A seed bed is a small section where you first germinate
seeds before you can transplant them to the main farm. This serves many purposes.
It ensures uniform growth and maturity since you will only transplant
the seedlings of the same size and vigor at the same place.
It will ensure survival since the seedlings will be hardened
before transplanting.
Making a good seedbed is critical in your farm planning
Choose a suitable site
·
A suitable site for a seedbed is
·
Easily accessible by the farmer
·
Easy to reach from the watering point
·
Secure – animals may want a taste of your succulent
sprouts so you will have to consider a place they can’t reach easily.
·
Good topography- This is how steep you land is, a
flat place is the best to make sure your seedlings are not washed away.
·
Soil type- Sandy loam soil is the best, but
generally you will need a soil that is well aerated and won’t retain too much
water like clayey soils.
Clear
After Identifying a site, it is very important that you make
sure to clear all the available weed around. this is to minimize pest attack.
and to create space where you are going to create your seedbed.
If there are lots of grass in the area you can collect, and
sun dry them because this will be useful as you will later see.
Dig deep
After clearing deep digging follows. make sure to remove excess roots and invert the
soil to help with the killing of the remaining weeds. Deep digging will also
make sure you will have enough soil to heap.
Break the soil
The soil should be Brocken to a fine tilth and further trash
removed this include small twigs and roots that may affect your seedling
development.
Heap
Using a hand hoe, you must heap the soil to make abed about
20- 30 cm of height. The length from your wrist to the tip of your middle
finger is enough to measure the least height of the seedbed. Heaping prevents
flooding .
Levelize
Using a rake, you can then levelized the top of the bed to uniformity.
Make sure the bed is not more than 1 m apart. you can make it any length you want.
This design makes sure you don’t struggle with maintaining the bed. The length will
be enough to tend to the bed from both sides, be it weeding or watering.
Sterilize
If you have noted the presence of pests, it is advisable for
you to burn some organic matter on top of the bed at this stage to kill any
surface pests ready to inflict losses.
“ hey hey hold
on. Why on earth would you advise farmers to burn their seed bed?”
Well, there are many
reasons why burning is not really good for any farm. But this is when we are
considering a farm which will hold crops through out their life cycle not just
the germinating part where they don’t even have enough appetite for nutrients.
Seeds are known to sprout well in sandy soils with minimum nutrients.
If you are still afraid of fire you maybe, you swore never
to start any fire in your farm then it is well advisable to do sunning. This is
exposure of a ready-made seedbed to sufficient sun until the pests are
discouraged.
Make rows
After your seed bed is well sterilized you can now make
little straight rows on a depth of 1 cm is okay for the tiny seedling and
spacing just the same as three of you little fingers will enable maximum sowing
without interrupting the process of weeding.
Mulch
Remember the grass we said you should dry. This will now be applied
finely on top of the bed. This will help preserve moisture and prevent too much
sun from reaching your precious sprouts. It will also prevent seed wash off
during watering or rains.
Water
Keeping the seedbed moist is important. However, this should
not be mistaken from wetting the bed (pun unintended). Wet seedbeds will lead
to rotting seeds or development of diseases.
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