What do y’all fertilize your seedlings with indoors, while they’re growing before moving them outside? Is there a homemade diy fertilizer I can use, or would manure tea be good?
Fertilizing seedlings?
- Thread starter Elizabeth C
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This is the advice that I got
"How large are the seedlings, i.e. leaves? If the seedling does not have a full set of true leaves and only the cotyledons and the beginning of true leaves are showing, I do not fertilize at all. As soon as the seedling has formed complete true leaves I would start fertilizing at 1/2 rate with the 1-3-1. I would never use the 2-4-10 as it is used mainly for fruit growth on mature plants. As soon as the plants have 2 complete sets of true leaves I start fertilizing at full strength every other time I water. With 3 sets of leaves every time I water. And when there are 3 complete sets of leaves, I also sprinkle dry organic fertilizer on the soil surface. By this time the plants are ready to pot up. I start seeds 6 weeks before last frost. I keep them on a heat mat kept as close to 80F as I can. At 6 weeks the plants have buds, either just starting to show or just about fully formed and usually by 8 or 9 weeks have fruit set. I have to do it this way because my time to set fruit is very limited as it get too warm at night to enable fruit set."
"How large are the seedlings, i.e. leaves? If the seedling does not have a full set of true leaves and only the cotyledons and the beginning of true leaves are showing, I do not fertilize at all. As soon as the seedling has formed complete true leaves I would start fertilizing at 1/2 rate with the 1-3-1. I would never use the 2-4-10 as it is used mainly for fruit growth on mature plants. As soon as the plants have 2 complete sets of true leaves I start fertilizing at full strength every other time I water. With 3 sets of leaves every time I water. And when there are 3 complete sets of leaves, I also sprinkle dry organic fertilizer on the soil surface. By this time the plants are ready to pot up. I start seeds 6 weeks before last frost. I keep them on a heat mat kept as close to 80F as I can. At 6 weeks the plants have buds, either just starting to show or just about fully formed and usually by 8 or 9 weeks have fruit set. I have to do it this way because my time to set fruit is very limited as it get too warm at night to enable fruit set."
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DO NOT use manure teas or compost teas on seedlings unless the tea has been sterilized. Otherwise you are taking a huge chance of getting Damping Off Disease.
If I do a manure tea (I don't use it for seedlings) I put the amount of chicken manure to be used in a bucket, then boil about 2 to 3x the water and pour it into the bucket and let it steep to kill the pathogens. When it cools it is ready to be used. The downside is when you do this it lowers the nitrogen content because some is boiled off.
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Seeds mostly have enough in them to get started, and what Meadowlark says about damping off. When I pot things on for the first time I usually make sure they go into something nice with a bit of manure and ash well mixed in.
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No. If you are NOT going to use it on seedlings there is no need to sterilze. The object of teas is not so much the feeding of the plant, it is the feeding of the soil in order to increase the numbers of soil microbes. Brewing tea does not increase NPK, it greatly increases the numbers of soil microbes. The amount of NPK in a shovel of manure is the same whether it is brewed or not. Another and equally important aspect of brewing teas is the increase in the numbers of bacteria and fungal organisms. There is much more to brewing teas than I have mentioned but it is very important to know that there are two types of teas. The first is called anaerobic tea. What this means is "without air". You just put some manure or nettles or whatever into a bucket of water and let it sit. It is still good stuff but it has no comparison to AACT or actively aeroated compost tea. AACT is where one forces air into the mixture of whatever you are making tea out of. One does this by means of an air pump like what is used in an aquarium and an airstone, also used in an aquarium. Anaerobic teas do not add to the numbers of soil microbes. Anaerobic teas leach the NPK out of whatever is soaking in the bucket for immediate use.
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I would not fertilize seedlings ever. fresh new soil for them to start in , is all that is necessary.
Thanks, everyone!
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I don't bother with teas, I don't even do compost, rather I just throw organic waste on the ground under my mulch, including kitchen scraps. That's basically all the Regenerative farmers do, except the kitchen scraps thing
Interesting talk about compost teas
Interesting talk about compost teas
Same. Mine don't get anything until I transplant them to a 4" pot. Then they get more when I transplant them to a 6" pot. Then once they are planted in the garden they get all the compost and manure they could ever dream of lol.
I also stick the seeds in the fridge for a few weeks before germination. And most seeds unless too small I soak in water for 14 hours (not tap water) then germinate in moist paper towel until they sprout. Then they get the plain Jane soil. I pay a small fortune for my cannabis seeds so I do what it takes to make sure every single one germinates. I've never had one disappoint me yet by using this method.