With the onset of spring, every gardener begins preparatory work for the new season. Time is in a hurry, it’s running out. You need to get boxes for seedlings, choose varieties of vegetables and plan planting on the site. And the biggest headache is the seedling soil. Someone cooks it in the fall, others buy in specialized stores. The second option is simpler, but more expensive. Today we’ll talk about how to make it yourself.
Primary requirements
Sometimes a gardener sincerely tries to understand this issue, to make the soil for seedlings optimal for their growth and development. But in the literature you can find so many recommendations that you can get confused. As a result, it is easier to buy ready-made soil for seedlings.
But everything is not so complicated. To begin with, seeds have a certain supply of nutrients. For a fairly long time, they do not require fertile soil. Mostly they need water and air. Therefore, the soil for seedlings should be loose and porous, that is, perfectly pass water and air. Then the seeds will sprout perfectly.
The soil mix can be prepared independently using peat and humus, compost and sawdust, sand. The composition depends on the culture and means available to the gardener. The only rule: you can not use raw garden land, especially from areas where vegetables grew.
What to focus on
Most gardeners recognize the following soil mixtures as optimal for seeds. You can choose any soil for seedlings based on what is at hand.
- In equal amounts, mix compost, garden soil and coarse sand.
- For two parts of humus, take one part of sod land and sand.
- In equal shares, take humus and sand. Necessarily large, because river sand contributes to excessive compaction of the soil.
- Peat, turf land, humus (compost) and sawdust (coarse sand) in a ratio of 3: 2: 4: 1.
Regardless of the crops grown, you can choose any of the proposed options. Soil for growing seedlings is also suitable for diving at the stage of cotyledon or a pair of real leaves.
The main differences
Is there any need to make a distinction between soil for seed and seedlings? By the time of transplantation, you need to fill the seedling boxes with a nutrient mixture. It must be borne in mind that plants will remain in these boxes until they are planted in open ground. The depth of the box should be sufficient for the development of the root system. Soil in this case should be more nutritious. This is usually achieved by applying mineral fertilizers. Do not forget that the supply of nutrients is enough even in the best soil for no more than two weeks.
Harvesting for seedlings
It is advisable to prepare the soil for seedlings in the fall. Composition may vary, but turf land deserves special attention. This component is included in almost any mixture for seedlings. It is highly nutritious, as it contains decayed residues of plant and animal origin. It is simultaneously porous, retains moisture well, but does not allow it to stagnate.
To get high-quality turf land, you need to take a walk in the meadow in June. Cut the layers of turf into strips 20 cm wide and 12 cm thick. Lay the layers on top of each other and sprinkle with phosphorite flour and lime and moisten slightly. In the spring you need to shovel the earth and sift through the roar. It is best to leave it for another year, then it will gain all the beneficial properties.
River sand
A required component of any mixture, regardless of composition. Preparation of soil for seedlings involves mandatory screening of sand. It is best to take a clean river that does not contain clay. Sieve required to clean from dust and stones. But quarry sand is far from the best choice. It may contain toxic impurities like manganese. Assembly and preparation is also best done in the fall.
Organic fertilizer
High-quality soil for seedlings necessarily includes a sufficient amount of nutrients. In recipes for mixtures, you can often find manure or mullein. But they are good if you grow plants in a greenhouse. If the boxes are on the windowsills, then the choice of fertilizer must be approached more responsibly. Manure happens:
- Fresh in which straw is visible. This option is definitely not suitable for you.
- Half-matured. Straw can still be distinguished, but it has already darkened.
- Rotted - is a dark homogeneous mass.
- Dung humus. This is exactly the option that is suitable for indoor floriculture.
The latter option is ideal not only in terms of aesthetics - it turns out that it is most useful for plants.
Compost
Gradually, a picture develops of how to prepare high-quality soil for seedlings. Now we turn to how to prepare fertilizers from rotted plant residues. They are very useful and often form part of mixtures. The necessary components of compost are sawdust and shavings, stems and leaves. The easiest way for this purpose is a compost heap. It is possible to add mowed grass from the plot and sprinkle with lime. After about 5-7 months, the compost will be ready for use.
With the onset of spring
All components should be ready. If this is not done, you will have to buy them separately at the flower shop. Or choose a ready-made mixture right away. But the easiest way is to prepare high-quality soil for seedlings yourself. Since autumn, all available components should be stored at sub-zero temperatures in plastic bags. It is very important that they freeze.
Do not add fresh manure, fresh compost and untreated turf to the soil. If you do not have time to prepare them in the fall, you will have to replace other components. Do not forget that the earth can be infected with harmful insects and larvae, pathogens. Therefore, the soil must be healed. The following methods are used for this:
- The first task is to lower the pH level. For this, special preparations are used. There are quite a lot of them on the market, for example, Flora-S.
- Etch the ground with insecticides and fungicides. The choice of drugs is so large that it makes little sense to list them now.
- You can calcine the soil in the oven or steam. In extreme cases, pour boiling water with the addition of potassium permanganate. This is an excellent antifungal agent.
- The microflora of the soil is very important. To normalize it, a Gumi-type drug is used.
It is necessary to maintain the resulting mixture in heat 2-3 weeks before sowing. A week before planting, you need to spread the soil in the landing boxes.
Pepper Primer
For different garden crops, it is advisable to use different mixtures. If you are preparing the soil for seedlings with your own hands, then this must be taken into account. Soil has many characteristics, each of which is important in its own way. Ultimately, they affect the appearance and yield. And the very first can be called the mechanical composition of the soil. It defines what is called friability of the soil:
- the soil may be light, i.e. sand;
- medium - called loam;
- heavy loam.
The soil for seedlings of tomatoes and peppers should be light or medium. This is mainly regulated by the application of sand. As a soil for seedlings, you can use black soil, add all types of peat. But for the initial sowing, chernozem will not be the best choice, as it contains too many nutrients and can be clogged with various herbs. It is often too dense and heavy. That is, it is better to dilute it with other components.
Check soil acidity
An important characteristic that is difficult to analyze. To many gardeners, even experienced ones, the definition of acidity seems a mystery behind seven seals. In fact, everything is not so complicated.
- Use a litmus test.
- Take ordinary vinegar and pour them a teaspoon of soil. If the soil is alkaline, you will observe a hiss. With a neutral reaction, it will be weak. And if the soil is acidic, then there will be no reaction. In this case, you can take a little more soil and pour a weak solution of soda.
For tomatoes and peppers, acidity should be neutral or slightly alkaline. If this norm is not observed, the seeds may not germinate at all.
Soil nutrition
And we continue to talk about which soil for seedlings to choose. This characteristic implies not only a sufficient content of nutrients, but also their balance. First of all, this concerns the main macroelements, that is, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. They should be contained in the soil in approximately the same amount. If you buy ready-made soil, and the label contains the content of the main elements less than 300-400 mg / l, then it is not suitable for sowing tomatoes.
In addition, the presence of a complete set of trace elements is required. Do not forget that the more nutritious the mixture, the more you need to dilute it with neutral components, such as coconut fiber or perlite.
Briefly about the most important
Above, we talked about what is recommended to be included in the composition of the soil. But there are unacceptable additives. What can not be added to the soil for seedlings?
- Prohibited organic additives in the decay process. The reason is simple: in the process of their decomposition, a huge amount of heat is released, which will kill the seeds.
- It is strongly not recommended to use sand mixed with clay - it makes the soil heavy.
- And of course, do not collect soil near a busy highway. Heavy metals quickly accumulate in the soil, and they decay for decades.
- The soil should be free from fungal spores and larvae, from pathogens and weed seeds.
Why can not use garden land
It may seem unnecessary for a beginning gardener to give such importance to soil mixtures for seedlings. It would seem that you just need to pour garden earth - and that's the end. After all, vegetables grow in it, and usually not bad. It is possible that seedlings in such soil will rise and grow, the only question is the quality of the seedlings obtained.
All of the above should convince you that growing seedlings is a technology. It must be observed if you want to get not just what you get, but plants that will grow quickly and give a bountiful harvest. Therefore, the formation of soil mixtures for seedlings is a very important issue.
What can be said about garden land? Usually it is depleted, infected with pests and pathogenic bacteria. You can make the soil more nutritious, but you cannot change its physical characteristics. The earth is poor in humus and usually does not have a water-resistant structure. When watering, water is poorly absorbed and stands on the surface for a long time. As a result, a crust forms, which is very bad for seedlings.
How to improve the soil
You need to act in advance. If there is nothing else but garden soil, then you need to work on it so that it becomes suitable for seeds. To do this, in the autumn, having freed the bed from vegetation, remove a 5 cm layer with it. You need to put it in a bag and leave it until December. Now we need to get rid of weeds and microorganisms. To do this, proceed as follows. For two days they bring the bag into the house and warm it, and then take it out to the frost for another week. So repeat 2-3 times. After that, it will remain to perform the usual procedures: heating in a water bath, treatment with boiling water and potassium permanganate.