- Hello, and a very warm welcome back to the garden.
Now, the thing that we all have at the moment,
are loads of seedlings.
So in this video I just want to show you,
the way that I do seedling care
in terms of looking after them, watering them,
thinking about frost and pest.
I just hope you find it really useful.
(water splashing)
This video is going to feature both seedlings
in your raised beds,
but also the ones that are growing in modules and pots.
And the first thing I wanna talk about, is watering.
There were two ways of doing it.
The first is to go and give the seedlings
a really good, soaking like this.
And then come back around 10 minutes later
when the waters kind of worked through
and give it another soaking.
But there's actually a more effective method
of watering your seedlings.
The thing about watering your seedlings from the top down
is that it can be a little deceiving
'cause you might think it looks nice
and moist on the surface,
but then when it comes to transplanting
and you take the seedlings out you find that the soil
at the base is often pretty dry.
And there's a great way of actually preventing it.
And that's actually by watching from the bottom up.
So to use a compost as a wicking process,
to encourage the roots, to actually go down and grow deeper.
So by watering from the base,
what I'm doing here is I'm creating kind of roughly an inch
or 2.5 centimeter layer of water here in this tray.
And then I've got some broad beans here,
I'm going to place those in like that.
And then here, I've also got a load of pot marigolds.
I'm gonna place those in.
I'm going to use my phone and I'm going to create a timer
for around five or 10 minutes.
I'm just going to leave them in there,
the natural wicking process is going to draw
the moisture up through the compost
to ensure a really consistent watering.
And if you use this method more than just using
say a hose or something
what are you gonna do is you're going to encourage
your seedlings to develop a stronger root system.
They're going to go down, searching for the water
which means when you transplant them,
they already gonna have a really nice healthy root system
that is going to continue going down into the soil.
Because if you just water from the top,
and there's only moisture at the top,
the roots aren't gonna be encouraged to go down
because they want to go where the water is.
So by doing that, you're going to end up with creating
more resilient seedlings.
So if you have drought or dry weather,
with improved root systems using this method
they're going to be able to survive
and overcome this a lot more effectively.
Something that you can do to make this method
even more effective is to put a few drops
of fermented nettle juice.
It's a broad
spectrum mineral amendment that you can make.
So the idea of it being broad spectrum
is it provides all of the main nutrients that a plant needs.
So it gives you ability, for the roots to soak it up.
So if they're lacking a particular nutrient
it's one way to overcome this.
(footsteps pattering)
So the first couple of weeks,
of a seedlings life after you've transplanted it
is absolutely essential.
What you'll find in the first week,
they may not grow that much.
And it isn't that they've stopped growing,
it's that they've turned their focus
on developing the root structure
so they can properly settle into their new home.
And then they have a surge of growth.
And what you wanna do is make sure whenever
you're watering seedlings,
to try and do it as early on in the morning
as practically possible.
Just so the sun doesn't evaporate too much of the moisture.
Now, very often it's worth giving it an initial water,
and then coming back another five minutes
and going through and watering it again.
And that's just a really simple way to keep
on top of watering.
If you have seedlings in the ground
you might be wondering how do I know
that it's time to water them?
And it's really simple.
You're just going to go about an inch,
so two, three centimeters into the ground,
and if you can barely feel any moisture
it's a cue for you to give this a nice soaking.
One of the things I mentioned in the video
about starting seeds for modules, is the importance
of air pruning and why I always make sure with my shelves
that I use wire, so there's plenty of air flow underneath.
Now that along with using pots and modules,
with fairly large holes underneath like this
what happens is the roots get naturally pruned by the air.
So just like you prune a tree, you make a single cut
and it encourages a spurt of growth and lots of new
kind of a branching format, the same works in this instance.
So I'm just gonna pull this onion set up,
and you can see here, it has a beautiful root structure.
So when it hits the base, it naturally gets air pruned
and then encourages a load more roots to grow.
And what that does is that it increases the surface area
of the roots, which makes them more effective
at uptaking nutrients and also moisture.
So you're getting a healthier plant.
And then when you transplant it into the final growing space
you're gonna give it a lot better start its new home,
because it has that super healthy root structure
all in place.
So it's all set for a really successful season.
If you have an undercover growing area, such as a greenhouse
or a polytunnel, and then you also have something
like one of these where it's a mini greenhouse,
and it's got its protective cover,
chances are you're not gonna have to worry about frost.
Now, if you don't have this,
and you've got some modules undercover
there is a way of protecting these against frost.
And that's by using fleece.
Now ideally, try to avoid fleece
'cause this is basically made out of plastic
and you've got microfibers.
But the main thing is we've got it.
So we're going to try and use it up
after this little session,
I'm actually gonna show you
a great natural alternative to fleece.
So that's pretty exciting that there's just something
that I'm exploring and experimenting with.
So what you want is you wanna find
kind of a fairly wide piece,
and all you're gonna do is kind of tuck in the plants,
as if you're putting it to bad, but we just got to make sure
that you're covering right around just to stop the frost
from coming in.
This is one of our potato beds,
now potatoes are a tender crop.
They haven't come up yet
but I'm just gonna demonstrate,
how to correctly put down fleece.
Because, the issue with fleece
as if it actually touches the side of the plant
so frost can still get through
and you could still get damaged on the leaves.
So what you do instead, is you get a nice bit
of fleece pretty wide.
And what I've got here are a load of bits of bamboo
or sticks that I've put in and then to stop it from tearing
I'm actually putting over some plant pots.
So that means if it's a little bit windy
you're not going to tear the fleece,
because it's kind of fragile enough as it is.
So you're almost going to go up and tuck, these to bed.
What you're creating is kind of this bubble or this barrier.
The pots were sticks, lifting this up,
so it's not gonna be touching the leaves or the shoots.
And then you've got this insulated capsule.
And then the final thing you wanna do,
is use things like long bits of planks,
on the sides, rest them on the sides,
kind of pull it fairly taut as well
just so there's a nice air pocket underneath.
And that then means if it's going to be windy,
it's gonna keep the thing in place.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the issues
with fleece is that it contains plastic.
So if you're trying to go plastic free,
I'm experimenting at the moment
with the idea of using hassian or jute.
Now builders use this to protect new brick work from frost.
I've seen a few gardening blogs mention it.
Now, I think it would work
as long as you have a double layer.
And you will need to use this method with the pots
because it's a slightly heavier material.
And also remember to remove it in the mornings
unlike fleece, which you can actually leave on
for a few days, weeks, or even months.
So you can buy them and kind of rolls this,
just like you would for fleece.
And I'm now going to kind of cover these
over with a double layer.
I can now absolutely see this working as frost protection.
And the great thing is you can continuously add
more and more layers already.
It's looking pretty well-protected and it's just so nice
to have an alternative that doesn't involve any plastic
and you're using a natural fiber.
Now you can even use things like coffee bags,
or even a hessian leftover from building work.
So all I'm gonna do now is just use these bits
of wood just to hold it in.
So it'll stop any wind blowing it off,
but yeah a really easy simple, sustainable solution
that I think is gonna work amazingly.
Something that I feel has been a little over complicated
these days is the idea of hardening off seedlings.
Now for anything that is hardy, for example
onions, and broad beans.
Even though I start them undercover,
I don't harden them off.
I transplant them straight away.
They seem to do fine.
It's something that I've been doing for years.
And anything that's a tender plant
the number one thing that I do is actually just be patient
and make sure that I time all the transplanting and sowings
of my tender plants based on the last frost date.
Which means I don't actually have to worry too much
about frost protection.
And those I will harden off,
by taking outside maybe four or five days in a row
if thay're particularly sensitive, but more often than not.
I don't really bother, and things seem to do fine.
One of the things that's important about seedlings
is protecting them from pest.
And this is why I take the approach of trying to make
the garden as diverse as possible.
Then they've made a whole video talking
about the benefits of this.
ideally,
it's about preventing pest issues in the first place.
So if you want to learn more about free organic pest control
there'll be a video right here.
As a preference,
I actually like to grow my seedlings pretty big
before transplanting them.
So these peas here, they're gonna be growing
along this A-frame, but they're just a little bit too small.
I'll probably grow them on another
inch or three centimeters.
And the reason why I do this
for the majority of my seedlings,
is if I'm gonna get something like slug damage,
I'll notice it.
When you transplant seedlings that are still very small,
chances are if slugs come along,
they're going to obliterate it.
But at least allows you to notice some damage
and take the right steps to deal with that.
And if you wanna find out more about slugs as well,
I've got a complete guide to dealing with them
which you can view right here.
So in this video I've covered all the main principles
that I personally follow when it comes to seedling care.
And shortly I'll be doing a video
all about transplanting tips.
So how to have the best success when it comes
to transplanting your seedlings,
into their final growing position.
So thank you so much for watching,
and if you have any questions
don't hesitate to ask them down below.
And I look forward to seeing you again soon.