We Are Preparing A Good Soil For Seedlings. Composition, Mixtures, Recipes. Preparing

Now more and more gardeners are striving to grow vegetable crops in a seedling way, and prepare seedlings, like the soil for it, on their own. This is true, because if you learn to do this, you can grow good seedlings and save money on both. It is clear that the soil for seedlings must meet the needs of a particular culture: give one fertile and moist soil (cucumbers), and the other loves the soil drier and poorer (tomatoes). There are specimens that generally prefer sour soil, in general, there is no universal soil. However, there are still basic requirements for seedling soil.

Content:

• What should be the soil for seedlings?
• Where is the best place to get the soil for the mixture?
• A few words about ready-made soil for seedlings
• Technique for preparing high-quality soil for seedlings
• Methods for disinfecting soil for seedlings

What should be the soil for seedlings?

First of all, it is moderate fertility with the content of useful microflora and all the necessary nutrients. Secondly, it is the balance of the soil both in terms of mineral composition and organic matter. And all this must be in a form accessible to plants.

In addition, the seedling soil must be permeable and breathable, capable of long-term moisture retention. Ecological purity, neutral pH - all these are unwritten laws, and of course, the lightest, crumbly in structure, without lumps and impurities.

By the way, about lumps: do not leave pieces of clay in the soil, because it compacts the soil, as well as various plant residues that can absorb nitrogen during their decomposition and overheat the soil, in which case the roots of the seedlings may die. It should not be in the soil for seedlings of weed seeds, worms and larvae of various insects.

Such soil cannot be dug in the garden or the nearest forest. Usually this is a multicomponent composition, often consisting of equal shares of peat (usually lowland), humus, river sand and 50% of old, good soil.

Where is the best place to get the soil for the mixture?

For some reason, many believe that forest soil is ideal in every way. However, this is not so, it is just an integral part, a base, but good (for tomatoes, for example). It is best to harvest forest soil at the very end of the summer season so that it does not freeze while you get to the forest with a shovel.

Take forest soil only from under healthy trees, while avoiding oaks, chestnuts, willows, where there are many tannins. Use hardwood soil, but not pine; coniferous soil is often too acidic for seedlings.

Can I take soil from the garden? You can, however, you should follow the precautions. For example, do not take the soil for cucumbers and pumpkin seeds from the area where pumpkin crops or cucumbers grew, and also, if you are going to plant tomatoes, then do not take soil after tomato, potato and other nightshade crops.

A few words about ready-made soil for seedlings

You can buy soil for seedlings in the store - there are many bags with soil there. To check, you can take one: yes, the soil is light, nutritious, moisture-absorbing, the packaging says that deoxidizers, various macronutrients and available trace elements have been added to it. All this comes out conveniently and not always expensive.

However, ready-made mixtures have their disadvantages - first of all, an unknown amount of nutrients. It is clear that they are there, but how many? Next is the acidity of the soil. It often ranges from 5.0 to 6.5, which is a large spread. Instead of peat, there can be peat dust, there is no expiration date on the package, and so on.

Recipe for soil for seedlings using a ready-made mixture: we take a good purchased soil, mix it in equal parts with garden soil or sod soil, add 100 g of ordinary chalk (deoxidizer) to 10 kilograms. Why is it so? From our own experience it is known that even an expensive purchased mixture is often peat with a very high acidity.

Technique for preparing high-quality soil for seedlings

Everything is simple here: river sand, low-lying peat, land from the forest or from the garden, and all in equal shares. Believe me, this will more than suit the seedlings of eggplant, cabbage, pepper, tomatoes.

No peat? Then add humus, this is even better, since you eliminate the possibility of error and the addition of sour peat (horse peat, for example). If you want to do very well, then for every kilogram of soil, add 100 grams of wood ash, soot or stove ash.

In general, as we have already written above, high-quality soil for seedlings depends on the culture. For example, cabbage, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, watermelons love this composition: about 35% of the soil (forest, garden), humus (up to 50%) or peat (about 30%), river sand (the rest, up to 100%). For cabbage seedlings, the share of river sand can be increased to 40%, and tomatoes in both forest and vegetable gardens, which are 70%, or even 100% of soil, grow well!

Naturally, all the components must be ready in the fall and in the fall, the soil must be prepared completely. Why? Because the composition will be combined into one whole and the seedlings in the spring will be as comfortable as possible. The best way to store homemade seedling soil is with a closed plastic bag.

Let's now deal with such an important issue as soil disinfection.

Methods for disinfecting soil for seedlings

Freezing soil for seedlings

For me, this is the most optimal and gentle way out of a dozen, perhaps, possible. We prepare the soil mixture, fill it with fabric bags and put it on an unheated balcony or in a shed, or under a canopy. About 100 days before the seedling period, the bags can be brought into the house and allowed to thaw completely, holding it for a week. Then mercilessly again into the cold - in this way we destroy the seeds of weeds and all kinds of larvae that will start to wake up at once.

The disadvantages of the method - it cannot protect against all diseases, therefore, before sowing the seeds, the soil should preferably be shed with potassium permanganate (light red).

Calcining the seedling soil

In this case, the soil is calcined at temperatures below a hundred degrees, but in this way all useful microflora is also guaranteed to die. A dead sterile soil is formed.

Disinfection of soil with potassium permanganate

It was, is and will be a universal soil disinfectant (within reasonable limits). A couple of weeks before sowing the seeds, make a raspberry solution of potassium permanganate (usually five grams per bucket of water with a temperature of about 40 ° C), stir very well, spill the soil and immediately cover it with foil.

A couple of days before sowing (three to four), repeat everything again.

Mustard powder

A person is allergic to it, but he can protect the soil from a number of troubles - from all sorts of bacteria and viruses, from fungi and even from nematodes and thrips. To solve all the problems at once, you need to generously scoop a tablespoon of mustard powder from the pack and mix with five liters of soil. By the way, you can add my favorite nitroammophoska in the amount of 5-7 g for the same volume of soil.

Biological soil preparation methods

Absolutely harmless drugs can disinfect the soil, and they are safe not only for plants, but also for humans, and in general - for the environment. These are the so-called biological fungicides, such as Alirin-B, Gamair, Fitosporin-M and a variety of others like these. How do they work?

Suppose we created a soil using any of the above methods, then we dilute the drug according to the instructions and spill the soil with the drug. His cultures of bacteria begin to actively cleanse the soil you have created from all sorts of nasty things, including even pathogens of various fungal and bacterial diseases. At the same time, these preparations may contain useful humic substances, so to speak, double benefit (but the price, however, is also double).

These drugs relax the soil, reduce or completely remove its toxicity, and you are freed from the need to spill boiling water, freeze or ignite the soil.

The most interesting thing is that after you have prepared the soil and decided to treat it with one of the disinfecting drugs, you need to read the instructions and strictly follow it. For example, the well-known drug Trichodermin is well known to everyone: just one gram of it is enough to disinfect a whole liter of soil. Trichodermin can be applied literally a few days before sowing seeds for seedlings, for example, as early as three or four days.

EM drugs: don't write them off either, they contain many microorganisms that are beneficial to soil and plants. And they can be used as the final stage in the preparation of soil for the production of seedlings. Sometimes even tired soil after the application of EM preparations seems to come to life and transform. One of these drugs, which you, of course, know well, is Baikal EM1.

Here is an approximate way of using it: after storage in the cold, the prepared soil composition for seedlings after thawing should be shed with this preparation about a month before sowing the seeds, and then simply fill the seedling containers, as you always do, and cover them with foil. The main thing is that the ratio of the drug to the soil is negligible, only 1 to 500, and the effect is sometimes very noticeable.