Hygiene is very important to prevent ‘damping off’, when seedlings germinate and are then killed by a fungus. Use a clean seed tray to prevent damping off. Use organic seed sowing compost or make your own. See the article: How to Make Your Own Potting Compost. Fill the seed tray almost to the top. Use the bottom of another tray to firm down the compost.
Use a fine rose on your watering can to water the compost. [If you water after sowing the seedlings, some will be buried too deeply.]
Scatter the seed very thinly to stop the young seedlings becoming too leggy if they are overcrowded. Spread enough compost over the seed to completely cover them.
Label the seed tray and place in a warm, sunny spot or on an incubator if the air temperature is still low. Water regularly to keep the compost moist.
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When the seedlings start to grow their first true leaves, prick them out into small pots.
The new potting compost will be richer. Again, buy organic potting compost or make your own, till the first true leaves start to grow and this is the time to pot on. Your compost mix should now be: loam, garden compost, coir or leafmould. Again, see How to Make Your Own Potting Compost for details.
Pots come in many different shapes and sizes, but the most important thing is to use as small a size as the plant needs, potting it into a larger one if necessary. To begin with a 5cm¬≤/ 2″¬≤ pot should be fine. Another good option is Root trainers, as they encourage strong root growth. They come in 3 sizes, depending on the plant you’re using.
As with seedlings, moisten the compost before transplanting the seedling.
Soak the seed tray by putting it into a basin rather than flooding it with water from a can as that could damage the plants. It will be easier to tease the roots apart.
In any seed tray, some young plants are always stronger than others. Be sure to choose the best ones and throw the others away.
When transplanting a seedling, hold the leaf, not the stem- a leaf is replaceable, but not the stem. Do this very gently.
Once in the pot, firm down, adding in more compost. Be sure to label the pots.
Keep the young plants in a warm, sunny place, ideally a greenhouse, window sill, or at least under a cloche. They will be ready to plant out in the open ground in 2 – 3 weeks, depending on the plant variety.
An important gardening tip is to ‚”harden off” seedlings for a week before planting out. This is ideally done in a cold frame, where the covers are taken off during the day and replaced at night when the temperature drops. Plants in a greenhouse or kitchen window sill can be taken outdoors during the day. Another method is to plant out, cover with a cloche at night, but not during the day.
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