Growing seedlings at home: basic rules and recommendations

In the spring, the main concern of people keen on gardening is growing seedlings. In order for it to grow strong and healthy, you need to remember a number of basic rules of this most important stage of growing garden crops and follow them.

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1. Purchase seeds exclusively in specialized shopping centers or stores, and not from grandmothers in the market or in other places not intended for the sale of seed material. If you don't follow this simple recommendation, you can easily end up with dead, substandard, or infected seeds.
2. To prevent plant diseases, all seeds, even from well-known manufacturers, must be carefully sorted out, treated with special agents, and hardened before sowing.
3. In advance, before sowing, prepare a nutritious soil for future seedlings. Ordinary soil from the garden is not very suitable for this purpose. Seedlings require a better quality soil: sifted, chemically or thermally treated, and most importantly, a composition that is richer in nutrients. You can buy such a soil at any garden store or prepare it yourself.
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4. Disinfect containers intended for seedlings, as well as the very place where they will be installed. If this is a window sill, then you need to wash not only it well, but also the window itself. In addition, clean glass will allow more light to pass through, which will increase the intensity of seedling development.
5. It is necessary to correctly calculate the number of planting seeds, taking into account the expected time of transplanting plants in open ground. There are many factors to consider here:

• type, variety of plant and its features;
• local climate and weather conditions, including long-term weather forecast;
• characteristics of the site;
• technical capabilities.

1. Choose the right container for seedlings. In garden stores, special containers for it are always on sale, although almost any container can be adapted for seedlings. When choosing a capacity, you need to take into account the characteristics of the sown plant: the size of the seeds, the development of the root system. And, most importantly, be guided primarily not by the appearance of the container, but by how comfortable the seedlings will be in it.
2. It is correct to sow seeds, given that different sowing techniques are used for different crops:

• small seeds are randomly scattered over the surface of the soil (for the convenience of this work, they are sometimes mixed with fine sand);

• medium-sized seeds are spread in grooves, trying to prevent a thickened planting, and lightly sprinkled with earth;
• larger seeds are buried in the ground by 1-2 cm, maintaining a certain interval between them.

1. When choosing a place for a container with seedlings, one should not forget that it will need a favorable temperature regime. Excessively high or too low temperatures will equally negatively affect it. It should also be borne in mind that some plants are thermophilic and painfully tolerate even insignificant lowering the temperature, others are not demanding to the temperature, and still others (for example, cabbage) in general cold-resistant.
2. Try to provide the seedlings with the necessary lighting, corresponding to the length of daylight hours. With early sowing, you will have to supplement the seedlings with special phytolamps.
3. When watering seedlings, it is important to prevent overflow. Before the emergence of seedlings, the substrate is moistened with a spray gun, after which the container is covered with glass, creating a microclimate favorable for the seeds under it. As the seedlings grow, their need for moisture also increases. Watering them must be carried out with control so that the water reaches the lower layers of the substrate.

It is important to prevent the soil from drying out. It should always be slightly damp.

1. Seedlings, as the seedlings grow, will need feeding. In specialized stores, you can find any fertilizer that meets the requirements of certain plants: both simple and complex. Purpose, action, concentration and method of use must be indicated on the package.
2. It is necessary to take into account whether the seedlings will need a pick. Some plants need it, others don't. This can affect the choice of packaging. Some plants are immediately sown in separate large-volume containers, so that later they do not transplant and prevent the risk of injury.
3. Care must be taken to ensure that the seedlings do not stretch out. Elongated plants are weak and may die in the future. Lack of light, non-observance of the temperature regime, overflow, excessive feeding lead to stretching.
4. To avoid the stress of seedlings when transplanted into open ground, a couple of weeks before this procedure, you need to start hardening them. Open windows or vents for about 2 hours every day, and a few days before the transfer, if possible, take the container with it outside.

Of course, the seedlings of each crop have their own cultivation characteristics. For this reason, the rules listed above are only advisory in nature, but still getting to know them can help gardeners avoid gross mistakes when growing seedlings.

Do you know the rules for growing seedlings at home?

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