What to do now that you’ve purchased your seeds? It is an excellent idea to plant your seeds indoors and give them an early start to the season.
When your plants have a head start, they will be able to mature earlier in the growing season. Some plants need extra attention that can be provided for them by being planted indoors.
If you’re interested in maximizing your gardening space even further, consider exploring tower gardening. Check out our article on The Benefits of Tower Gardening: Grow More with Less Space to learn how you can grow a variety of plants vertically, saving even more room in your garden.
Soil blocks
Soil blocks are inexpensive and easy to use. Organic vegetable seeds can easily be planted in soil blocks.
When the plants begin to grow and form a root system, the soil blocks will provide them with lots of space.
Each soil block will contain all the nutrients that are needed for growing plants.
Many organic gardeners have used soil blocks and found them to be an excellent way of planting seeds indoors.
There are a variety of sizes of soil blocks.
Most people like to use the 2in/5cm size. For larger plants, you can start with this size and then transplant the seedlings to a more massive soil block when the roots need more space.
Choose a soil block that is sturdy enough to stand some rough handling.
Soil
It is also essential to buy some soil which has a combination of compost and peat.
You may wish to make your soil mixture instead of buying it, which will be just as effective.
You will need to find a sturdy tray to put underneath your blocker once you have filled it with soil so that everything is kept together.
Planting
Do all of the plantings for one whole tray at the same time. Now when you want to transplant your seedlings outside, they will all be the same size.
One or two seeds can be placed in each soil block and covered with some of the soil mixes.
There are some seeds which need light to germinate, and these should not be covered.
To save space, it is a good idea to plant several seeds in the same block. It will not harm seeds to be planted together in a small place, and they may do very well with this arrangement.
It does not matter if you place four onion seeds in the same blocker because they will grow apart from each other once you plant them outside.
Soil blocks typically can be planted a little smaller than potted seedlings because the blocks can be handled and hold together.
Prevent diseases
You want to make sure that no fungi disease grows on your indoor plants. A fungi disease called damping off is one of the more common ones.
If young plants have lots of suns and not too much water, this kind of infection can be prevented.
Proper air circulation is crucial to prevent these diseases.
Watering
It is best to water the plants from the bottom, not from the top, to prevent disease.
The seedlings will reach down through the soil to find water and will grow deep roots.
The soil will soak up the water from the tray underneath the blocker if you fill the tray with water.
Moving outside
After the plants have grown too big for the blocker, you can move them into a pot to make more space for their roots.
As soon as the weather is warm enough, you can plant the seedlings outside to grow for the rest of the season.
Just remember to choose the right location to keep your garden healthy and beautiful.
How efficient gardener you are can be determined by your garden and the methods you use. So stop dabbling your thumbs and put your green fingers to use.
As far as gardening is concerned, if you put in hard work, your efforts will never be useless.