The Best Way To Grow Seedlings

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Let's talk here not about garden seedlings of vegetable plants, but about garden flowers that we massively sow in spring in our flower beds. Moreover, we always notice that some of them sprout very well and in large quantities, some leave much to be desired. We recommend that you heed the advice of experienced gardeners on how to effectively grow garden flower seedlings at home. So…

Step 1. Buy your favorite or favorite garden flower seeds. Sow them at the time indicated on the package and at the depth suggested by the seed packer. We will still give you a hint about the depth in case it is not indicated on the seed package. Plant larger seeds to a depth of two centimeters into the ground, smaller ones by 1 cm. Do not sprinkle very small seeds (tobacco, petunia, lobelia and others) with earth at all, they will grow well in sunlight. Do not cover your crops with cellophane or glass! Just make sure that the soil in the seed boxes is damp. Until the first crops appear, keep the crates in the room.

Step 2. When the first seedlings of seedlings appear for the gardener, there will be a signal that it needs to be removed overnight in the cold, namely … in the refrigerator. That is, twilight has come, you rearrange the plants in the refrigeration unit. Put them where you put vegetables, that is, the temperature of the sprouts is not very cold, but vegetable, about + 7-8 degrees. Let me tell you, you can arrange the seedlings on the refrigerator door.

Step 3. In the morning, boxes with seedlings should be removed from the refrigerator and placed in the brightest place in your house, preferably on a windowsill, where there will be a lot of light during the day. Step 2 and step 3 provide the seedlings with an artificial onset of darkness, vegetative rest, while in the afternoon the seedlings will be activated in growth on the windowsill.

Step 4. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the first two paired leaves appear on the plants. But you will not be late to start the next step, when the plant has 3-4 leaves. Especially if these are very small plants, which, with one or two leaves that appear, can be taken out of the bowl only with tweezers. Now the flowers can be transplanted into separate pots.

Step 5. Your pots, most likely, will not fit in the refrigerator now, therefore, after transplanting the seedlings in them, put the pots on the windowsill during the day, and at night, take them out, for example, to the balcony. When the daytime temperature outside +15 degrees is reached, you can no longer bring seedlings into the house from the balcony. Of course, all this time, do not let the seedlings freeze and follow the forecasts of the hydrometeorological centers in your region. With the promised frost at night, be sure to bring the seedlings indoors. This way you get strong, seasoned garden flower seedlings. They will not need to be hardened before planting flowers in the garden.

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Some points that we may have missed. You do not need to put very small plants in the refrigerator if you are afraid that they look too delicate and delicate to subject them to such a cold hardening. Alternatively, try keeping small seedlings on a cool windowsill.

If it is indicated on the package with garden seeds that the plant is thermophilic, poorly tolerating low temperature conditions, then do the same with its seedlings, exposing it to a cold place on the windowsill at night.

Do not be alarmed that the greens after the refrigerator will seem slightly withered to you. In the warmth, her leaves will straighten, quickly gain the desired turgor.

Top dressing of garden seedlings should be carried out when the first two leaves appear on the sprouts. Liquid mineral fertilizer should be added to the water for irrigation in accordance with the instructions for its dilution indicated in the package. It is usually indicated by the fertilizer manufacturer how many milliliters of liquid are required and for what volume of water. Add fertilizer to the water with a graduated syringe. If the stems of the seedlings are stretched too far up, feed them with calcium, if yellowing with iron.

Garden seedlings can only get sick with a "black leg". It occurs when the soil is too wet and at too high room temperature. The disease is expressed by thinning of the stem, pale leaves, brown stem and root of the plant. Diseased plants must be removed immediately, sand added to the soil, chalk can be used instead. And the seedlings themselves need to be sprayed with a foundationol solution.

You can independently combine this method of growing, strengthening, feeding seedlings of garden flowers, add your gardening experience to it.