If you want the new summer season to bring you a rich harvest, start by growing healthy and strong seedlings. To get these plants, create suitable conditions for them. Special devices will help you with this, which will be discussed later.
Drawers and pots
Most often, pots are used for growing seedlings. They come in different sizes, for example, 9x9 cm or 12x12 cm. This allows you to choose the right option for plants with different root systems. The main advantage of pots is their low price, but they take up a lot of space.
Drawers are more suitable for compact placement. They are solid and sectional, with removable glasses inside. The boxes make it easier to plant the seedlings, since the latter grow in separate cells, and their roots are not intertwined. The disadvantage of the boxes is the high cost.
Mini greenhouses
In shops for gardeners, you can find complex and expensive mini-greenhouses equipped with a ventilation system, lighting, etc. They are suitable for growing seedlings of capricious and expensive plants. For less demanding vegetable crops, inexpensive designs consisting of a pallet, seedling cassette and a lid are suitable. Both mini greenhouse options allow you to maintain the temperature and humidity required for growing seedlings.
Heating mats and panels
Gardeners often install containers with seedlings on the windowsill, where the temperature is not always suitable for this. In order not to overcool the plants, you can put a heating mat under the pots with them. It is also necessary for the root system of thermophilic crops such as cucumbers, tomatoes or peppers. In the off-season, the warming mat can be used to dry mushrooms or fruits, so it won't lie idle.
Seed sprouters
Such devices help to germinate seeds with a minimum investment of time and effort. The simplest germinator option is hydroponic. It is a small container with a napkin soaked in nutrient solution. A more sophisticated option is an aeroponic germinator, inside which there is a device that sprays nutrients directly onto the seeds. Both options are relatively inexpensive and suitable for beginners.
The most sophisticated sprouters are sprouters and mini-farms equipped with automatic programs that are responsible for the drainage system and air circulation. They are expensive and not always suitable for inexperienced gardeners.
Phytolamp
For seedlings to develop normally, they need good lighting. Conventional lamps cannot cope with this task, so you need to choose fluorescent or LED phytolamps. They use special red and blue light bulbs, the spectrum of which corresponds to natural light. In this case, the phytolamp should act on plants for at least 10 hours a day. To avoid calculating the right amount of time each day, plug the device into a timer outlet.
Landmarks
If you do not sign the seedling containers, you will most likely forget where which seeds were sown. But it is not always convenient to make signatures directly on the pots, so it is better to use sets of special landmarks. They can also record the time of the last watering and feeding, so as not to keep all the important information in your head.
