Peat pots will help grow seedlings. Pots and seedling boxes: my experience in choosing containers for growing seedlings How to make peat pots

Every real summer resident knows that good harvest starts with seeds and seedlings.

We plant seedlings, dive and transplant into separate containers. We can plant in peat pots, plastic containers or newfangled peat pellets.

And we can also make pots for seedlings with our own hands and make them as many as you need in quantity. Fascinating gardeners are able to fill literally everything with green sprouts, you can’t stock up on any purchased containers.

As a container for growing seedlings, you can use:

• tea bags
• Tetra Pak packages
• Ice containers
• Waste paper and cardboard
• citrus peel
• Eggshell
• egg trays
• Plastic bottles
• Plastic cups
• Filter bags for coffee machines
• Bushings from toilet paper

tea bags

The original way of growing seedlings in used tea bags can compete in efficiency with growing in peat tablets, since tea has a beneficial effect on the development of the plant.

Cut off each bag upper part, then put soil for seedlings inside with a spoon and sow the seeds. Such "pots" are best placed in a pallet, for example, a container with low sides. When disembarking at open ground do not remove the package.

Eggshell

Egg shells are an excellent homemade container for small seedlings or for growing seedlings before transferring them to larger containers.

Take the shell and make a hole in the bottom. To do this, you can use a pushpin or a thick needle. Fill each shell halfway with soil and sow the seeds.

Place egg "pots" with seedlings in a plastic egg container. To create a greenhouse effect, close the lid of the container. When the time comes for transplanting or transshipment, plant the grown seedlings along with the shell.

Tetra Pak packages

Probably one of the most popular options among hand-made seedling containers is Tetra Pak bags. This multi-component material is distinguished from paper and cardboard bags by increased strength and durability.

Tetra Pak is used for packaging juice, dairy products; in addition to cardboard, it includes foil and polyethylene. Preparing such bags for sowing seedlings is very simple - cut them into 2 parts and the cups are ready! You can also make a seedling tray by cutting the package not across, but along.

Be sure to wash containers thoroughly before use.

Old newspapers can become excellent material for the manufacture of containers for seedlings. To do this, you will need newspaper sheets (it is better to give preference to black and white pages), a cylindrical object (bottle, narrow tin can), flour and water.

We invite you to visit the page with our master class on making cups for seedlings from old newspapers or paper.

You can plant seedlings in a greenhouse or open ground directly in cups, but if you wish, you can cut or break the "pot".

Plastic bottles

From a plastic bottle, you can make not just a container for seedlings, but a functional pot with an automatic watering system and a greenhouse effect.

Pure plastic bottle cut in half, do not remove the lid, but make several holes in it using the same heated awl, needle or nail. Pull a synthetic cord through the bottom hole (this will be the wick).

Turn the top with the neck over and insert into the second half of the bottle. Pour the soil, sow the seeds. Take the half bottle of potting soil out of the tray, pour water into the bottom of the pot, then push the plant half back into the tray.

Take another bottle of the same size, cut off half of it and use it as a lid for such a seedling "pot".

You can do it differently: from a bottle (a square-shaped plastic bottle with a capacity of 5 liters is perfect, for example, from drinking water) cut off the side part, and use the remaining large part as a container for seedlings.

Plastic cups

Excellent seedling containers are obtained from yogurt or sour cream cups, disposable plastic and paper coffee cups. To make pots, first wash these containers thoroughly, and then cut a hole in their bottom to drain excess water.

If the hole is too large diameter, put a cardboard circle on the bottom of the glass. For convenience, you can write on the cup with a felt-tip pen or marker the name of the crop and variety that you are going to grow.

Place containers with seeds sown in them in a box or on a tray - it is more convenient to store them. The advantage of such home-made pots is the convenient extraction of an earthen clod when planting seedlings in open ground - just lightly press on the bottom of the cup and the clod can be easily removed, remaining intact.

Filter bags for coffee machines

If you're brewing coffee in a coffee maker, don't throw away used paper filters—they can make great seedling cups.

Fill each filter bag halfway with soil and place in plastic box or a pallet with high sides to give the "cups" stability. They will stand tightly to each other, which means they will not fall. Sow the seeds and place the crate of coffee "pots" on the windowsill.

Toilet paper rolls

The cardboard tubes left over from toilet paper rolls are easily converted into biodegradable seedling cups. You can also use paper towel rolls.

If you need a low cup, cut the sleeve across into two parts. Next, do the following with each part: fold it lengthwise and make cuts with scissors about 1/3 of the height of the tube so that you get 4 blades.

Then straighten the workpiece and fold the blades one on top of the other, bending them, as is done with cardboard boxes to make the bottom.
On the permanent place seedlings can be planted without removing them from the cups, since paper and cardboard are biodegradable materials.

Waste paper and cardboard

To make such pots, you need to mentally return to your school years and remember the familiar, but slightly forgotten papier-mâché technology. So, you will need paper or cardboard, water and a form.

Glass cups can be used as a mold, but it is most convenient if you have a metal mold for cupcakes with several cells.

Tear the paper into small pieces and put in a container of water, leave to soak. Then wrap the mold around the resulting mass: if you have glasses, then with outside if the baking dish is from the inside.

The blank must be left to dry for a day, and then used as a regular cup for seedlings.

Ice containers

An unnecessary tray (form) for ice can be an excellent container for growing seedlings before picking and serve in this role for more than one year. Make a drainage hole in each cell (if the plastic is strong, use a drill), take a suitable pallet and place the container in it.

Next, fill the cells with soil and sow the seeds. After a while, spread the seedlings in a container bigger size. Just as in the case with eggshell, in such a container it is better to grow plants with a small root system, since they can become cramped in small cells.

egg trays

The egg tray is also used as a container for seedlings. Such containers are conveniently placed on the windowsills. To begin with, a hole is made in the bottom of each cell of the container (if the tray is plastic, you can heat the awl and pierce it with it). Then the cells are filled with soil and seeds are sown.

After some time, the roots of the plant will be braided with an earthen clod, and for further picking, it will be enough to carefully remove the seedling with a clod with a fork.

citrus peel

If you like to squeeze juice from citrus fruits (orange, grapefruit, lemon, pomelo, etc.) with a juicer, then you probably have many halves of the peel of these fruits. Why not use them as seedling cups?

In a half of the fruit peeled from the pulp (in the bottom), make a small hole for the outflow of moisture, then fill the peel with soil for seedlings and sow 1-2 seeds per "pot" depending on the "dimensions" of the future plant and the size of the citrus peel. Subsequently, the seedling can be planted from open ground directly with a "pot".

pots-

cups

"What to grow seedlings in?" - such a question arises among gardeners every winter. Someone uses old milk bags to solve this issue, someone grows seedlings in wooden boxes. I make cups from peat - please do not confuse with peat pots, since peat pots are “cylinders,

for the manufacture of peat glasses:

1 - conical glass made of steel;

with rod

for pulling out

finished products;

3 - blank

(liner)

to form

glasses

cubes, prisms with a recess at the top, made of nutrient soil mixture... "(TSB, vol. 26).

Homemade peat cups are much more convenient and beneficial for plants than plastic bags or tin cans, because young immature plants are planted on the beds right with a glass. seedling root system

at the same time, it remains safe and sound, and the glass itself turns into fertilizer. In addition, unlike industrial cups, the dimensions of home-made ones are determined by the gardener himself.

To form cups, I first prepare a nutrient mixture: approximately 50% peat, 40% mullein and 10% fatty earth, for example, black soil. I mix it all up, adding water, azotobacterin, phosphorobacterin. The mixture must be thick.

When choosing the sizes of future products, please note that in order to obtain early harvests experienced gardeners they prefer larger cups (it is not difficult to specify their sizes for a particular culture by looking at the Do-it-yourself almanac N ° 1 for 1994). On fig. showing a device for forming peat cups, which consists of a steel glass, a tin circle with a metal rod perpendicularly fixed in its center and a blank with a through hole in the middle.

We lower a circle with a pin into a steel glass, pour a layer of the mixture 15 ... 20 mm thick on top and ram it with a blank, which we leave in the glass after compacting the mixture. The gap between the blank and the glass is evenly filled with the mixture and it is also carefully tamped. When the mixture reaches the very top of the mold, we take out the blank, slightly shaking it, then, pulling the rod with the circle, we take out the finished pot. To learn how to make cups, you need a little skill. The first ones can turn out to be flawed - some will dry out, others will have too hard walls that do not soak well in the ground. But it doesn't matter, learn

Good luck, gardeners!

Containers intended for growing seedlings are presented by manufacturers in a huge assortment. But why spend money if you can use the containers that we usually throw away. Today we’ll talk about how to make cups for seedlings yourself.

Disposable plastic cups

They are ideal for growing seedlings. The main thing is to provide drainage so that the water does not stagnate. To do this, it is enough to make several punctures in the bottom of the container with a thick needle. It is also important to consider the needs of the plant's root system.

Cans

Cans of beer and lemonade - another one good option. Just carefully cut off the top and make drainage holes in the bottom. In order not to cut yourself during transplantation, process the edges with sandpaper.

Milk or juice bags

Containers lined with foil are best.

- Take the box and cut it around the perimeter on three sides. Fold back the top. In this case, a kind of box with a reflective surface will turn out. The foil will reflect the sun's rays, transferring heat to young plants.
- You will need two-liter bags. Cut off about ¼ of the entire height. In such a container, the plant will develop very quickly.
- Take a milk or juice carton. The volume does not matter (small ones will not work) and again make a “box” out of it. Fill the ground for seedlings, and with the help of the side part cut into strips, divide it into small squares. Plant one plant in each, deepening them into the ground. Later, as development root system wrap around the earth. And the plant is very easy to transplant without damaging the fragile roots.

Soda bottles

Plastic bottles from under any drinks should also not be thrown away.
- In small containers, a little more than 1/4 of the entire height is cut off, and drainage holes are made in the bottom. So excess water can flow into the pan. After the time comes to plant the plant in a permanent place, the cup is simply carefully removed.
- But 6 -liter bottles cut lengthwise. It is best to use rectangular canisters. The resulting containers can be used both for growing seedlings and for transplanting plants that already need picking.

Next consumable- plastic containers. Here you can use cake lids, ice cream cups or sour cream. They are used as separate containers for plants.

- Small containers can be used for planting small seeds, or growing seedlings until picking.
- In deep, if you follow the recommendations, you can grow plants until planting in a permanent place.

The cake lid can be used as a cover. So you get a homemade mini greenhouse.

Toilet paper cups

Enough interesting solution. You will need:
- toilet paper roll;
- plastic cup;
- spray;
- scotch.

Wrap the glass with several layers of toilet paper. The more, the denser the container will be.
Then we move the paper down, about 4 cm, and carefully moisten it with water. After that, manually form the bottom of the glass and leave it to dry completely.
After that, we fix the bottom with adhesive tape.

shoe box

If a inner surface cover with polyethylene, then the container can serve for:
- germination of dahlia tubers;
- planting plants that subsequently do not need picking.

In addition, it can simply serve as a container for plastic cups.

Plastic bottle pots

We have already considered options for their use. But in this case, you will get square containers.
- Cut out the central part of the bottle (the neck and bottom go to waste).
- We fold the resulting cylinder twice so that it looks like a box without a bottom.
- The next step - on each side we make cuts in depth equal to ½ of its length and fold the box.

As you can see, a little imagination and patience, and seedling containers will be ready.

Tagged

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

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

What are they made of?

Before you buy peat pots for seedlings, find out what they are made of. Such devices are made from peat, to which cardboard or wood is added. Most of all, gardeners praise cups with a ratio of the main substance of 70% and additives of 30%. Beware of low-quality goods, it happens that unscrupulous manufacturers increase the percentage of impurities, or even use only cheap cardboard. Before you buy agricultural machinery, read what is written on the package.

Environmental justifications

Peat products have many advantages over their counterparts made of plastic, paper or ceramics. For plants, this will be a real ecologically clean house. The peat used for the manufacture of containers for growing seedlings does not contain pathogenic microflora, there are no weed seeds. In such products, the content of harmful toxic substances, such as heavy metals, benzopyrene residues and pesticides, is significantly lower. The concentration of such substances will be several times lower than the permissible agriculture norms for growing plants and crops. Peat, light in weight, is safe for use, it does not contain pathogens of various diseases of vegetable and flower crops.

When choosing peat pots for growing seedlings, carefully inspect them. For good quality products, the wall thickness should be one to one and a half millimeters. Such walls will be strong enough to last the entire period of plant development, but at the same time, seedling roots will be able to develop unhindered. After planting in the soil, a quality pot will begin to quickly disintegrate, thereby facilitating the work of harvesting 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 provided. During planting in the ground, plants freely take root through the walls and bottom.
2. Such containers do not contain pathogens and toxic substances, while they have high mechanical strength both in wet and dry conditions.
3. When planting seedlings together with a pot in the ground, the survival rate reaches almost 100%. Later, when decomposed, the pot will serve as fertilizer.
4. Due to the accelerated survival of seedlings, more early harvest, mainly for this, seedlings are planted in peat pots.

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

1. The containers are pre-filled with slightly moistened nutrient soil, accept a little. After that, it starts in peat pots. You can sow bulbs, cuttings or seedlings.
2. Place prepared cups on pallets, pesos, polyethylene film, gravel or soil layer.
3. Seedlings should be watered frequently to keep the soil moist.
4. We must not allow the peat pots to dry out. How to use them correctly? Wrap each unit with foil - this will help prevent drying out. Otherwise, the salt contained in the ground may crystallize and, in concentrated form, pose a danger to tender seedlings.
5. When the plants begin to grow, the pots should be spaced more freely to increase light and aeration. In addition, with a more spacious arrangement, the interweaving of the root systems of neighboring plants is prevented.
6. Growing seedlings in peat pots ends with planting in the ground. You do not need to dig up the plants, plant them directly with the old container.

Seedlings of zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins, eggplants, squash

Seedlings of these crops do not like transplantation. In order for the plants to take root, take peat pots for growing. How to use them? What size would be preferable?

For seedlings of cucumbers intended for planting in protected ground, pots with a diameter of 11 cm are suitable. The cultivation period is approximately 30 days. How to plant in peat pots? One germinated seed is sown in one cup.

If you have to plant vegetables in open ground, then for seedlings of zucchini, squash and cucumbers, you should choose containers with a diameter of 8 cm, for pumpkin better fit 11 cm and planted one in each pot. Planting depth 1 cm. Cucumbers can be planted 2 pieces in one container.

On average, pumpkin seedlings will be ready in 20 days, and other vegetables in a month. You can calculate yourself optimal timing landing.

Ready pots are placed on pallets close to each other, watered thoroughly and left in a warm place where the temperature is maintained at 25-30 degrees until germination. When yellow-green sprouts appear, the temperature should be reduced to 20-22 degrees. Such temperature regime supported 2-3 days.

Watering

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

hardening

To prevent plant diseases after transplanting into the ground, they are hardened - 7-10 days before planting - the premises are often ventilated, the temperature is reduced to 15 degrees, and watered less often.

Landing in open ground

Prepared plants are planted in the soil directly in pots. Some gardeners break cups before planting or pull out seedlings along with an earthen clod. That's how you can do it too. However, gardeners who used peat pots to grow seedlings leave the following planting reviews - they believe that it is better to make holes in the containers beforehand. Decaying, the cups will nourish the plant, helping to get a big harvest.

cabbage seedling

In March, cabbage is sown in special boxes. After the appearance of seedlings, they swoop down, and planting in 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. At the end of April, you can start landing in

lettuce seedling

Lettuce seedlings for planting in protected ground are prepared by picking seedlings into pots. Suitable pots measuring 50x50 mm or, as they are also called, peat cells. In about a month, the seedlings will be ready for planting in a greenhouse or 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 aerial part of the seedlings.

Experienced gardeners say that if you immerse peat pots in before planting warm water until the release of air bubbles from the walls stops, then the soaked walls and 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 special mineral fertilizers, as well as lime and chalk, which reduce acidity.
2. Requires frequent watering.
3. Evaporating from the surface of the pots, the water greatly cools the soil, as a result, the root system develops much worse.
4. Some plants cannot break through the peat walls, they have to be taken out of the containers when transplanting.
5. Often mold appears on low-quality pots, the walls are destroyed
6. The high cost of peat cups, especially when growing large volumes of seedlings.

Unfortunately, some unscrupulous manufacturers give out pots made from ordinary cardboard as high-quality peat products. Gardeners complain that sometimes in the fall, when digging up a plot, they find undecomposed pots with the remains of roots.

The choice of containers for seedlings is huge. But not every summer resident can fork out every spring for a purchase or. Healthy and strong seedlings they also grow in homemade containers - especially if you take the time and make nutrient pots for seedlings with your own hands.

Such homemade seedling pots compare favorably with purchased options the fact that their composition is under the control of the grower.

In Runet there are several dozen recipes for preparing a substrate for nutrient cubes. The main thing is that such mixtures meet the requirements of breathability, moisture capacity, high nutritional value and be free from diseases and pests.

The composition usually includes peat, garden, turf and compost land. To normalize acidity, lime is sometimes included in them, and to give looseness - straw cutting, sand, sawdust. Supporters of "mineral water" add complex fertilizers to the substrate.

The binding component, thanks to which the container retains its shape, is mullein soaked in water.

Let's look at the optimal proportions of each of the components in the manufacture of pots for seedlings with our own hands. Please note for different cultures they will be different.

For squash, zucchini, cucumber and pumpkin, take five parts of decomposed peat, three parts of humus soil, one part of soddy soil and one part fresh manure(better than mullein). If peat is not available, use mature compost in the same ratio instead.

An equally good result is obtained if a mixture of the following composition is prepared for pumpkin vegetables: seven parts of ripe humus, two parts of sod land and one part of fresh cow dung.

And here is a simple recipe for making universal pots or cubes for growing seedlings.

1. Combine equal parts garden compost and humus soil.
2. For 8-10 liters of the mixture, add 1.5-2 cups of ash.
3. Mix one part cow dung and nine parts water.
4. Moisten the soil mixture with the nutrient composition so that it does not crumble into pieces during molding.

Just do not add too much mullein, otherwise the substrate will become very compact and the roots of the plants will experience oxygen starvation.
It is convenient to make pots for seedlings with your own hands from paper. To do this, you will need a 1.5-liter bottle and paper blanks measuring 25 x 16 centimeters or 20 x 12 centimeters (for smaller cups). The diameter of such containers will be 7 and 6 centimeters, respectively, and the height - 10 and 8 centimeters.

I advise you to make the cups two-layered: the bottle is wrapped around the first strip along the chosen height. And the second is applied so that its middle falls on the seam of the first. Then a free piece of paper at the bottom is pressed to the bottom of the bottle. And everything your free seedling pot is ready to use.

For growing seedlings, a variety of containers will fit. For this purpose, milk bags, glasses of sour cream, ice cream, mineral water, buckets of mayonnaise and so on are suitable.

Just do not forget to make at least 5 holes with a diameter of 2-3 millimeters each in the bottom of the cups before laying the soil mixture. This will facilitate the access of air to the roots of the seedling and prevent them from getting wet during excessive watering.

I also advise you to read a detailed overview of all options,.

Watch the video tutorial on how to make seedling cups in just 5 seconds.