The enthusiasm of summer residents knows no bounds, and often summer cottage gurus generously share their ideas on sowing and growing seedlings.
The main arguments are: cheapness, ease of use, benefits (sometimes dubious) for future shoots. While there is time, it is better to buy ready-made containers or collect sour cream cups.
Anastasia Kovrizhnykh , an expert of the online publication "BelNovosti", an agronomist and landscape designer, told us what advice on growing seedlings should not be trusted.
The most harmful advice
We will talk about rolls of toilet paper (aka cardboard tubes).
Once the paper runs out, all that remains is to throw away the tube, but summer residents are offered to make a container out of it for sowing seeds.
Everything would be fine, but the cardboard container quickly becomes soggy and moldy, which is why the immature seedlings have to be replanted.
Something similar happens with chicken egg trays.
It is also better to immediately abandon the idea of growing seedlings in citrus peels, eggshells or tea bags.
Why not?
This is because at such moments, gardeners do not think at all about the fact that the development of the future sprout depends on the volume of the container in which it grows.
Ideally, for most garden crops, use containers 10-12 cm high.
If we talk about examples, peppers need a container with a volume of 0.7 liters per root.
For eggplants, it is recommended to choose cups with a capacity of 1 liter, and for tomatoes, 0.5 liters for open ground (0.7 liters for greenhouses).
Other crops, such as cucumbers, squash and melons, can be grown in containers with a capacity of 0.4 liters.
Expert: Anastasia Kovrizhnykh
