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Vegetable Seedlings The Not So Secret
Art Of Growing Your Own Plants


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Strong Robust Vegetable Seedlings Go On To Produce Top Crops

Vegetable Garden Seedlings

This section covers growing seedlings for the home garden from the time the young seedling get their true leaves until transplanting in the garden.  If you have skipped ahead and missed how to start seeds that fine, its always good to look ahead but don't forget to go to  starting seeds to start at the beginning.

Careful consideration needs to be given to their requirements, correct temperature, light, moisture and nutrients are the key factors to successfully growing vegetable seedlings.

Any place that can provide the young vegetable seedlings with the maximum amount of light, good ventilation, and a consistent temperature, for the vegetable group being grown, is acceptable.



Seedling Care

There are 5 basic needs that seedlings have for good germination and subsequent growth.

  • Good Potting Mix
  • Correct Growing Temperature
  • Adequate Moisture
  • Seedling Fertilizer
  • Sufficient Quality Light



Photo of strong healthy seedlings

Roll-over image to enlarge

After seeds have germinated, they should be given the best possible growing conditions to insure sturdy vigorous plants for transplanting outdoors.


potting mix

Being aware of the properties of the potting mix being used is important, coconut coir fiber based potting mixes for instance tend to dry out on the top but remain moist further down in the pot, being aware of this and other potting mix properties can avoid unnecessary errors. Follow this link to understand the different  potting soils.


Temperature

Once the seed germination stage have ended and the seedling growth stage begins ( using the development of the first true leaves as our reference point). It is important to treat the seedlings of different vegetable groups separately.


Moisture

As with seedling temperature, consistency is the key to watering seedling. Check your seedlings on a daily basis to be sure the potting medium isn’t drying out to much. However be careful not to over water, moist but not soggy is a good measure.

Once the seedlings are well established they can survive a “little” neglect without up and dying overnight. Over watering seedling encourages root rot or “damping off” and is probably worse than under watering. It is good to let the top half inch or so of potting soil to dry out a little between waterings.

It is almost impossible to tell the moisture content of the potting mix just by looking. If you don’t have a moisture tester:

Photo of testing vegetable seedlings moisture with finger

Roll-over image to enlarge

Use the “finger test” to check for soil moisture. Insert your finger into the potting mix to a depth of about an inch (2.5 cm) it isn’t hard to tell the difference between moist and dry.

Watering Methods

There are some pretty fancy commercial seedling watering systems out there but for the average home gardener growing their own seedlings there are three that are probably the most practical.

  • Watering Can
  • Bottom Watering

Watering Tips

Making sure the water you use is room temperature to avoid cooling the soil to much. Tap water is usually well below room temperature especially in late winter early spring when most seedling are being grown. Set the water out for a day or so to warm it up or mix cold water with some from the hot tap.


Fertilizer

All seeds come with a packed lunch that will last until the young seedlings roots and true leaves begin to process nutrients. From this point on it is important to ensure adequate nutrients are available throughout the plants entire life cycle to grow successfully.

Move on down this page for another page dedicated to seedling fertilizers.


Light

Lack of light or poor light quality is probably the single most common problem when growing vegetable seedlings. Plants that don’t receive good strong light tend to grow leggy, pale, and weak. As a general guide most seedling require between 8-12 and up to 16 hours of good strong light every day.

Light Source

There are really only two options for providing the light requirements for seedling, sunlight or artificial light, and either is only as good as their quality.

You would think that sunlight being a natural light source would be the best, however often at the time of year seedlings are being grown indoors adequate natural light can be a problem making artificial light the easy solution. A solution I find much easier to control and rely on.



more vegetable seedling pages


Before this time comes you have some choices to make about how, when, how much and what fertilizer type to use as Seedling fertilizer.


Once your seedlings are up and growing the next important step in the young seedlings development is pricking out. Pricking out, or thinning out, is the term used in the horticultural industry for the first re-potting or transplanting of seedling that are grown in seed trays or flats where the seeds aren’t ........



Hardening off seedlings:Depending on the vegetable plant type and variety, 4-6 weeks after germination, the seedlings should well grown and........


Transplanting seedlings can be a time of stress for the plant and often, growth is temporarily checked. Using........






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