traditionally customary to sow these heat-loving crops directly into the ground, for example, in a low box, and then dive into separate containers.

The author's many years of experience shows that such a technology is not the most effective, since the root system of the seedlings extracted from the soil during the picking does not differ in power.

In addition, after a pick, the plants do not immediately start growing, they are very painful (despite the generally accepted opinion that nightshades love transplanting) tolerate this procedure.

It is much more effective to sow seeds in the soil looser than usual soil, for example, in sawdust at the beginning. For this, a sufficiently deep container is taken, filled with moistened sawdust, and seeds are sown in it at some distance from each other.

The distance between the seeds should be at least 2 cm, because the plants will be together for a long time. The containers are placed in slightly opened plastic bags in a warm place, since during the period of seed germination it is desirable to maintain the temperature in the range of 24 … 26 ° C. With the emergence of seedlings, the seeds are sprinkled with a layer of fertile soil 3-4 mm thick, and the temperature is reduced - in the daytime to 23 … 24 ° C, and at night - to 16 … 18 ° C.

The containers are moved under fluorescent lamps, maintaining 12-14 hour daylight hours. When the first true leaf appears (the cotyledons are not counted), the seedlings are planted in ordinary soil in separate containers. It should be noted here that at the time of picking, the seedlings from sawdust will have a very powerful root system, and the plants themselves will undergo transplantation absolutely painlessly and will immediately grow. It is categorically impossible to delay the transplanting process, since a shortage of nitrogen will quickly appear on the sawdust layer of plants, which will immediately affect their development.