Eggplant is the most heat-loving and capricious crop from the Solanaceae family. To get a good harvest of these vegetables, you need to provide them with decent care. But that's not all. Much depends on the cultivation technology and quality planting material. When to plant eggplant seedlings, at what time, including the lunar calendar, read the article.
How to choose the right seeds?
The quality of planting material affects the yield of eggplant. Therefore, his choice should be taken seriously.
- It is better to buy hybrid seeds in the first generation. They are more resistant to diseases of the species and growing conditions. The package with these seeds is marked with the inscription "F 1".
- It is important that it contains information about manufacturers, it is better to choose domestic ones.
- You should pay attention to the number of seeds on the package, not their weight, as well as the date of their collection, and not expiration dates. It doesn't matter if you planteggplant seeds for seedlings or directly to the garden, they must be of high quality.
Preparation of seeds for growing seedlings
To check the planting material for germination, you need to place the seeds in the amount of 10 pieces in gauze and lower them into water for a period of 48 hours. After that, drain the liquid and leave for another three days. Let them lie down in damp gauze. During this time, the seeds will hatch. If out of a total of five sprouts have appeared, the seeds have good germination, they can be sown.
Next, the disinfection procedure is carried out. To do this, the seeds are placed in a strong solution of potassium permanganate, after which they are washed with clean water at room temperature and soaked in a solution containing nutrients. You can cook it yourself. To do this, add nitrophoska in the amount of a teaspoon, or a little ash, or liquid sodium humate, to one liter of water. Seeds treated with a nutrient solution will germinate quickly and sprout together. Eggplant grown from them will bear fruit early.
Next, the planting material goes through the hardening stage. The procedure consists in exposing the seeds to variable temperatures for six days. To do this, they put them 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 a period of the same amount of time.
Soil for seedlings
Before sowing eggplant for seedlings, you should first prepare the soil. For this you need the followingcomponents:
- Yellowed sawdust in the amount of 0.5 parts, treated with boiling water.
- Peat or sod land - one part.
- Must - two parts.
- Mix everything and disinfect. This can be done in two ways:
- Steam the resulting soil in a water bath for 35-40 minutes.
- Spill 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
Beginner gardeners want to grow different vegetables at once. But it's hard to get the timing right. To be sure, it is better to plant eggplant seedlings according to the lunar calendar. The most auspicious days in 2018 are:
- In February - from the 22nd to the 26th.
- In March - from the 24th to the 25th and from the 28th to the 30th.
- In April - from 25 to 29.
- In May - from 23 to 28.
- In June - from 20 to 26.
According to signs, eggplants should be sown on men's day on February 23rd. If forecasts are followed, the harvest will be high.
Planting eggplant seedlings according to the calendar does not cause difficulties. In pots filled with soil, you need to sow two or three seeds in each. The distance between them should be at least two centimeters. When all the containers are with seedlings, they are covered with a film. When the sprouts hatch, choose one of the strongest, leave it in a pot, and remove the rest. The seeds are buried in the soil forone 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 shoots will appear. The film must be removed immediately and the plants identified on a 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 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 have formed on them and before planting eggplant seedlings according to the lunar calendar in the garden. Top dressing is always combined with root watering.
Dive eggplant seedlings at home
When growing this crop, it should be borne in mind that these vegetables love warmth. In this regard, for seed germination, a high temperature of 26 ° C must be maintained in the room. When shoots appear, it can be reduced to 14-16 ° C. The best time for sowing eggplant seedlings is the end of February. Such early dates are due to the fact that the vegetative period of these vegetables is long. It will take two months to grow seedlings. The sprouts will germinate in 14 days.
One of the ways to grow eggplant seedlings at home is to pick them. This procedure must be carried out when the first sheet appears. First, the plants are well watered, and then carefully removed from the box so that the roots remain intact. The earth does not need to be shaken off. 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, the eggplant seedlings are placed in another, larger one.
Capacities with plantings should be protected from direct sunlight. Young plants harden, only gradually. To do this, eggplant seedlings need to be taken out to the balcony, gradually increasing the time it is in the fresh air. During cloudy weather, the plants will lack light, so you should install sources of artificial lighting. When to sow eggplants for seedlings, we figured out, that is, 60 days before planting in the ground. This is exactly the period for which the plants have time to form and be ready for planting in open ground.
Growing seedlings without picking
The root system of plants hatched 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, seeds are sown not in large quantities in boxes, 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 are pinched so that the remaining ones are stronger. They prepare the soil and carry out the hardening of plants in the same way as in the previous case.
When to sow eggplant seedlings? Depending on the region, the date will be different. Needaccurately 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 ground.
Water seedlings
For this procedure, it is better to use settled water, heated to 20-25 ° C. Watering should be moderate, they are carried out in two to three days. To avoid root rot, the soil is mulched immediately after moistening. For this, dry sand is used. 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 the seedlings are grown indoors, the main thing is not to forget about its ventilation.
Feeding seedlings
This procedure is best done at the same time as watering. To do this, urea in the amount of eight grams and superphosphate (30 g) are diluted in a bucket of water. This solution is fertilized. You can use a different composition: nitrophoska (30 g) in a bucket of water. After fertilizing the soil, rinse the leaves with water, as long as it is clean. You can use a spray bottle. Young plants need top dressing before planting in the garden for permanent growth. Use the same solution, but without the nitrogen content. 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 need a large feeding area,Therefore, they are planted in the nest one bush at a time. 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, a canopy should be made above the plants to form a shadow.
Sowing seeds into the ground
Vegetables can be grown not only using seedlings. You can sow seeds directly into the ground. Planting time for eggplant is at the end of April. So that the seedlings are not damaged by lower temperatures at night, they need to be protected with a film coating. The soil should be moist and warmed up to 13 ° C. Sowing should be dense, about 200 seeds per square meter of plot area. In the future, weak and underdeveloped plants are discarded, leaving only strong and he althy ones. This should be done when seven or eight leaves appear on the seedlings. Thinning is carried out in several stages:
- The first procedure is carried out when four real leaves appear. The distance from one to another plant should be 10 cm.
- The second time thinning is done after the formation of a couple more 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 ones should be 35-40 cm.
As a result, five or six plants should remain on a plot of one square meter, notmore. Until frost passes, plantings need shelter. In the future, when the weather settles, 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, cabbage grew on the site before. Eggplants 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 he althy, strong seedlings. This crop has a long growing season, 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 true. The first month of the year is almost always cloudy. How to grow eggplant seedlings from seeds has already been written, but what you need to get young pepper plants, let's figure it out.
First, the seeds are prepared for sowing. To do this, they need to be pickled: kept in a thermos with water for 20-25 minutes at a temperature of 55 ° C. But the use of the drug "Maxim" gives a greater effect. If the planting material is purchased, it is not necessary to pickle it. Pepper seeds are difficult to germinate, so they need to be treated with 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 lack of oxygen. After that, they are placed next to a hot battery or directly on it, as the seeds germinate at a high temperature - 30 ° or even 34 ° C. After five or six days, sprouts will appear.
Hatched seeds are planted in boxes with warm soil, the temperature of which should be maintained at 30-32 ° C. Then shoots will appear after 14 days. If the ground is 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, the seedlings should be placed on the windowsill and the film removed, do not wait for all the seeds to germinate. The rest will sprout within seven days and will catch up in growth with the first. Seedlings are dived when four or five true leaves are formed. They are planted in the garden when the soil warms up to a temperature of 16 ° -18 ° С.
