Cabbage is a photophilous plant, a plant of a long day, it needs light day for good flowering and fruiting, comprising at least 13 hours in duration. With a shorter daylight, an arrow with seeds forms. Therefore, before planting, you need to know when to sow cabbage for seedlings.
White cabbage seeds must be prepared before planting. Dry seeds are placed for 15 minutes in water heated to 50 degrees, then in cold for 1 minute and then placed for 12 hours in a solution of trace elements. Then they are removed, washed with water and placed in the refrigerator for 24 hours. After this pre-planting treatment, the seeds are dried so that they do not stick to the fingers and are sown.
It is important to know how to sow cabbage. Seeds are sown in the prepared substrate in rows with a distance between plants of about 1 cm, and between rows of 3 cm. Cabbage seeds are planted in soil to a depth of 1 cm. To grow cabbage seedlings, a mixture of turf land, peat and sand is prepared (1: 1: 1) . Do not use the old garden soil, as it may be infected with a black leg. In order to prevent diseases, the soil mixture is sown with a potassium permanganate solution before sowing the seeds.
Dates when sowing seedlings of early cabbage, are determined depending on the temperature and timing of planting seedlings in open ground. Cabbage seeds germinate already at 4-5 degrees heat. Usually the seeds of early varieties are sown on March 5-10. Dates when sowing cabbage for seedlings for late varieties are usually after March 10-20 or in early April already directly into the open ground under the film.
After sowing seeds in the soil mixture until the first seedlings appear, the temperature is maintained at 20-25 degrees, and after seedlings appear, the temperature should be reduced by a week to 10 degrees. After 7 days, for growing seedlings, you should withstand the temperature on sunny days of 17 degrees, on cloudy 14 degrees, and at night 9 degrees.
After 14 days, the seedlings are picked, and then, for its better survival, the temperature is increased to 21 degrees for several days. Then set the mode to 17 degrees during the day and 9 degrees at night. Therefore, the time when sowing cabbage for seedlings is selected based on the fact that she has time to fully prepare for planting in open ground. 12 days before such a planting, seedlings begin to temper, accustoming it gradually to the wind and temperature, as well as to the sun's rays.
At the same time, one should not rush into the planting of seedlings in open ground if the air temperature is still low, since under such conditions cabbage will give an arrow with seeds in 30 days. Usually seedlings of early cabbage varieties are planted in open ground in early May, and for late cabbage cultivars the best planting time is May 10-20.
After you have decided when to sow cabbage for seedlings and sowed it, you need to properly care for seedlings. Care for seedlings of white cabbage is made before the appearance of the first shoots. After sowing, it should be sprayed with water for 4-5 days, while the box with seedlings should be indoors at a temperature of 18-20 degrees. After emergence, seedlings should be transferred to a room in which the temperature is not higher than 8 degrees so that the seedlings do not stretch out. After another 9 days, seedlings should be dived into pots or glasses. Seedlings should be buried during picking to cotyledonous leaves in order to strengthen the root system.
Watering the seedlings should be regular and plentiful with water at room temperature when the soil dries. Seedlings before planting in open ground should be hardened, for this it is placed for two weeks on a balcony or in a greenhouse with a temperature of 5 degrees, and at night they are kept in a room with a temperature of 10-12 degrees. A week before planting, they stop watering the seedlings, and 2 hours before planting it is watered abundantly so that plants can be easily extracted.