When to plant cabbage for seedlings at home

Today, cabbage is one of the most important and necessary garden crops. It is grown from seedlings at home. The timing of planting and proper home care for the latter in many ways ensure the quality of the future harvest. Unfortunately, purchased seedlings often leave much to be desired, and they were grown in spite of all technologies. It is not known from what planting material. That is why it is best to plant and grow cabbage on your own, having personally supervised the whole process. And this article will show you a step-by-step process.

Early and late dates for planting cabbage for seedlings

The timing of sowing seeds can vary greatly depending on the specific region and its climatic conditions. As a rule, they begin to deal with this business in the second half of March. It's usually late in May. However, it is worth considering the characteristics of the selected varieties, as well as the ripening time. Often, gardeners resort to tricks and do not sow all the material at once, but do it gradually (over several days). This allows you to extend the harvest time.

Cabbage grows fast enough. When sowing early cabbage, it must be borne in mind that it must be planted in a permanent place of growth at the age of 30 to 40 days. For mid-ripening varieties, this period is slightly longer - 40-50 days, and for late-ripening varieties it can even be 2 months. In addition, the seedlings will need up to 1 week to germinate. Rooting of the transplanted seedlings will take place for another 1 week. Thus, you can accurately calculate the timing of when to plant cabbage specifically for your region.

Favorable days for planting cabbage according to the lunar calendar

There are certain days in the lunar calendar on which it is best to sow cabbage. It is believed that if all the procedures are carried out at this particular time, the plant will grow better, hurt less and give an excellent harvest.

For each type of cabbage, as well as regarding the timing of its ripening, the lunar calendar has certain favorable days in each month. This is associated with a specific phase of the moon. This calendar changes annually. In 2017, the following successful days are foreseen:

White and red cabbage, savoy cabbage, kohlrabi:

Redhead:

Broccoli for picking:

Broccoli without picking

Planting Chinese cabbage:

Successful for early cabbage are March 15, 25 and 26, for medium cabbage - April 1, 2, as well as April 7-10. As for the late varieties, they are sown in the same period as the middle ones. During the full moon or new moon, sowing should not be carried out at all.

How can you plant cabbage for seedlings in the ground in May

Cabbage is considered an unpretentious crop. But the future harvest depends on the care and availability of practical skills in growing seedlings. So that it is not meager, it is necessary to choose the right soil, and also create the most comfortable conditions for plant growth.

Preparing the soil mixture for sowing and growing seedlings

Absolutely all types of cabbage love loose soil. That is why it is imperative to include peat in its composition. It can be mixed with sand, as well as humus or rotten compost. You can also add wood ash to the mixture.

Soil for planting seedlings can be purchased either ready-made in the store or prepared on your own. Only after the mixture is obtained, it must be disinfected. There are a lot of ways for this. The most common, affordable and simple one is to bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes.

Presowing seed preparation at home and the required temperature

Now let's talk about the instructions on how to care for the seeds before planting. Regardless of what type of cabbage you plan to plant, the seed preparation will be the same. The first step is to sort them out and select those with a diameter of at least 1.5 mm. After that, gauze is taken, folded in three layers and the selected seeds are wrapped in it.

The resulting bundle is dipped into a thermos with water heated to 45-50 degrees, kept there for 15 minutes. Then the seeds in gauze are dipped in cold water for a couple of minutes, removed and left in a damp cloth for another two days.

If the seeds were purchased in a specialized store, then most likely they have already passed all the stages of preliminary preparation and do not need it anymore. The only thing that is recommended to do is to keep them in wet gauze for a couple of days. This procedure will speed up the emergence of seedlings in the future, since the seeds will already be well swollen and ready to give their first shoots.

Step by step sowing technique at home

Seeds are sown depending on whether it is planned to dive the seedlings or not. If planned, you can sow in a common box or other suitable container.

When choosing a picking method, you need to prepare boxes with a depth of at least 4 centimeters. A layer of prepared soil mixture is poured into them, the thickness of which is 3-4 centimeters. At a distance of 3 centimeters from each other, small grooves are made with a depth of about 1 centimeter. Cabbage seeds are sown in them, the distance between which should also be about 1 centimeter. At the end, the sowing is sprinkled with earth.

Proper care of planted seeds

After the cabbage has been sown, the container is placed on a well-lit windowsill. The minimum air temperature in the room should be between 18-20 degrees. After 5 days, the first shoots should appear. After that, the box is moved to the most well-lit place. The temperature should be reduced to 10-12 degrees. Otherwise, the seedlings will be strongly stretched.

Initially, seedlings do not greatly increase in growth, but then the rate increases significantly. Three weeks later, the third leaf begins to appear. It should be noted that the temperature regime for cauliflower should be increased by 6 degrees in comparison with other varieties.

Seedlings of cabbage are very demanding on lighting. In the spring, when it gets dark early and dawn late, you need to take care of additional lighting. This can be done using an LED or phytolamp. Daylight hours in this way should be at least 12 hours.

Water the plantings as the topsoil dries up. Lack or excess of moisture can destroy the seedlings.To avoid this, the soil should be periodically loosened. Watering is carried out only with settled water warmed up to room temperature.

As the seedlings grow, they need feeding. A week after the pick, you can add a solution of ammonium nitrate, potassium fertilizer and superphosphate in a ratio of 2: 1: 4 grams per 1 liter of water. After another couple of weeks, you can re-fertilize, but the amount of fertilizer per liter of water is doubled. If necessary, a third feeding is also carried out a few days before planting on the garden. The proportions are the same as for the first.

Before planting cabbage, it must be well tempered. To do this, she is taken out daily for several hours in the open air and under open sunlight. The first takeaway is done for an hour, and then the time is increased. Before disembarking, you can leave the boxes for the whole day. Watering is stopped a week before transplanting to the garden, but in no case should the plants be allowed to wither.

Growing your own seedlings is a troublesome business, but it fully justifies itself. Only in this way can you get strong and healthy seedlings of a certain variety, as well as harden it well and properly prepare it for planting in open ground. Often, when buying a ready-made crop on the market, we notice that it is sick for a long time, does not take root well and does not subsequently give the proper harvest. Yes, and you can miss the mark. You can grow your own seedlings according to all the rules, harden and get the best result in terms of yield. Yes, and it initially looks much better than the purchased one.