How to soak seeds before planting: tips for gardeners

Spring is the beginning of the season, when gardeners and truck farmers are thinking about the future harvest. Landing plans are being created, seeds and fertilizers are bought in stores. Some crops, for example tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, begin to grow from growing seedlings. For other plants, this preparatory period is not required. They are planted immediately in the ground, when the earth is warm enough. But in both cases of gardeners, the question may be whether it is necessary to soak the seeds and, if so, how.

Advice of specialists

To prepare the material for germination, it must be placed in a warm place. For example, put next to the battery. The first you need a culture such as pumpkin, cucumber, squash, zucchini. The room should have a temperature of plus twenty degrees. If the seeds are warmed for a month or a year and a half, then they will later ascend and provide an earlier crop.

Calibration

Not all planting material is suitable for growing strong and healthy plants. Perhaps the seeds purchased long ago are already overdue if the expiry date of their expiration date has expired. Therefore, before processing it is necessary to sort through all of them, remove the damaged ones, small ones.

In order for the process to take less time, it is sufficient to resort to a popular method of selection. It will be necessary to dilute in a liter of water from thirty to fifty grams of table salt. Drain the water to leave the sediment, and already clean the material. Thus, you have learned how to properly soak seeds to identify defective specimens. As a result, within an hour you will get the following picture. Those of the seeds that are suitable for sowing will sink to the bottom of the can, and empty ones will rise to the surface. They will have to be thrown away. The remaining ones are washed in running water. So you can sort out the seeds of almost all cultures.

Soak

Let's take a closer look at the process that describes how to soak the seeds before planting, what you need to do for this. The seed material is placed in water at room temperature. Such processing helps to wake up a dormant force in a small seed. Shoots will be early. Gardeners are concerned about the following problem: how many days to soak the seeds so that they are ready for planting. Parsley, beets, peppers, celery, carrots, aubergines, parsnips, onions enough to withstand in water for forty-eight hours. For cucumbers, radish, cabbage, melon, radish, lettuce, zucchini, pumpkin, and patissons, eight to twelve hours will suffice.

Disinfection

Seeds when culling are removed not only empty, damaged, but also sick. After all, they can be carriers of dangerous diseases, which then pass to adult plants. Disinfection is carried out as preventive measures. Before they soak the seeds before planting, they are subjected to special treatment.

The most effective way to decontaminate them is to warm in water with a temperature of up to 50 °. Put the planting material in a bag of cloth and put it into boiling water for twenty minutes. In doing so, we must ensure that the temperature does not fall. Then the seeds are soaked in cold water for three minutes. Similar tests are suitable for carrots, cabbage and beets. In the same way come with zucchini, eggplant, watermelon and melon. True, they require a longer "hot bath" - for two hours.

Stratification

Variants of how to soak seeds before planting are very similar, but at the same time are not the most basic. Before soaking, the planting material can be frozen in the refrigerator. Seeds are wrapped in a damp cloth and placed in a freezer. They are stored in conditions of low temperatures - from -1 to -3 °. So the pumpkin, tomatoes, aubergines and pepper are quenched for three days. Having sustained such conditions, they will be ready to disembark into the open ground much earlier than the impending hardening.

Mixing

When preparing the planting material, you can safely experiment. For example, here's how to soak the seeds before planting with nutrient formulations. You need a solution of potassium permanganate. It is prepared as follows. One gram of manganese-sour potassium dissolves in five liters of water. But it should be borne in mind that such treatment inhibits the development of plants. Therefore, experts recommend to resort to specially produced mixtures.

For example, you can use growth regulators "Zircon", "Albit", "Energen". Preparing solutions with these drugs should be done according to the instructions that are attached to them. As a replacement for the solution of potassium permanganate, you can use five grams of baking soda per liter of water. Treated seeds will also be disinfected. Any of these solutions are suitable for the preparation of seeds of pumpkin, cucumber, zucchini. They must be aged for twelve hours.

There is another option. Prepare the following composition. One matchbox of wood ash is dissolved in five liters of water. Insist for two days. In this solution, the seeds must be aged for four to six hours. They wake up after soaking, swell. If this does not happen, then the whole procedure should be repeated first. We must keep them in warm water for one or two hours. Also suitable for processing planting material is aloe juice, valerian infusions, chamomile, oak bark.

Having considered the abovementioned ways of processing the planting material, it can be concluded that the question of whether it is necessary to soak seeds is rhetorical. If you correctly pass all the stages of preparation, then as a result you can get good shoots, strong healthy plants and a rich harvest.