 |  | Better Farming Series 19 - Market Gardening (FAO - INADES, 1977, 56 p.) | ||
 |  | Sowing | ||
|  | (introduction...) | ||
| | Sowing in open beds or nursery beds | ||
| | Sowing in rows or seed holes | ||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
16. With traditional methods, market gardeners use the seeds of their own harvests.
With modem methods you buy selected seeds every year.
Like that, you can produce better vegetables that can be sold more easily.
The seeds are sown either directly in the open beds or in a nursery bed.
17. Sowing in open beds
Certain vegetables do not need to be transplanted. They are sown, they grow and ripen, and are harvested all at the same place. Examples are carrots, beans, okra, radishes.
18. Sowing in a nursery bed
The nursery bed is a bed set aside for sowing seeds. When the seeds have grown into young seedlings, these seedlings are transplanted into another bed.
Examples are green or sweet peppers, lettuces, tomatoes, leeks, cabbages.
Push the big seeds deeper into the soil than the small ones.
For example, push the seeds of okra and beans 3 centimetres deep into the soil, and the seeds of lettuces and leeks 0.5 centimetre.
Then firm the soil well over the seeds.
19. Seeds can be broadcast, sown in rows, sown in seed holes.
- Broadcasting
The seeds are thrown and fall just anywhere in a haphazard way.
Sometimes the plants are too close and get in each other's way when they grow.
Sometimes the plants are not close enough. They do not use all the soil.
If you broadcast your seed, you may not get the right density, and you cannot weed and hoe well.
- Sowing in rows
Lines are traced with the cord and the seeds
sown along the lines. The distance between rows varies according to the size of
the vegetables.
- Sowing in seed holes
Little holes are made along the lines, and one or several seeds are placed in each hole. The distance between holes is different according to the size of the vegetables.
Broadcast seeds
Sowing in rows
Sowing in rows and seed
holes
 |
 |