How I became a gardener or a lyrical and philosophical introduction. Garden debut: useful tips for beginning vegetable growers

Vernalization of seeds Keep the seeds for 3-4 days in a damp cloth at T=+15+20 until they swell. Then transfer to the refrigerator and keep at T = +15. Seeds of carrots, parsley, onions - 10-15 days, beets - 7-10 days, cabbage - 20-30 days.

Folk calendar Pavel and Varlaam - freeze-up. Snow on November 19 promises a snowy winter. A day later - Michaelmas, winter is getting back on its feet. If there is frost on Mikhail, wait for a thaw. Another day later - 23 - Erast, wait for the ice cold.

Cassava The thickened club-like invisible roots, rich in starch and other substances, are eaten. This is a shrub 1.5-5 m tall, with palmate leaves. From cassava tubers, cereals are obtained - tapioca, for baking muffins and cookies.

Sow pumpkins Remember? These are cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin. You can sow in a greenhouse with biofuel or a greenhouse as early as the 1st or 2nd decade of April. For open ground it will be ready in 3-4 weeks, and then cover it with film or lutrasil when planting.

Predecessors Good predecessors for tomatoes, peppers and early potatoes are onions, carrots, legumes, except beans, and green ones.
It is good to sow onions and garlic after cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower and early white cabbage, and early potatoes.

Don't try to freeze boiled potato slices; they will turn black and slimy. It is best to freeze potatoes as mashed potatoes.

Before packaging, the finished jam must be cooled for several hours. You can put jam from black currants, strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, in which the fruits are quickly soaked in sugar, into jars and hot.

February is a fierce month, he asks how you are wearing shoes. This is the windiest and blizzard month, but if it is cold and dry, a hot August is expected, but if it is rainy, spring and summer will be the same. In the old days, February Fridays were considered especially unlucky.

Open season
With the beginning of January, the season begins for gardeners who have provided lighting for green pets on the windowsills.
From January 5-10, you can start growing seedlings of cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers at home.

You need to look at the trees. If long dry branches of spruce and juniper bend, it means a blizzard, and if they straighten, it means good weather. A crow sits on the top and croaks in the morning - there will be a blizzard, but if by the end of the day the sky is covered with a foggy layer of transparent clouds, the weather will be good.

Epiphany frosts have arrived. if the weather is clear and cold - expect a dry summer, cloudy and snowy - there will be a harvest. On a starry night, good peas and an abundance of berries were expected.
On the 21st we monitored the wind: the south promises a stormy summer. On the 23rd, frost will fall on the haystacks - it will be a damp and cold summer. .

Dandelion jam Cut the lemons and cook for 10 minutes with dandelion flowers. Let it sit for a day. Strain the infusion, add sugar and cook until tender. Pour the jam hot and roll it up.
Dandelion heads - 400 g, lemons - 2 pcs., sugar - 1.5 kg, water - 1 l.

Dandelion flour Boil peeled and washed dandelion roots for 20-30 minutes, discard, dry, grind, sift.
Boil the roots, changing the water twice, rinse and dry again. Then fry in the oven, grind and sift.

Signs of spring People have noted that on March 12, the day of Vasily the Dropper, there is often a thaw. The next day, the 13th, they watch the circles around the trees melt: if the edges are steep, then spring will be steep, and if they are flat, expect a protracted spring.

In March he sows greens for seedlings - basil, and in the southern regions it has already grown, chervil, lettuce, dill, watercress, spinach, mustard greens can be sown; in the sunny south, open ground beds are already ready for them.

We sow onions in March From the second half of March, seeds of leeks and onions are sown to produce turnips in one year. 8-10 hours before sowing, the seeds should be kept in warm water for 8-10 hours and dried until they flow well.

Let's speed up...
Snow melting. To do this, sprinkle it with dark substances - ash, peat, earth, and cover this area with a film on arcs or spandbond (lutrasil) without arcs
The earth will warm up faster, so you can sow green vegetables and radishes earlier.

Borago on the table
1. Garnish. Blanch the leaves, chop, salt, season with sour cream, mayonnaise or tomato sauce, sprinkle with herbs.
2. Candied flowers. Dip borage flowers into syrup, boil, cool and dry. For 0.5 kg of flowers - 350 g of sugar and 150 ml of water.

Bedbugs are our friends
The largest of them, the light gray Hiacerus, can destroy 5 young caterpillars in an hour, hitting them with its proboscis. The blue bug is even more active; on its proboscis it carries away live prey that is several times its weight.

February 6 Aksinya - half bread, half winter. Turning point of winter: winter grain lay in the ground for half the time before germination. Half the bread has been eaten, half the time is left until new bread. Like Aksinya, so is spring: in the half-winter season a bucket is a red spring, and if a blizzard sweeps the road, it sweeps away the food.

Meet and master new cultures. Try it - you'll like it. Every month you can sow watercress, borage, and lovage. Hyssop and basil, mint and savory, kale and tarragon, rosemary, fennel, marjoram, purslane, etc. grow beautifully on the window.

April-Bloom is a surprisingly joyful month; in April the first flowers bloom, and the bright sun is already noticeably warming up. The rivers are overflowing. Water is the blood of the earth, as peasants believed since ancient times. April with water - May with grass, wet April - good arable land.

Is the soil ready?
To determine this, take a handful of earth from deep in the soil, squeeze it into a ball and throw it. If the lump evenly falls apart, the soil is ready for sowing; if the lump remains intact, there is still too much moisture in the soil, and if it crumbles, the soil is already dry.

I decided to start small. That is, I have not yet become a wealthy farmer who knows that to refuel a walk-behind tractor, lawn mower and other appliances, diesel fuel must be delivered. I decided to limit myself to the potato plot for now. Fortunately, anyone can rent it from us, if only they had a couple of hundred rubles. Well, what is a couple hundred? It's the same as several kilograms of potatoes. So I thought and went to the chairman of the gardening cooperative. A pleasant middle-aged woman gave me a plot of land that had been fertilized two years ago, but last year it was only half cultivated. I thought it was no big deal. But it is fertilized.

You need to plant potatoes along a string

My husband and I dug up this plot, bought several buckets of potatoes and went to plant. Smart people, our neighbors, planted on a string. As it turned out later, they were also holding the plot for the first year, and also because they were afraid of the prices in the stores. Many of you will probably ask what it means to “plant on a string.” This is when they stretch a rope from one end of the future row to the other, and then dig holes, focusing on it, five to ten centimeters apart, trying not to touch the rope, otherwise the row will begin to “dance.” But we learned about this later, much later.

After a few weeks, our potatoes grew bigger and we decided to hill them. This is where we noticed a huge difference between the slenderness of our potato rows and the slenderness of our neighbors’ potato rows. Next year, according to our mutual decision with my husband, we will use a rope. And what? All you need is a rope and two pegs.

Row spacing

I would also like to advise future gardeners to pay attention to the distance between the rows. It should be enough so that you don’t chop the potatoes when hilling. And at the same time, it shouldn’t be huge, because, firstly, it’s a waste of land that you dug up, cultivated and fertilized (in general, you spent a lot of effort and time), and secondly, imagine how much I'll have to weed it! It would be better to plant potatoes in place of the weeds. Well, I’m just kidding, don’t be alarmed.

If someone, like us, decides to start a garden life, then feel free to go for it. There's nothing wrong with that.

How many vegetables should I plant? Subject “We buy seeds” is replenished with new messages “at the speed of light”, at the same time our heads “swell” with “wants” and “misunderstandings”. I really want to plant “everything at once and more.” Is it worth doing this?
If you are a beginner gardener, you do not have a greenhouse/greenhouse, if your plot is not at the latitude of Rostov-on-Don, then you should not “bother” with peppers and eggplants, melons and watermelons - they simply will not ripen.
If you are new to “gardening”, then you should not “first” grow “capricious” tomatoes, celery, leeks, etc. You will still have time to grow them later, when you “gain experience”….
On the eve of the new summer season, many of us make “devastating raids” on stores, buying “everything” there. First we are tormented by the question: “where to plant all this,” and then: “how to eat it all.” Is this a familiar picture?
I have already mentioned more than once the need to plan plantings - “every vegetable must know its place,” and you must calculate the number of vegetables (and seeds, respectively) you need.
If the garden is not a “source of food” for you, and you want to grow vegetables to “eat your own” and “put some in jars,” then you should not buy “tons” of seeds and plant “hectares” with them.
There are approximate calculations of the number of vegetables to be planted (usually calculations are given for a family of 4 people), but such calculations will always be “approximate”, because someone “leans” on potatoes/cabbage, someone on pumpkin/zucchini, and someone on “greens”.
Here is a calculation, for example, presented in the newspaper “Gardener”:

For normal life, a person must consume at least 130 kg of vegetables, 100 kg of potatoes and 31 kg of melons per year. If we specify these figures, then in the total annual norm of vegetable consumption the share of cabbage will be 34, tomatoes - 25, carrots - 20, cucumbers - 11, beets and onions - 8 each, green crops - 3-7, eggplants - 2-5, green peas – 3, sweet pepper – 1-3 kg.
To provide himself with such an amount of produce, a person needs to allocate 50 m2 of land for planting potatoes, carrots, beets and legumes - 9 each, cucumbers, zucchini and pumpkins - 8, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants - 7.5, other vegetables - 2, 5 m2. In total, an area of ​​86 m2 will be required, and for a family of four to five people – 350-450 m2. Often the area occupied by a vegetable garden is significantly less than the given standards, but even in a small area you can grow a significant assortment of crops if you master the necessary knowledge and skills.

And I made this calculation for my family (3 people).

In a garden with a total area of ​​48 m2 I plant:
-carrots for ~4 m2 - 1 packet of seeds,
- beets for ~1.6 m2 - 1/2 bags of seeds,
- bush beans for ~4.8 m2 - 1/2 bags of seeds = 10 bushes (I buy 2 varieties),
- ground cucumbers for ~4 m2 - 2 bags of seeds = 20 bushes (I buy 4-5 varieties),
- zucchini/zucchini for ~4.8 m2 - 1 bag each = 3 zucchini + 3 zucchini,
Onions per 4 m2-1.0 kg sets,
Winter garlic for ~7.5 m2-1.0 kg of garlic from “vegetable departments of stores”,
Greens (dill, cilantro, leaf parsley, lettuce)/radishes for ~1.6 m2 - 1 bag each,
Peas for ~0.8 m2 - 1/2 bags.

The seeds that I use incompletely are left for the next seasons (if expiration date allows).
The harvest from my mini-vegetable garden is enough for us to “eat to our heart’s content” and “roll up in jars” (we also “pack our bags” for the guests who visit our dacha almost every week).
For example, with the 2008 harvest, “the cellar was full”:

-15 3-liter jars of “Bulgarian” cucumbers,
-20 kg. pickled barrel cucumbers,
-40 800-gr. cans of vegetable salads of the "hunter/lecho" type,
-10 500-gr. jars of pickled garlic,
-10 liter jars of pickled zucchini,
-30 liter jars of pickled beans.

I haven’t planted tomatoes before (we don’t really like them and I don’t have a greenhouse), but this year I’ll try to grow 8-10 bushes in a bed “under the film.” I now have a “temporarily free” place on the plot, besides, my late grandmother always grew tomatoes “just in the garden” (south of the Moscow region). I have already bought seeds of early-ripening tomato hybrids for open ground, zoned for cultivation in the northwestern regions of the Russian Federation, and will try to grow them.
Due to the lack of a greenhouse, I do not plant peppers and eggplants.
Due to the “trouble” of growing, I do not plant leeks, root/petiole celery, etc.
Due to “modest consumption” I do not grow cabbage and potatoes. (I buy 2 bags of potatoes and 25/30 kg of cabbage (for sourdough) from a village neighbor in the fall).

This information will be useful not only to those who decided to acquire beds for the first time, but also to experienced gardeners: remembering the basics is always a good idea. And those who have already harvested the first early harvest can carry out repeated sowings, selecting the appropriate early ripening crops.

It is better to sow peas (unlike heat-loving beans) early, as soon as it is possible to cultivate the soil.

There are two main groups of peas - shelling and sugar peas. Shelling varieties are grown for green peas, which are suitable for canning, while sugar varieties are grown for producing unripe beans (shoulders). Mostly unripe seeds of brain varieties are used for food.

Sowing

Before sowing, pea seeds are subjected to air-thermal heating, which activates germination energy, germination, and subsequently promotes the growth and development of plants. Seeds are sown at a distance of 4-5 cm in a row and 18 cm between rows. The depth of seed placement is 3-5 cm (on chernozems), 8-10 cm (on sandy soils). You need to sow the seeds in generously watered furrows, literally in the dirt, mulching with loose soil on top.

Features of cultivation

Pea seedlings tolerate light frosts, but suffer greatly from extreme heat and dry winds.

Our advice:

For tall varieties of peas (asparagus varieties reach a height of 2.5 m), it is necessary to install a trellis.

Peas bear fruit even in semi-shaded areas of the plot, being content with sunlight for only 6-8 hours a day. Flowering begins 30-55 days after sowing. The pods can be collected “on the shoulder” 8-12 days after flowering - the pods of sugar varieties remain juicy at this time, and the seeds are just beginning to form. Green peas are harvested 12-15 days after flowering. It is very important to remove ripened pods in time to give others the opportunity to ripen faster.

What should you know?

• In dry weather, the beans crack and the seeds fall off, and in damp weather they are affected by fungal diseases.
• Pea varieties are cross-pollinated, so if you want to maintain the purity of the variety and obtain seeds for subsequent sowings, place beds with different varieties of peas at a distance of at least 25 m.

Beans are more demanding of light and heat than peas, so they are sown in well-lit fertile beds when the soil has already warmed up sufficiently.

There are also varieties of beans: asparagus (they are eaten at the stage of young, non-coarsened blades) and grains. Grain beans are less demanding to care for.

If you want to grow a delicacy, choose asparagus bean varieties. They will serve as a constant source of vitamin products until the autumn frosts.

Our advice:

If you do not have the opportunity or desire to install supports for climbing beans, choose bush varieties.

Sowing and cultivation features

Beans are sown with seeds previously soaked in a bright pink solution of potassium permanganate (overnight for morning sowing, 7-8 hours in the afternoon for evening sowing). Sow in a row according to the pattern 45x20-25 cm for climbing varieties and 25-30x10-15 cm for bush varieties. The seeding depth is 3-4 cm. Shoots appear 4-6 days after sowing. At the stage of the first true leaf, the seedlings are thinned out. During the growing season, the soil in the rows and inter-rows is loosened 3-4 times, removing weeds.

What should you know?

• Beans are a fairly drought-resistant crop, but in dry years they require watering.
• Beans, like peas, are an excellent precursor for most vegetable crops; they enrich the soil with nitrogen.

Be sure to sow very healthy and unpretentious spinach. It is sown in the spring as a precursor for late-planted heat-loving vegetables, in the summer after harvesting early-ripening crops, extending the sowing until mid-August.

Sowing

It is advisable to carry out the first sowing as early as possible, and subsequent sowings every 20-30 days. Spinach seeds are soaked in clean water for 1-2 days at room temperature, then dried until flowable. The seeding depth is 2-3 cm on heavy soil and 4 cm on light soil.

Our advice:

It is convenient to sow spinach in ribbons with seeds glued with starch paste: 2-3 cm in a row and 15-18 cm between rows.

Features of cultivation

After sowing, it is advisable to roll the soil so that it settles and mulch with peat or humus. Shoots appear in 7-12 days. 2-3 days after the emergence of seedlings, the row spacing is loosened and the seedlings are thinned, leaving a distance of 4-5 cm between them. The second and subsequent thinnings are carried out as the plants grow. Care consists of timely loosening the soil and removing weeds.

In dry and hot weather, watering is required. In dry soil and at high temperatures, spinach begins to bolt.

Depending on the variety, technical ripeness of spinach occurs 14-35 days after emergence. They remove selectively - the most powerful plants, tearing them out entirely, or the most developed leaves from different plants, carefully cutting them off so as not to damage the remaining ones.

What should you know?

• Fresh spinach does not store well, so it should be removed immediately before use.
• It can be prepared for future use, as it is perfectly preserved frozen.

Our advice:

If you like the variety of spinach you grow, leave a few plants to bloom and collect the ripening seeds in time.

Zucchini or zucchini

Also, be sure to sow zucchini or zucchini, and 45-65 days after germination you will receive a harvest.

Features of cultivation

Zucchini You can grow seedlings, one plant at a time, in cups and plant them immediately with a clod of soil, without disturbing the root system. In open ground, seeds are sown according to the pattern 80x80 or 100x100 cm, 2-3 seeds per nest. The seeding depth is 1-2 cm. Shoots appear 7–10 days after sowing.

When the first true leaves appear, the seedlings are thinned out, leaving one of the most powerful plants in the nest.

Basic care is timely removal of weeds and loosening of the soil. In dry and hot summers, plants are watered generously with warm water at the roots 1-2 times a week, avoiding getting it on the leaves.

What should you know?

• Zucchini prefer organically rich soils with a high nitrogen content.
• Zucchini They are even more demanding not only of soil, but also of light, heat, and moisture. When shaded, their pollen does not ripen and the number of ovaries sharply decreases. But zucchini also has a great advantage - the phase of the beginning of seed formation in the fruit occurs 1.5-2 weeks later than that of zucchini, so the pulp retains its delicate texture for a long time.
• Young fruits remain in the refrigerator for up to two months, mature ones are stored until spring. You can prepare the same dishes from them as from zucchini, and use the seeds like pumpkin seeds.

Our advice:

If you want to get zucchini and zucchini seeds, leave the smoothest and most beautiful fruit for full ripening. Then select the seeds, rinse them from the pulp and dry them, and prepare a stew or caviar from the juicy, tasty pulp.

What is a garden without beets? It will take 60–85 days to grow long-term root crops for winter storage.

Sowing

Seeds are sown in open ground from the third decade of April until the end of June. Therefore, if you did not have time to sow beets early, do not be upset, you still have time. In addition, root crops formed during summer sowing are more juicy, sweeter and better stored.

It should be taken into account that when sowing in June, plants need frequent watering.

To speed up the emergence of seedlings, soaked seeds are sown as soon as single roots appear. Sowing is carried out in a row method according to the pattern 30x8-12 cm. The depth of seeding is 1-1.5 cm.

Features of cultivation

Beet shoots appear in 7-12 days. They are thinned out starting from the phase of the 1st true leaf, gradually increasing the distance between plants, until the beginning of the root formation phase. After thinning, it is advisable to water, and then loosen the soil and lightly hill up the plants.

Our advice:

Removed plants can be used as seedlings by planting them for growing, and the green leaves are suitable for making salad.

The main techniques for caring for plants are removing weeds, loosening the soil and watering. Beets are harvested selectively when the root crops reach a diameter of 3-3.5 cm. And there is no need to rush into harvesting root crops intended for storage; they grow intensively in the fall, reaching standard sizes.

Mass harvesting of root crops is carried out before the first autumn frosts; even at a temperature of -1 ° C they are damaged and poorly stored. Dig up beets in dry weather. The leaves are cut 1-1.5 cm above the head of the root crop; the main and lateral roots are not cut off. Root vegetables are stored at a temperature of 1-3 °C in basements or other rooms, laying them in layers in small boxes and sprinkled with sand.

Our advice:

Beetroot seeds can be obtained if in the spring you plant healthy and smooth beet roots preserved in the cellar or purchased at the market. It is necessary to shorten its central root by a third and plant it in a bed with fertile soil; in the summer, follow basic agricultural practices - water and feed.

What should you know?

Beetroot is a cold-resistant and fairly shade-tolerant plant. Therefore, if you have an empty plot where there is only 6 hours of sunlight a day, sow beets on it - it will be comfortable and cozy there.

The familiar and familiar carrot can become a “miniature pharmacy” in your garden. The timing of its sowing depends on the purpose of the product.

Sowing late-ripening varieties in June will allow harvesting for winter storage, and to obtain early bunched products, early-ripening carrot varieties are sown before winter (October - November).

Sowing

In the spring, the soil in the garden bed is well leveled, before sowing the seeds, they are rolled (compacted), rows are marked and furrows are made: for early varieties - at a distance of 15-20 cm, for mid- and late-ripening varieties - 20-25 cm. Sow only in moist soil. The seeding depth is 1-1.5 cm. After sowing, the soil is lightly compacted again and mulched with dry soil (0.5 cm layer). When sowing with rolling, seedlings appear on the 8–10th day, and without it - on the 18–21st.

Features of cultivation

The seedlings are thinned out at the stage of the first true leaf, leaving the plants at a distance of 3-6 cm from each other. Further care consists of timely removal of weeds, loosening the soil and watering. During the growing season, the soil is loosened 2-3 times, as well as after each rain or watering.

What should you know?

• To avoid the appearance of green, bitter-tasting heads on root vegetables, carrots must be lightly hilled during weeding.
• It is advisable to plant onions in the spaces between carrot rows; it will protect the plants from carrot flies.

White cabbage

White cabbage can be grown either through seedlings or by sowing seeds in open ground - at a distance of 30-45 cm in a row, with row spacing of 70 cm. Depending on the variety, the harvest can be obtained in 65–100 days.

Features of cultivation

Throughout the growing season, cabbage requires high soil and air humidity. But it cannot tolerate waterlogging of the soil, especially for a long time, and the roots begin to die or a dangerous disease develops - bacteriosis. Therefore, in wetlands, cabbage should be planted on ridges or high ridges.

Care consists of timely watering, removing weeds and loosening the soil. Cabbage is harvested when the heads of cabbage reach the color and size characteristic of the variety.

You should not be late in harvesting cabbage, as the heads of cabbage may crack.

What should you know?

• Cabbage is a tasty morsel for insect pests and slugs, but this is not a reason to refuse the opportunity to try growing it.
• To protect seedlings from insects, soak them overnight before planting in open ground in an actara solution.
• Hyssop or mint planted around the perimeter of cabbage beds will protect you from slugs.

In your first vegetable garden, you can try growing these basic crops and many others, depending on your tastes. With some plants you will get a good harvest, with others you may fail. But never give up! Remain curious, active, look for answers to questions, master the agricultural techniques of failed plants again and again - and you will definitely succeed. Good luck to you and a fruitful season!

Svetlana Vnukova, p. Russian Tishki, Kharkov region.
© Ogorodnik magazine
Photo: depositphotos.com, © Gennady Marichev

In the Far Far Away Kingdom, the Green State, somewhere in the territory of the post-Soviet space, there lived a peasant, and he had a vegetable garden. The garden was small - only six acres. For a long time, the gardener grew various vegetables on it so that he would have vitamins on his table: cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers... But at some point he began to notice that his neighbors had taller bushes and brighter greens, and they are growing better and better. The gardener began to think: why do his plants suffer from diseases, or from all sorts of pests, or are they somehow oppressed?

The gardener thought and thought, but could not come up with anything, and then he went to the neighbors for advice. Their relationship was good, the neighbors were sympathetic people, they always shared with the gardener if they brought any new items to their plots.

First I went to my neighbor. The gardener’s neighbor was a healer who treated people for all sorts of ailments. She seems to be busy all day, but her garden is in complete order. How does everything work out so magically for her? Our gardener was a simple man, so he directly asked his neighbor:

“How is it that everything grows on its own in your garden, but you hardly appear there?” The healer did not hide her secret, she says:

“I know a good spell, so I use it. If you want, try it. We need to go out into the garden early in the morning and say the cherished words: “Grow my garden-vegetable garden, like paradise, take care, Lord, my garden of paradise! Amen". And then cross yourself three times and bow to all the beds. And when you bow, take note: where is a blade of grass, and where is a harmful bug. When it’s cold, you’ll take them away, sleepy, and everything will be fine.”

I didn’t torment myself with doubts for long and went to a neighbor. And this neighbor was a distinguished agronomist, he worked chiefly in public fields for many decades, and now he supplies all the nearby villages with seedlings. He came and said: “Ivanovich, tell me, do you have a secret, how from a simple ordinary gardener who digs in the beds all day, but gets a poor harvest, to become a real plant grower, a Gardener with a capital G? Just tell me everything in a simple way, otherwise everything in books is too abstruse.”

Ivanovich had a free hour, and then he shared his experience with his neighbor:

“You see, neighbor, the thing here is this: plants love care, you need to create the conditions for them - prepare the ground-feather bed, then put the seeds on it, and then fulfill all the requirements so that your bushes grow powerful, healthy.

You need to know a lot of things and give the sprouts in time while they grow, so that they will answer you gratefully with the harvest. Look, you sowed the seeds, waited for them to sprout, but it’s still early - it’s dark and cold outside. They crawled out from under the dugout blanket and died of fright. It's a pity! You spent money - you bought seeds, your labor - you prepared the land, sowed, watered, time has passed - after all, new plantings may not grow on time, and you will be left without a harvest.

In general, I believe that the main thing in our gardening business is to grow seedlings correctly. But now I’ll tell you how to do it.
First of all, you need to decide how you will grow these seedlings.

And there are two ways: slow and fast. Slow is when you plant seeds in January, wait for them to sprout, and then lower the temperature so that they don’t grow, or deprive them of moisture. In my opinion, this is a cruel way. Why torment a plant if it is too early for it to vegetate? The second method is better, I think so. This means that you can plant the seeds in the ground at the end of February - March, and then give it a lot of water, and the optimal temperature - as much as science teaches, and more light.”

Here our gardener interrupted the specialist: “How can we get more light? Isn’t spring sun enough for them?”

Ivanovich grinned:
“You surprised me, neighbor! It seems like you’ve been living in the world for many years, haven’t you noticed that there are few sunny days in spring? And the day is still short. Our seedlings need more, much more. Just remember: when you married your daughter, what kind of spring did we have? That's right, cloudy. Not a single clear day all spring. And how can the unfortunate sprouts cope under such conditions? They stretched out, thin and weak, just like a skinny person - pale green. But if you had illuminated them correctly, your work would not have been wasted by the black leg.

And I especially want to tell you about the light. He, too, can be different. An ordinary electric light bulb produces orange, and mercury lamps, which all greenhouses were previously equipped with, produce purple. By the way, violet light is harmful to humans; the eyes get tired of it quickly, so if you are going to grow seedlings in a window, it is better not to use mercury lamps. And here, again, about the window. Dirty windows consume up to 50% of the light. Ask your landlady to wash it, then you’ll save on electricity bills.

Yes, here’s something else you need to know about light. It’s not for nothing that I started talking about the color of light. Everyone knows that plants need moisture, light, minerals and air to grow. If all these components are present, photosynthesis proceeds normally: plants breathe, taking carbon dioxide from the air, roots absorb moisture, sunlight gives them the necessary energy, causing a reaction that results in the formation of glucose and the release of oxygen.

For normal growth, plants need light in the orange-red and blue-violet spectrum - red rays accelerate plant development, and blue rays promote vegetative growth. And if there is not enough light, the plant begins to pull nutrients from the seed reserves, and when they run out, it dies. Both an excess of red rays (growth slows down, stems become thin and long) and a deficiency (plants stop growing) are harmful.

Special phytolamps provide the necessary light; you can buy them. Ask the sellers which ones are better. I chose lamps for myself a long time ago, built a whole system: regular, LD, and LB. In this composition, all my plants receive the light they need, including the corresponding color spectrum, and do not overheat, as when grown under conventional incandescent lamps. Here, by the way, is one of the mistakes gardeners make: if you illuminate plants only with such lamps, they overheat and become very stretched.

I'll teach you how to make a window sill installation. Take three LB lamps, one LD lamp and 4 incandescent lamps with a power of 40 watts, that is, one incandescent lamp for each fluorescent lamp. Each lamp in this installation provides them with very useful light: incandescent lamps are red, LB lamps are green, and LD lamps are blue. Hang incandescent lamps higher so that the air temperature at the level of fluorescent lamps is no higher than 35°.
It turns out cheap and cheerful.

But if you later start teaching someone richer, then say that it’s still better to buy phytolamps, even though they are more expensive. And here’s what’s important: after six months of use, any lamps produce half as much light, so they need to be changed every year. Write this down in your expense notebook.

To ensure uniform lighting, you need to place the lamps on top of the plants, but so that they do not interfere with care. With side lighting, plants stretch towards the light source, so you need to place lamps on both sides.”

The gardener listened to the agronomist, said a warm goodbye to him, returned home, inspired, and decided to install what Ivanovich described on his windowsill and check it out. As soon as the pension was brought, he immediately went to the store to buy lamps. And there is a huge choice: it’s dizzying. The gardener himself could not decide, and turned to the seller for help.

The seller was talkative and, apparently, not indifferent to gardening matters:

We have a large selection. There are Russian lamps, there are Polish and German ones. There are ordinary incandescent lamps, and there are halogen incandescent lamps, there are fluorescent lamps, and there are special phytolamps. Which ones do you want?

I need to finish lighting the seedlings... - the gardener was embarrassed.

Then incandescent lamps are not suitable for you, because they produce too much heat, and mercury lamps are not suitable either - they are too expensive to use.

Plant growers have long been using white light lamps - LB and daylight lamps LD, but they have too much blue in their spectrum, so they can only be used in combination with others, for example, incandescent lamps.

Of the imported general-purpose fluorescent lamps, the most suitable for floriculture are lamps with color markings from 830 to 965. The best for gardeners are phytolamps. Thanks to the built-in mirror reflector, which allows all the light to be directed to the plants, they provide illumination over a very large area - 2 m from the hanging lamp. This is much more convenient than conventional luminescent ones, which must be placed at a distance of only 20 cm from the plants, and then constantly moved away from the growing seedlings. In addition, they are very economical.

Polish phytolamps with a power of 40, 60 and 100 watts are absolutely identical to ordinary mirror lamps, have exactly the same base and are screwed into a regular socket. Their value lies in the special layer applied to the glass of the lamp, a relatively long service life (3-4 times longer than incandescent lamps), and also in the fact that they practically do not heat up, and therefore do not cause overheating of nearby plant leaves.

German lamps are good - they are specially designed for growing seedlings, their power ranges from 15 to 60 watts. And if you have a lot of seedlings, a whole greenhouse, then you can use powerful (50-600 watt) lamps, they give up to 20% more growth.

The gardener chose one lamp and everything needed for the installation described by the agronomist, brought everything home, installed it, and sowed the seeds.

And he thought: “Why didn’t I ask Ivanovich how long to add additional lighting, when to start, how much light to give? I’ll go again for a consultation”...

The neighbor was happy:
- Hello, experimenter! I’m waiting for you, I’ve prepared some materials - I knew you’d come back. Here's a reminder for you to start with. Hang it in a visible place. Now ask your questions.

I wanted to ask, when will it be time to turn on the lamps?

It's simple. Most garden plants - like tomatoes, eggplants, celery - need to be illuminated from the very moment they emerge from the ground. In the first few days, lighting should be provided around the clock. But pepper only needs 12 hours. You will see for yourself when it is possible to reduce the amount of light, at which time the plants will become strong and fluffy. Such plants will already be able to cope with possible unfavorable conditions on their own.

“Thank you,” said the gardener. - He told everything very sensibly and clearly. Now let's see what the harvest will be...

After making the decision, our gardener not only sat and watched the seedlings grow. Sometimes he went out into the garden and watched what his neighbor was doing, noted everything and repeated after him: the neighbor was preparing the beds, and so was the gardener, the neighbor was spraying the weeds that had just emerged with Roundup, and the gardener did not think this activity was unnecessary.
So they did everything together, at the same time: they planted the seedlings, watered them, and fed them.
And when the time came to harvest, the gardener calculated: for each square meter the harvest was 40-45% more than in previous years. “Profitable!” - thought the gardener, and one day a neighbor, seeing him in the garden, said: “Petrovich, I see that you have taken up your garden seriously and have now become a real Gardener!”

This is where our fairy tale ends, and whoever read it to the end, let us remind you: “The fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it!”

REMINDER
* If seedlings are grown on a windowsill, then the window glass must first be washed on both sides.

* When growing seedlings under artificial lighting conditions, its duration should be 12-18 hours.

* If the seedlings stretch out too much, then there is no need to let them “sleep” - the lamps are not turned off for 24 hours.

* To partially reflect light, you can use various screens - sheets of plywood or hardboard, painted white or covered with foil.

* The use of mirrors gives good results; it is especially convenient to use mirrors from old powder compacts - they are easy to attach and can be oriented in the desired direction.