The use of peat pots for seedlings has been practiced in our country for more than 20 years. This product has many advantages; its value is known not only to gardening fans, but also ordinary people from the countryside.
Self-disintegrating pots extend the growing season of plants that make up the assortment of vegetation in gardens and vegetable gardens.
In fact, the idea is extremely simple:
There, after some time, it disintegrates into microparticles (disposable, without the possibility of reusing it);
IMPORTANT. Do not try to “dig up” the pots after the plant has taken root in the ground. You may damage the root system. There is no need to worry about peat residues - after a few rains they will completely dissolve in the soil.
Natural materials for seedlings in such a situation are a fundamental solution. Obviously, the inventors solved the problem of protecting the soil from harmful chemicals. They succeeded. Moreover, the material itself is beneficial for the surrounding soils and additionally fertilizes them.
When it comes to making choices, the average person is always trying to weigh the pros and cons. The same thing happens with peat pots. The question is especially of interest to beginners who have recently begun to master the intricacies of gardening and vegetable gardening.
The advantages of peat containers include the following properties:
Are there any disadvantages? No matter how hard you try, finding them is not so easy. Here are some reasons to think:
IMPORTANT. Avoid buying goods from dubious stores. Counterfeits have appeared on the market. Use only the services of stores and specialized retail outlets. Give preference to reputable brands.
IMPORTANT. Buy products with wall thicknesses from 1 to 1.5 mm. It's optimal. It is quite durable at the growing stage, but decomposes quite quickly when placed in the ground.
Please note that stores sell products that have two main features:
IMPORTANT. The shape of the pots does not play a special role. There are products in the form of a truncated pyramid (ribbed sides), and others in the form of a truncated cone (round smooth sides). The differences are nothing more than the difference in stamping molds in production.
Basic Rules:
IMPORTANT. When the plants get stronger and increase in size, the pots should be moved apart from each other. This way you will improve aeration and give the green foliage more light.
As soon as the time comes to plant plants in the ground, your actions:
IMPORTANT. The depth of the groove should be no less than the height of the peat pot. Ideally, 1.5-2 cm deeper.
The instructions given in this article are only general in nature. In each case, there will be nuances that you have to record, analyze and take into account. Using peat pots is incomparably more profitable than unprofitable. Without risking anything, you have a chance to improve the results of your gardening work.
Reading time: 6 minutes
You can provide yourself with healthy, strong and hardy seedlings by buying them at a spontaneous market or in a store, but it is better to grow them yourself. Moreover, the market offers a lot special means for growing seedlings.
This includes soil with a special composition that takes into account the needs of a particular plant, and cassettes, tablets, pots or cups for sowing or planting it. An undeniable advantage Growing vegetables through seedlings is low cost.
After all, buying already strong plants is much more expensive than purchasing seeds and sowing them. In addition, it is not always possible to find exactly the type of crop that you want to grow, but seeds provide an unlimited choice.
Peat pots are very convenient for sowing seeds.
An excellent option for dishes for sowing seeds or picking them are peat cups. They are natural material, promoting proper air exchange of the plant’s root system, as well as a kind of additional fertilizer.
To understand in more detail the advantages of using this particular type of container for sowing seeds, it is worth gleaning a little information about them. They are made from peat, cellulose and water, sometimes from peat, sawdust, cardboard and chalk.
On the market you can find peat products in the form of cups, pots or entire cassettes, with a certain number of cells. They are a great alternative wooden boxes, paper cups and especially plastic, which were favorites a few years ago.
Using peat cups for sowing or planting, there is no need to additionally feed plants with fertilizers, because they themselves are an excellent organic fertilizer. In addition, there is no need to replant or remove the plant before planting in.
open ground They are endowed remarkable property
Pros and cons of peat cups Dealing with everyone possible consequences from the use of peat dishes for growing seedlings, we can highlight:
Picked young seedlings.
Speaking about the negative aspects of using peat products, we can only highlight the following:
Considering the above, positive points There are many more utensils to use for this type of cookware, so it is definitely possible and even necessary to use them.
If you decide to grow vegetable or flower crops from seeds, peat cassettes, peat tablets or pots are best suited for this process. Any of them must be placed on a plastic tray or placed in another container to prevent water from leaking onto the windowsill.
Torfort tablets are an excellent option for initial stage growing seedlings. They are placed in any container in which the seeds will subsequently grow and filled with warm water. After a couple of seconds, they increase in size and become suitable for sowing. The seeds are placed in special holes and covered with 1-2 centimeters of peat mixture on top.
Thanks to this type the mixture practically does not retain excess moisture, and fungal infections are not harmful to crops. You can safely plant peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, cabbage and other vegetables in them. Flower crops, such as petunia and other crops that are not very fond of replanting, will also quite like peat tablets.
Photo of seedlings in peat cups.
Pots are more versatile, since there are an incredible number of their varieties. You can choose exactly the size that will fully satisfy the needs of a particular plant and will withstand the growth of its root system.
If you plan to grow cucumbers or watermelons, it is preferable to choose small pots, since the seedling will grow in it in splendid isolation. In addition, their root system is poorly developed; almost any minimum volume container (0.05 liters or 0.07 liters) can satisfy the needs of these crops.
Reference! Several years ago, some gardeners grew cucumber seedlings in intact eggshells. To do this, a hole was made in a raw egg, the contents were used for food, and the shell was allowed to dry. Next, it was filled with soil and seeds were sown. It was believed that it was able to saturate plants with calcium.
For plants that need to be picked, for example, tomatoes or peppers, it is better to purchase a larger pot (from 0.25 to 0.5 liters). Peppers and tomatoes favorable conditions for growing them, they grow stronger very quickly and their root system is quite developed. Therefore, the pot must support the plants themselves and give free rein to the development of the root system.
Naturally, in order to grow high-quality seedlings, you need to carefully select seeds. They must be of high quality, tested, and have consistent germination. You should also be picky when choosing soil; now in stores you can find ready-made soil mixtures designed to meet the needs of each individual plant. For unpretentious crops, you can get by with universal primer.
Additional illumination of seedlings on the balcony.
The container is filled with soil, not filling 1.5-2 centimeters to the top, lightly tamping, this can be done by lightly tapping on the table. Then put 2-3 seeds and sprinkle another 1 centimeter of soil. All filled or sown pots are sent to Plastic container, or pallet, install them in even rows. Then you need to thoroughly spray the soil with a spray bottle and cover with film or a container lid until shoots appear.
Advice! The seeded container can be placed in a warm and dark place and left there for about a week. This is the minimum period during which the first shoots can grow.
Having discovered the first shoots (even if it is the only one), you should immediately move the tray to the windowsill. Lack of light can greatly harm plants; they will stretch out and become weak.
Caring for seedlings involves regular watering and preventing the top layer of soil from hardening. Due to the fact that peat is porous, it is perfectly ventilated, so you can only moisten the soil with a spray bottle.
Having waited for the onset of warm nights in the region, you can safely begin the process of hardening off the plants. To do this, they are taken out into the air, first for 30 minutes, then for 1-1.5 hours, gradually increasing the intervals of their stay on the street. The final stage hardening can be considered an opportunity to leave the seedlings “overnight” under open air. If the plants survived the night, you can safely send them to grow in open ground.
Before planting in open ground.
Before planting strong, well-formed, and most importantly hardened seedlings, the cup must be lowered into warm water. When air bubbles stop appearing in the water, you can safely lower the pot into the prepared hole.
When regularly moistened, peat decomposes quite quickly, usually within 20-25 days not a trace will remain.
Considering the many advantages in using this type of product, it beneficial influence on plants and soil in general, the answer is clear: “Of course, yes!” It doesn’t matter at all what type of peat container you choose for your seedlings, the main thing is that it will really help you grow a beautiful, strong and healthy crop without any effort. special effort.
More than 10 years ago, multifunctional vessels for growing seedlings, called peat pots, began to be sold on the shelves of hardware stores. The convenient shape and reasonable price of the tanks instantly attracted the interest of people gardening, thereby ensuring a sharp demand for the product. Read about peat pots for seedlings and their use in this publication.
So, in this article we will tell you what peat cups for seedlings are. You can also learn how to use them. Since ancient times, the composition of products has included humus, cellulose and peat, which takes up 70% in high-quality containers. Sometimes lime or chalk is added to the composition to reduce acidity. Products are made using a press in molds with a radius of 10–20 cm. They can resemble a circle, trapezoid or square in appearance. The density of the walls is about 1–1.5 millimeters, thereby ensuring unhindered growth of roots.
The method of using vessels is quite easy: the plant is moved into the ground along with the pot. As a result, the root system is not negatively affected and the seedlings germinate well. To avoid rapid evaporation of moisture, it is necessary to place the pots completely in the ground, making holes in the vessel in advance. Some summer residents specifically dip containers in water, then remove the seedlings and move them into the ground along with the soil.
And now the moment has come to tell you how to use peat cups. Within a month, the vessel undergoes rotting and turns into fertilizer. Poor quality containers for sprouts take a long time to break down in the soil. This is due to the fact that some organizations use large volumes of thick cardboard that was under the press when making peat vessels. As a result, the young root is not able to grow through the glass. To avoid this, you need to make holes in the bottom of the glass.
Mode of application:
Planting in peat cups is not a complicated process. And now it’s worth revealing the details of this work. The bottom of the pot is filled with a drainage layer of pre-crushed eggshells. Next, add soil with nutrients, pre-washed with a solution of potassium permanganate. When laying the layer, do not overcompact the soil. For the root system to develop naturally, it must be airy. The soil is watered room temperature and plant the seeds. For prevention, the peat container is treated with an anti-fungal agent. Jars with seedlings should be at some distance from each other so that the roots do not become intertwined.
There are no weed seeds or pathogenic microflora in peat. When transferring seedlings from containers to soil, plant roots are not exposed to negative impacts. The pots split naturally, saturating the soil with peat. Convenient jars for sowing seeds. Landscaping of seedlings should begin in medium-sized square pots, and the grown plants, along with their containers, should be moved to larger round pots.
The only disadvantage of such pots is the rapid evaporation of water. It is for this reason that plants growing in them need to be watered more often than in plastic products. To avoid rapid evaporation of moisture, wrap with food foil or polyethylene. Peat containers are used on acidic or neutral soils, as well as when growing plants with brittle roots. For example, cucumbers, eggplants and tomatoes. You should not use similar forms for garlic seedlings, Chinese cabbage, onions and lettuce. You can choose peat pots for growing plants with strong roots, such as pumpkins.
Let's sum it up
After reading the article, you can tell us what peat pots for seedlings are and how to use them. You should grow seedlings using such glasses, because they have many advantages, one of them is their low price. However, many experts do not consider such pots useful; you can conduct the experiment yourself by planting some of the seedlings in peat cups and the other in ordinary plastic ones. At the end of the article, we want to wish you warm days and rich harvests in your garden beds.
Peat cups are a very convenient disposable container for growing vegetable and flower seedlings at home. Firstly, by planting plants immediately in separate containers, gardeners avoid picking that injures the roots. Secondly, the root system of seedlings remains unharmed when planted in open ground. Plants take root as quickly as possible in a new place and develop rapidly.
For the development of seedlings, it does not matter what the shape of the cups is, but this can play a role in the compactness of their placement. Gardeners recommend giving preference to divided cups rather than solid cassettes. The size of the pot is adjusted to the needs of the crop, as in all other cases.
Important Tip: When purchasing a glass for seedlings, make sure that it is really peat. Sometimes a cardboard cup, which has significant functional differences, is mistaken for peat. 
Do not confuse a peat cup for seedlings with a cardboard one.
There are no particular differences in the use of peat containers for growing seedlings. Here's what you need to do:
Prepare a nutrient substrate suitable for specific culture, pour it into a peat pot, lightly compact it, and moisten it.
Dig a hole in each cup, immerse the seeds and cover with soil.
Place all containers end-to-end on the stand.
When the roots of the seedlings begin to grow, the cups should be separated from each other a short distance so that the young sprouts receive more heat and light.
Make sure that the soil is always moist - watering can be done either from the top or from below through the stand.
It is good to water the seedlings 24 hours before planting in the greenhouse or greenhouse.
Place each cup in a dug hole either level with the ground surface or 1-2 cm below.
In the purchased cups, small holes are made in advance on all sides with an awl. This is necessary so that it is easier for the roots to break through. When growing seedlings, it is better to wrap each cup with plastic wrap. It is removed only immediately before planting the plant on permanent place.
Interesting trick: before filling the pot with substrate, soak it in the solution mineral fertilizer. What will it give? First, food for the plant. Secondly, accelerated decay in the ground. Also, the cup is often treated with a mold repellent. It is better to fill it with soil not to the very top, but 1.5 cm below. So, after moving to a permanent place, this space can be filled with soil from the beds so that the plant quickly gets used to the new conditions.
How many seeds do experienced gardeners put in each peat container? If there is no complete confidence in the seeds, then two or three, and if there is a guarantee that they will all sprout, then one. From several seedlings in a glass for further growth choose the strongest one. The rest pull out.
After moving the seedlings to a permanent place, there is no need to somehow try to dig up and remove the remains of the cup. It will dissolve on its own under the influence of water. You should not purchase peat pots for seedlings if you plan to use them next year. To do this, it is better to purchase a cheaper one plastic container. If you purchase a cassette that consists of several connected containers, they must be cut before planting.
And one more important advice, which is given to gardeners who are inexperienced in using peat cups by those who have been dealing with them for a long time - one should not take the quality of the container lightly. Low-quality peat pots do not decompose well in the ground after planting and may contain harmful impurities. Trust only trusted manufacturers. The experiment in this case can cost you dearly.
Have you not yet seen in practice how convenient it is to use peat cups for seedlings? How to use this the latest development in the field of agronomy you now know. What prevents you from personally seeing its merits and practical benefits?
Watch a video about sowing pepper seeds in peat cups
In order to enjoy vegetables in summer, already in winter you need to start preparing for the summer season and, first of all, you should grow good seedlings. Avid gardeners think about the future harvest all year round and purchase peat pots for seedlings much earlier and do this even in the fall.
Why are store-bought peat pots so convenient that even the most ardent conservative gardeners switch to them? How much work needs to be put into a garden on the windowsill in order to get decent seedlings of vegetables and flowers, so you don’t want to buy an unnecessary or low-quality item. Today on the agenda is how to choose the right pots for seedlings from peat and how to use this new product.
Peat pots for seedlings different sizes are suitable not only for sowing seeds for future seedlings, but also eliminate experienced gardener from the need to replant seedlings, they will transport it to country cottage area more convenient and practically safe.
Manufacturers supply the consumer market with many interesting devices and equipment for summer residents and gardeners. Not so long ago, peat pots for growing seedlings appeared and many people immediately liked them, so let’s get acquainted with them.
They are very successful due to many indicators. One of them is the light weight of each container and the ability to grow one sprout in a separate container. Also, the variety of sizes of such products gives comfort to summer residents.
Attention! In the ground, a peat pot almost completely decomposes in 25-35 days, and at the same time it somehow additionally fertilizes the soil. First of all, you should fork out for such peat pots when growing eggplants, cucumbers, pumpkins or zucchini, since the seedlings of these vegetable crops does not tolerate transplantation very well.
Peat pots for seedlings are considered environmentally friendly containers - they consist of 70% peat and 30% wood. These are more expensive than plastic ones, and they can only be used once.
Attention! Peat pots for seedlings are produced various sizes and forms. Thanks to this, you can choose a glass required size, taking into account individual characteristics each vegetable or flower crop.
How to transplant seedlings from a peat pot into the ground:
The advantages of using them are obvious:
Important! When purchasing this new product for you, you should pay attention to the packaging and manufacturer. This will allow you to buy a quality product made from peat, and not a cardboard cup. The cardboard is denser and pressed, but the original peat pot is quite fragile and has pores.
Besides positive feedback and characteristics, peat pots for seedlings also have some disadvantages:
Based on the above, we can conclude that peat pots for growing seedlings have both advantages and disadvantages. Yes, it’s more convenient with them, but for family budget It’s expensive, so everyone decides for themselves what is better and more comfortable for them.
