Every gardener knows about the labor-intensive process of thinning carrot seedlings. Sowing seeds using paste or thin jelly helps to reduce this work to a minimum. The method is simple: dry or swollen seeds are poured into a cooled paste, stirred and then sown in the garden through a hole in the bottle cap.
Advantages of the method:
- uniform distribution of seeds in the garden bed;
- saving seed material;
- preventing seeds from drying out due to starch retaining water around them;
- friendly shoots;
- eliminating the painstaking work of thinning young carrots.
The advantages of the method also include the absence of additional material investments for its implementation and a small amount of time for preparing the paste.
Required:
- Carrot seeds – 1 bag
- Flour – 1 tbsp without a slide
- Water – 500 ml
- Polyethylene bottle
- Cover with hole
- Funnel
Sowing technology
1. It is recommended to soak the seeds one or two days before sowing.This is worth doing for two reasons: firstly, to remove floating empty seeds; secondly, allow the planting material to swell to facilitate sprouting.
2. Make a paste, which will require 300 ml for each bag of seeds. Prepare paste at the rate of 1 tbsp. l. flour and 500 ml cold water. Stir flour in water and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.
3. Pour the swollen seeds into the cooled paste, stir with a spoon and pour everything through a funnel into a plastic bottle.
4. Make a hole in the plastic lid to squeeze the planting material through. You can use a detergent cap - caps from popular dishwashing liquids in most cases fit perfectly into a plastic mineral water bottle.
Test the method by squeezing a couple of drops of paste with seeds onto a saucer or the bottom of a glass.
5. Sow carrots in paste into the beds prepared in advance and spilled with water, every 3-4 cm. A drop of paste contains 1-2-3 seeds - they are visible to the naked eye. A small supply of planting material is necessary in case some seeds do not germinate or die.
Then fill the beds with seeds in the usual way and lightly compact the soil on top with your palm or a flat board. It should be noted that some gardeners prefer not to sow point by point, but to pour the paste into the beds in a thin stream.
