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Most vegetable growers grow seedlings at home. Sowing of seeds is carried out in boxes. Any boxes available on the farm can be used for packaging. Special cassettes are sold in stores, but their disadvantage is their high price. Homemade boxes for seedlings can turn out no worse than factory products, you just need to use your imagination and put in as much work as possible.
Factory made cassettes
When growing different varieties, vegetable growers use a seedling box with partitions that separate the crops into separate groups. If it is difficult to make a homemade reusable container, you can visit the store. Factory-made cassettes consist of a set of small cups soldered together. It turns out to be a kind of box with many partitions. You can sow different crops or varieties into each cup without worrying about mixing them. Cassettes are made from different types of plastic. The cups themselves differ in depth and shape. There are cassettes equipped with a tray and a transparent plastic lid. The design allows you to make a mini-greenhouse.
Homemade container for growing seedlings
To save money on buying store-bought boxes, vegetable growers resort to tricks. You can always find cans, packs, and plastic bottles at home or in a landfill. This is not garbage, but an excellent container for growing seedlings. If you group a set of containers, you get a homemade analogue of a cassette. Now we will look at the photo of do-it-yourself seedling boxes, and also get acquainted with the secrets of their manufacture.
Plastic containers
Any plastic cannot be considered an environmentally friendly material, but if it is suitable for food, then it will not harm the seedlings. You can make a homemade cassette from beer glasses, containers for sour cream, and yogurt. Even any PET bottles will do. You just need to cut off the top to get a jar 10 cm high.
It is inconvenient to move one container at a time onto the windowsill. In addition, water will flow out of the drainage holes after watering. The cups must be grouped so that you get a seedling box with a tray, where excess moisture will collect. The easiest option is to find a plastic container made of vegetables and place it inside the jar. The walls and bottom of the box are lattice. To prevent water from leaking onto the windowsill after watering, the container can be placed on a regular table tray. He will play the role of a pallet.
If growing heat-loving seedlings requires creating a greenhouse, then when cutting a PET bottle you should not throw away the top part. After sowing the seeds, the top is placed back on the cup. By unscrewing and tightening the plug, they regulate the flow of fresh air into the greenhouse.
Containers from foil packs
A self-assembled box for seedlings should not only be neat, but also retain heat well at the roots of the plants. Tetra Pak paper boxes do an excellent job of this task. Containers for juice, milk and other drinks have a foil coating inside. It prevents the paper from getting wet, plus it protects the contents of the tetra pack from sudden temperature changes.
For the root system of seedlings, the foil covering will retain heat. The cold coming from the window glass will cool the soil in nearby boxes with seedlings less.
To make boxes for seedlings, tetra packs are cut in half. You can use not only the lower part, but also the upper part. The cork from the tetra pack does not protrude much, which makes it possible to install the other half in a common container.
Homemade peat container
Peat tablets or cups are convenient for growing seedlings. The grown plant is planted in the garden along with the container, which saves the root system from unnecessary injuries. Buying peat glasses every year is expensive. If you have peat and humus at home, then oven-calcined soil is added to these ingredients, after which everything is mixed. Take the same proportions, add mineral fertilizer, water and make a batch.
The resulting pasty mass is spread in a layer 5 cm thick on any area. Drying should occur naturally in the shade. When the peat slab gets stronger, but does not dry out, cut squares with a side size of 5x5 cm with a knife. A depression of about 2 cm is made in the center of each cube. The hole is needed for sowing seeds. The finished peat cubes are placed in plastic boxes with a lattice bottom. To collect water after watering, the container is placed on a deep tray.
Paper glasses
Good boxes for seedlings with cells will be obtained if the container is filled with paper cups. The easiest way is to make a container from a cardboard tube cut into pieces, used for winding film, foil and other similar material.
If you don’t have such a blank at hand, cups are made from newspapers:
- As a template base, take any deodorant bottle or plastic bottle with smooth walls. Strips 15 cm wide are cut from newspapers. The length is 2–3 cm greater than the diameter of the solid base.
- A newspaper strip is wrapped around a cylinder or bottle, and the joint is glued with glue. You can use tape.
- Leave 10 cm of paper tube on the template, and bend the overhanging 5 cm to form the bottom of the cup.
The finished container can be removed from the template and proceed to making the next glass. When the required number of paper containers is collected, they are placed in a plastic container, filled with soil and the entire box is placed on a pallet.
Containers from tin cans
Any tin can will be an excellent container for growing seedlings that can be placed in a box. It is not advisable to use the entire container. In the spring, when planting in a garden bed, it will be difficult to remove the plant with a lump of earth from a tin can.
To modernize the glasses you will need metal scissors. You will have to cut off not only the lower part of the jar with the bottom, but also the upper part so that the rim does not interfere. The result was a tin tube. Now two cuts are made at the top and bottom, but the metal is not moved apart.
Glasses without a bottom are placed in a plastic container with a solid bottom, pushed tightly with soil and sowing is performed. Excess water after watering will flow freely into the box. In the spring, when planting seedlings, they remember the cuts on the jars.The tin walls are pulled apart, the glass expands, and the plant with a lump of earth freely falls out of the container.
Collapsible container
A collapsible box for seedlings with your own hands is convenient because in the spring its parts can be easily removed, and the seedlings, along with a lump of soil, are carefully dumped onto the garden bed. A good container can be made from a pull-out compartment in an old cabinet. The plywood bottom is perforated with a thin drill and part of the fastening is removed. The box always stands on a pallet while growing seedlings. In the spring, the remaining fastening of the bottom is removed, and the plywood, along with the soil and seedlings, falls out, remaining neatly standing on the bed.
The video shows the process of making reusable cassettes:
Wooden container
If you decide to assemble a reliable box for seedlings with your own hands from wood, you will need a pine edged board 20 mm thick. The container can even be used as a mini-greenhouse if you install a lid with film or glass. The optimal dimensions of a box for seedlings are 1x2 m. The height of one long side is 30 cm, and the other is 36 cm. A difference of 6 cm allows you to make a transparent lid at an angle.
The box manufacturing process consists of the following steps:
- From a beam with a cross-section of 40x50 mm, 2 blanks 30 cm long and the same number of bars 36 cm long are cut. 6 blanks of 2 m each are cut from the board for long boards and 6 blanks of 1 m each for short boards.
- Two shields are assembled from bars and two-meter boards. These will be the long sides of the box. The height of one shield should be 36 cm, and the other – 30 cm.The extra 6 cm can be cut from the board with a grinder, jigsaw or circular saw.
- Three short boards are screwed to the bars fixed on the boards on both sides with self-tapping screws. These will be the side walls of the box. Using the same power tool, the top boards of short panels are cut at an angle. The result was a rectangular box with a sloping top.
- The container does not need a bottom, but you definitely need to make a lid for the wooden seedling box. The frame is assembled from timber. For reliability, corner connections are reinforced with jibs and overhead metal plates. The frame is attached with hinges to the long side of the box, where the height of the shield is 36 cm. Window clamps are installed on the sides. The mechanism will help keep the lid open.
- The finished wooden box is treated with protective impregnation, and after drying it is opened with varnish.
In the spring, soil is poured into the box, seeds are sown, the lid frame is covered with transparent film, the box is covered and the seedlings are waited for germination.
Results
Plants need light to develop. To make a backlit seedling box, a fluorescent or LED lamp is attached to the stands. A traditional incandescent light bulb will not work as it produces more heat than light.
