National Gardening Week SATURDAY

Prick Out Seedlings – Today’s phrase is something we do to the seedlings once they have developed “true leaves”.  They might get crowded and run out of nutrients in the seed tray or pot where they germinated.  If we left them there, they would eventually die so we need to pot them up.

The seedlings are very delicate and it is quite a tricky process to prick them out.  If we grab the stem, we might damage it and kill the plant.  Instead we hold them by the seed leaves (remember these?).  The seed leaves will soon die back anyway so we can lift the seedling out by the seed leaves without worrying about killing the plant.  

Once holding the seedling, we drop it gently into a hole in the compost and firm it around the roots and hypocotyl.  A little water, sunlight and time, and the seedling will settle into its new environment so that growth can take off again.  Once it has grown, it will get potted on into a bigger pot and later go into its final growing spot – be it a container or in the ground.

I can’t talk about pricking out seedlings without mentioning the two handy tools that help us!  You have used these and know their name so this is revision!  There are:

 1) A Dibber – helps to make a hole in the compost or ground so will vary in size depending how big the hole needs to be.  A dibber can be like the on in the picture, but if you don’t have one, a pencil, short piece of cane or even your finger will do the trick!

2) A Widger – “wid-jer” – helps to tease out the seedling from all the others in the seed tray.  As I mentioned before, the seedlings are very delicate at this stage.  Our fingers can feel clumsy and big when trying to pull out the seedling especially when the roots have got tangled with the other seedling roots in the tray!  We hold the seed leaves, pull gently and use the widger to wiggle between the tangled roots until the seedling comes out.   Not a lot of people have these, but the are very useful if you are working with lots of seedlings!

This is Saturday today so no school work needed!  I hope the sun shines a little for you so you can check on your seedlings and give them some love and attention.  Please continue to stay home, stay safe and return tomorrow for our final “Word du Jour” for National Gardening Week!