Peat pots: how to use? Growing sprouts in peat pots

Each summer season begins with the cultivation of seedlings. Everyone understands why this is done - you can significantly increase the vegetation period and get not only an earlier, but a much larger harvest. On the territory of our country there are regions in which heat-loving vegetables can not be grown in any other way.

As the first stage of development passes, so will the subsequent ones - this is the law of nature. To improve the development of plants, many gardeners and gardeners use pots of peat. How to use these little assistants? Should I buy them for growing seedlings? Consider the pros and cons of these cups.

What are they made of?

Before you buy peat pots for seedlings, find out what they're made of. Such tools are made from peat, to which cardboard or wood is added. Most gardeners praise cups with a ratio of the main substance of 70% and an additive of 30%. Beware of poor-quality goods, it happens that unscrupulous manufacturers increase the percentage of impurities, and even use only cheap cardboard. Before you buy agrotechnics, read what's on the packaging.

Environmental Justification

Peat products have many advantages over their counterparts made of plastic, paper or ceramics. For plants it will be a real environmentally friendly house. In peat, which is used to make seedlings, does not contain pathogenic microflora, there are no weed seeds. In such products, the content of harmful toxic substances, for example, heavy metals, benzopyrene residues and pesticides, is much lower. The concentration of such substances will be several times lower than the norms permissible in agriculture for the cultivation of plants and crops. Lightweight peat is safe for use, there are no pathogens for various diseases of vegetable and flower crops.

When choosing peat pots for growing seedlings, carefully inspect them. For good quality products, the thickness of the walls should be one and a half millimeters. Such walls will be strong enough to serve the entire period of plant development, but the seedling roots can develop without hindrance. After disembarking into the soil, a quality pot will begin to disintegrate quickly, thereby facilitating the cleaning of the fields. The decay period for quality products lasts approximately 27-32 days.

Peat pots for seedlings. Pros of using

1. Due to the porous walls, the best air-water regime of the root layer is ensured. During planting in the ground, plants freely let the roots through the walls and the bottom.
2. Such containers do not contain pathogens and toxic substances, while they have great mechanical strength both in wet and dry conditions.
3. When the seedlings are planted along with the pot in the soil, the survival rate reaches almost 100%. Later, when decomposed, the pot will serve as a fertilizer.
4. Due to the accelerated survival of seedlings, an earlier crop is collected, mainly for this purpose, seedlings in peat pots are planted.

How to use? General requirements for the use of peat pots

1. The containers are pre-filled with a slightly moistened nutrient primer, slightly primed. After this, planting seedlings in peat pots begins. You can sow seeds, plant bulbs, cuttings or sprouts.
2. Install prepared cups on pallets, pesos, polyethylene film, gravel or soil layer.
3. Seedlings should be watered frequently, maintaining the moist condition of the soil.
4. Do not allow peat pots to dry out. How to use them correctly? Wrap each unit with a film - this will help prevent drying out. Otherwise, the salt contained in the ground can crystallize and in a concentrated form pose a danger to tender seedlings.
5. When the plants go to growth, the pots should be placed more freely to increase light, aeration. In addition, with a more spacious arrangement, the interweaving of the root systems of neighboring plants is prevented.
6. Cultivation of seedlings in peat pots ends in planting in the soil. You do not need to dig up the plants, plant them directly with the old container.

Seedlings of courgettes, cucumbers, pumpkins, eggplants, patissons

Seedlings of these crops do not like transplanting. To plants have caught on, take peas for growing pots. How to use them? Which size will be preferable?

For seedlings of cucumbers to be planted in a sheltered soil, pots with a diameter of 11 cm are suitable. The duration of cultivation is approximately 30 days. How to plant in peat pots? One seed is sown in one glass.

If there is a planting of vegetables in the open ground, then for seedling zucchini, squash and cucumber should choose a diameter of 8 cm, for a pumpkin is best for 11 cm. Seeds are germinated and planted one by one in each pot. Depth of planting is 1 cm. Cucumbers can be planted 2 pieces per container.

Pumpkin seedling on average will be ready in 20 days, and the rest of the vegetables - in a month. You yourself can calculate the optimal time for planting.

Ready pots are put on pallets tightly to each other, carefully watered and left in a warm place, where the temperature is maintained 25-30 degrees before emergence. When yellow-green shoots appear, the temperature should be reduced to 20-22 degrees. This temperature regime is maintained for 2-3 days.

Watering

You should water the cucumber seedlings with warm water, heated to 25-30 degrees. If there is cold watering, plants can get sick or even die.

Hardening

To prevent plant diseases after transplanting into the ground, they are tempered - for 7-10 days before disembarkation - often ventilate rooms, reduce to 15 degrees the temperature, less often watered.

Landing in open ground

Prepared plants are planted in the soil right in the pots. Some gardeners before the planting break the cups or pull out the seedlings together with an earthen lump. So too it is possible to do. However, truck farmers who used pea pots for growing seedlings, the following are the comments on planting - they think it is better to pre-make holes in the tanks. Decomposing, the cups will feed the plant, helping to get a big harvest.

Cabbage seedlings

In March, cabbage is sown in special boxes. After the appearance of the seedlings, they are dived, and the planting into peat pots begins. Cups with a diameter of about 7 cm are suitable. You can use round specimens or peat blocks, in which there are 6 cells at once. In late April, you can start landing in the open ground.

Seedling Seedlings

Seedlings of lettuce for landing in the protected ground are prepared with the picking of seedlings in pots. Suitable pots the size of 50x50 mm or, as they are called, peat bogs. About a month later the seedlings will be ready for planting in a greenhouse or a greenhouse.

The roots of many plants can penetrate the bottom and walls of peat cups. However, most gardeners do not wait for this - they are guided by the size of the aboveground part of the seedling.

Experienced horticulturists argue that if the peat pots are immersed in warm water before planting until the air bubbles from the walls stop, then the soaked walls and the bottom will not create obstacles and will be easily processed by soil inhabitants.

Disadvantages of peat pots

1. Not all plants tolerate the acidic environment that is inherent in peat. Some manufacturers add to the composition of products special mineral fertilizers, as well as lime and chalk, reducing acidity.
2. Required frequent watering.
3. Evaporation from the surface of the pots, water strongly cools the soil, resulting in a much worse development of the root system.
4. Some plants can not penetrate the peat walls, they have to be removed from the tanks during transplantation.
5. Often on poor-quality pots, mold appears, the walls are destroyed
6. High cost peat cups, especially when growing large volumes of seedlings.

Unfortunately, some unscrupulous manufacturers issue pots made of ordinary cardboard, for quality peat products. Gardeners complain that sometimes in the fall when digging a site, they discover undeveloped pots with the remains of roots.