Eggplant is the most heat-loving and moody culture of the nightshade family. To get a good crop of these vegetables, you need to provide them with decent care. But that's not all. Much depends on the growing technology and quality planting material. When to plant eggplant for seedlings, at what time, including on the lunar calendar, read the article.
How to choose the right seeds?
The quality of planting material affects the productivity of eggplant. Therefore, his choice should be taken seriously.
- It’s better to buy first-generation hybrid seeds. They are more resistant to diseases of the species and growing conditions. A package with such seeds is labeled “F 1”.
- It is important that it contains information about manufacturers, it is better to choose domestic.
- Care should be taken that the number of seeds is indicated on the package, not their weight, as well as the date of collection, and not the expiration date. It doesn’t matter if you plant eggplant seeds for seedlings or immediately in the garden, they must be of high quality.
Preparing seeds for growing seedlings
To check the planting material for germination, you need to place seeds in an amount of 10 pieces in gauze and lower them into water for a period of 48 hours. After this, drain the liquid and leave for another three days. Let them lie in wet gauze. During this time, the seeds will hatch. If five out of the total number of sprouts appeared, the seeds have good germination, they can be sown.
The following is a disinfection procedure. To do this, the seeds are placed in a strong solution of potassium permanganate, then washed with clean water at room temperature and soaked in a solution containing nutrients. You can cook it yourself. For this, nitrophosk in the amount of a teaspoon, or a little ash, or liquid sodium humate is added to one liter of water. Seeds treated with a nutrient solution will sprout quickly and sprout together. Eggplants grown from them will bear fruit early.
Further, the planting material goes through the hardening stage. The procedure consists in exposing the seeds to varying temperatures for six days. To do this, they are put in the refrigerator for two days. The air temperature should be 2-5 ° C. After that, they are taken out and left in a warm room for 24 hours, then again in the refrigerator for the same amount of time.
Seedling soil
Before sowing eggplant for seedlings, you should first prepare the soil. To do this, you need the following components:
- Yellowed sawdust in an amount of 0.5 parts, treated with boiling water.
- Peat or turf land is one part.
- Humus - two parts.
- All mix and disinfect. There are two ways to do this:
- Steam the resulting soil in a water bath for 35-40 minutes.
- Shed the soil mixture with boiling water.
Soil fertility can be improved by adding superphosphate, ash and urea to it in proportions: 1 tbsp. l.: 1/2 cup: 1 tsp.
Planting seeds for seedlings according to the lunar calendar
Novice gardeners want to grow different vegetables at once. But it’s hard to navigate in terms. In order not to doubt, it is better to plant eggplants for seedlings according to the lunar calendar. The most favorable days in 2018 are:
- In February - from the 22nd to the 26th.
- In March - from 24 to 25 and from 28 to 30.
- In April - from 25 to 29.
- In May - from 23 to 28.
- In June - from 20 to 26.
According to signs, eggplant should be sown on men's day on February 23. If you follow the forecasts, the harvest will be high.
Planting eggplant for seedlings on the calendar does not cause difficulties. In pots filled with soil, you need to sow two to three seeds in each. The distance between them should be at least two centimeters. When all containers are with seedlings, they are covered with a film. When the sprouts hatch, one of the strongest is chosen, it is left in the pot, and the rest are removed. Seeds are buried in the soil by one and a half to two centimeters. For germination, they are placed in a room with a temperature of 22-26 ° C. After 6-10 days, seedlings will appear. The film must be immediately removed and the plants identified on the sunny windowsill, but with a lower temperature, about 14-17 ° C, otherwise the roots will stretch.
If the seedlings are frail and thin, they need to be fed. To do this, use nitrophoska, three to four grams per one liter of water or another solution: for the same amount of liquid - three grams of superphosphate and one gram of urea. Such nutrition is effective for plants when two or three leaves are formed on them and before planting seedlings of eggplant according to the lunar calendar on the garden bed. Top dressing is always combined with watering at the root.
Pickled eggplant seedlings at home
When growing this crop, it should be borne in mind that these vegetables love warmth. In this regard, for the germination of seeds in the room must be maintained at a high temperature - 26 ° C. When shoots appear, it can be reduced to 14-16 ° C. The best time to plant eggplant for seedlings is the end of February. Such early dates are due to the fact that the vegetative period in these vegetables is long. It takes two months to grow seedlings. Sprouts will germinate after 14 days.
One way to grow eggplant seedlings at home is to pick it. This procedure must be carried out when the first sheet appears. First, the plants are watered well, and then carefully removed from the box so that the roots remain undamaged. The earth does not need to be shaken. Seedlings dive into pots, preferably peat. When they dissolve, the soil will receive additional nutrition. One plant is placed in each container. If over time this pot becomes small, eggplant seedlings are placed in another, larger size.
Tanks with landings must be protected from direct sunlight. Young plants harden, only gradually. For this, eggplant seedlings need to be taken out to the balcony, gradually increasing the time it is in the fresh air. During cloudy weather, plants will not have enough light, so you should install sources of artificial lighting. When sowing eggplant for seedlings, we figured out, that is, 60 days before planting in the ground. This is exactly the period for which plants have time to form and be ready for planting in open ground.
Growing seedlings without picking
The root system of plants hatching from seeds is very vulnerable. Often when transplanted into the ground, it is damaged. When planting eggplant for seedlings, many vegetable growers choose a method in which it does not need to dive. Using this method, the seeds are sown not in boxes in large quantities, but immediately in pots of peat or other material that dissolves in the soil, 10-15 pieces each. When they germinate, the sprouts of weak plants pinch, so that the remaining ones are stronger. They prepare the soil and harden the plants in the same way as in the previous case.
When to plant eggplant for seedlings? Depending on the region, the date will be different. You need to accurately determine the time of planting in the ground and count back about 60 days. This is exactly the period during which the plants are completely ready for further cultivation in the soil.
Watering seedlings
For this procedure, it is better to use standing water, heated to 20-25 ° C. Watering should be moderate, they are carried out in two to three days. To avoid root rot, immediately after moistening, the soil is mulched. To do this, use dry sand. Every 15 days, an anti-fungal agent is added to the water for irrigation: Planzir, Trichodermin. These drugs are harmless to people, they can be used if seedlings are grown indoors, most importantly, do not forget about airing it.
Feeding seedlings
This procedure is best done simultaneously with watering. For this, urea in the amount of eight grams and superphosphate (30 g) are bred in a bucket of water. This solution provides top dressing. You can use a different composition: nitrophoska (30 g) per bucket of water. After fertilizing the soil, rinse the leaves with water, the main thing is that it is clean. You can use a spray gun. Young plants need top dressing before planting on the bed for constant growth. Use the same solution, but without nitrogen in it. You can not bother and buy ready-made fertilizer, which is called "Kemira".
Planting seedlings in the ground
Seedlings are planted on the beds when real leaves are formed in the amount of seven to nine pieces, buds begin to form, and its height reaches 20-25 cm. Eggplants require a large area of nutrition, so they plant one bush each in the nest. First you need to align the beds and make holes at a distance of 45 cm, if they are located in one direction, if in different directions - 60 cm, but not in a line, but in a checkerboard pattern. The depth of the holes should be 10-15 cm. When planting seedlings in hot weather, you need to make a canopy over the plants to form a shadow.
Sowing seeds in the ground
Vegetables can be grown not only using seedlings. You can sow the seeds immediately into the ground. Eggplant planting time is at the end of April. To seedlings are not damaged from lower temperatures at night, they need to be protected with a film coating. The soil should be moist and warm up to 13 ° C. Sowing should be dense, approximately 200 seeds per square meter of land area. In the future, weak and underdeveloped plants are rejected, leaving only strong and healthy. This should be done when seven to eight leaves appear on the seedlings. Thinning is carried out in several stages:
- The first procedure is carried out when four true leaflets appear. The distance from one to another plant should be 10 cm.
- Thinning is done a second time after the formation of another pair of leaves. The distance between them increases to 20-25 cm.
- During the third, last stage of thinning, all diseased, weak plants are removed. The free area between the remaining should be 35-40 cm.
As a result, on a plot of one meter square should remain five to six plants, no more. Until frost passes, planting needs shelter. In the future, when the weather is established, this does not need to be done. Planting eggplant seeds is carried out in fertile soil, so when digging the beds, organic fertilizers are immediately applied. It is better if legumes, cucumbers, onions, and cabbage grew on the site before that. Eggplant and these plants have different root depths, so the soil will not be depleted.
How to grow pepper seedlings?
To get a good harvest of this vegetable, you need to plant healthy, strong seedlings. This culture has a long vegetation period, so it is planted early. For the middle lane, this time falls on the first decade of February, although some gardeners sow pepper for seedlings (including eggplants) in January. But since these vegetables need a lot of sun to grow, this is not relevant. The first month of the year is almost always characterized by cloudy weather. How to grow eggplant seedlings from seeds has already been written, and what you need to get young pepper plants, let's figure it out.
First, seeds are prepared for sowing. To do this, they need to be etched: soak in a thermos with water for 20-25 minutes at a temperature of 55 ° C. But the greater effect is the use of the drug "Maxim". If planting material is purchased, it is not necessary to pickle it. Pepper seeds are difficult to germinate, so they need to be treated with the preparations "Novosil", "Energen", "Epin". They stimulate plant growth.
Then the seeds are soaked in water, but it should not be much, otherwise they will suffocate from a lack of oxygen. After that, they are placed next to a hot battery or directly on it, since seeds germinate at a high temperature - 30 ° or even 34 ° C. Five to six days later, sprouts will appear.
Hatching seeds are planted in boxes with warm soil, the temperature of which should be maintained at 30-32 ° C. Then the seedlings will appear after 14 days. If the earth gets colder - in three weeks. There will be no seedlings in the box if the soil temperature is below 22 ° C or above 36 °. The best option for placing a box with seedlings is a hot battery in the house. When the first shoots appear, seedlings need to be put on the windowsill and remove the film, do not wait for the germination of all seeds. The rest will rise within seven days and catch up with the growth of the first. Seedlings are dived at the formation of four or five true leaves. Planted on the bed when the soil warms up to a temperature of 16 ° -18 ° C.