With the onset of the new calendar year, every lover of growing vegetables in his own garden is again concerned about finding containers for sowing. Almost all gardeners abandoned the habit of growing seedlings on the windowsill in bulky wooden crates - they are too inconvenient when transported to the country. In addition, the delicate root system of young seedlings has time to grow into the roots of neighboring plants. The best solution in choosing containers for sowing is a cup for seedlings.
Buy at the store or make it yourself?
Of course, production technologies do not stand still, and every hypermarket that respects its customers has in its assortment a convenient container for peat seedlings, which will not only not damage the root system of the young plant, but simply dissolve in the soil. Why make cups yourself when you can buy ready-made ones? The answer to this question is extremely simple. Experienced gardeners are accustomed to plant more than a dozen or even not one hundred seeds of various vegetable and flower crops. Can you imagine how much money you need to invest to stock up on all seeds? Therefore, we will save and craft peat cups for seedlings on our own. In the meantime, we determine whether there are any improvised materials that could become a capacity for seedlings.
Simple solutions from materials at hand
Even during the winter, gardeners gather plastic bottles, juice boxes, milk bags, sour cream containers. Literally everything is used: from paper to a dense greenhouse film. And the fantasy of gardeners knows no bounds. The film is sewn together with threads, chipped off with a stapler, wound in several layers. There is another simplest way to design containers. Two-liter beverage containers are cut at the right height and turned into a container for planting. Plastic cups for seedlings made in such a simple way have one small minus. Nevertheless, when transplanting, the root system will have to be a little worried. Only the seizure of those plants that during the time spent on the windowsill did not have time to acquire long and strong roots takes place painlessly.
We make paper cups for seedlings
Some plants are so capricious that they do not withstand transplants, they are sick for a long time and poorly take root. As a result, while the seedling is acclimatizing in a new place, the precious time allotted for the growth and development of the fruit will be lost. Therefore, we will make cups for seedlings from paper. Unwanted newspapers can be collected during the winter. The press is printing pressed pulp obtained from recycled materials. It easily decays on the bed, serving as food for omnivorous earthworms.
We cut newspapers into pieces of 10x30 cm. Newspaper sheets are quite thin, and in order for the process to go faster, you can fold them in half or two. We take an ordinary glass and wrap it with the resulting blanks in several layers. We leave a small ledge, which in the future will be needed to form the bottom. Now dip the bottom edge of the paper into a small amount of glue and crush it well, forming the bottom and tightly fixing it at the bottom of the glass. Press the newspaper blank with a glass and let the glue dry. We repeat this simple manipulation as many times as we plan to obtain blanks. Seedling paper cups are ready! Now they can be removed to the pantry until the sowing dates.
Peat packaging for planting
If we are not sure about the density of newspaper sheets, then we can use the more sophisticated technology for manufacturing the seating capacity. A peat cup will bring even more benefit to a painlessly transplanted plant. After all, it, dissolving in the soil, actually becomes a good fertilizer. You can make peat containers for your own order. We ourselves will determine the required dimensions of the cups and customize the conical steel billet for them. We take into account the fact that in order to get an earlier harvest, it is necessary to sow the seeds in a large, spacious container. The root system in it will develop well, the transplant will be painless, and the plant will immediately be able to proceed to fruiting.
To make a peat cup for seedlings, we need:
- steel conical shape of the required size;
- disc for forming cups;
- circle with a rod.
Nutrient Composition
Having found all the constituent forms for the construction of future cups, we proceed to the manufacture of a peat base. We will need the following proportions: 50% peat, 40% cow manure and 10% black soil. Instead of chernozem, you can use any other greasy soil. Mix well and add to the composition of azotobacterin, phosphorobacterin and water. The mixture should be quite thick in consistency.
Responsible manufacturing stage
To begin with, lower a circle with a pin and a bed of prepared peat mixture to a thickness of 2 cm to the bottom of the steel glass. Tamp the future bottom well with a blank. Now, without taking it out, we will fill the solution along the edges, filling the entire gap between the steel glass and the blank. The seedling cup does not dry out if the mixture is carefully tamped immediately when pouring. The blank can be removed immediately as soon as the peat composition fills the void right up to the top. It’s not scary if the liner can be removed with difficulty, it can be slightly swayed from side to side. Now it remains to carefully pull the rod and remove the finished glass.
Time for experimentation
Not all peat cups for seedlings turn out to be of perfect quality the first time. Sometimes home-made containers can disintegrate and dry up - perhaps the reason is the insufficient density of the mixture. Sometimes too dense and hard products are obtained, which are difficult to dissolve in the ground when planting. The necessary skill and intuition will certainly come, even if it requires multiple repetitions.
Glass for seedlings made of polyethylene
To make a container with a height of 10 cm and a diameter of 7 cm, you will need a piece of dense film measuring 33x15 cm. We find or cut a rectangular bar to fit the dimensions of the future cup. In the two faces of the bar responsible for the bottom, we groove in such a way that a stapler is placed in them. We cut the plastic blanks and proceed to the design of the landing packaging. Then we wrap the blank from the film around a wooden block and fix it with a stapler and 5 staples. Two of them fix the side face at the top and bottom, and with the rest we form the bottom, folding the ends of the film with an envelope. It's okay if more brackets go to the bottom. In this way, cups of various sizes can be simulated.
Conclusion
We learned a lot about how to make cups for seedlings. Of course, peat or paper packaging seems to be the best solution compared to homemade polyethylene glasses. The idea to plant plants in the ground together with a natural glass dissolving with water in the soil was revolutionary at one time. But it is only for gardeners to decide which of the presented methods of manufacturing containers for seedlings is the most acceptable for them. Indeed, not everyone will be able to find steel blanks for peat glasses, and not everyone will have enough time and patience for painstaking work with glue and paper. Therefore, the manufacture of cups for seedlings is a purely individual matter.
Perhaps you will use the proven method and sow the seeds in disposable plastic containers, in addition, they can clearly see the state of the root system and the degree of soil spillage. And such a container can be used repeatedly. Whatever capacity you choose for sowing seeds, we wish you a rich harvest!