Sawdust instead of soil: features of growing seedlings

It's common to prepare for the gardening season in advance. To ensure an early vegetable harvest, seedlings are started in late February or early March. Experienced gardeners prefer the soilless method, which reduces damage to seeds and seedlings, accelerates germination, and, importantly, saves time on cleaning, as working with soil can be messy. Sawdust is the most commonly used soil substitute.

Advantages of the method

Before you begin distributing sawdust into containers for germination, the floors are covered. Wood particles are much easier to shake off than soil, and they don't get lodged in floor cracks. If they do get in, they don't stain carpets or feet. The work doesn't require much space. Soil is usually brought in a box, while sawdust can be poured into a bag. Furthermore, carrying soil is difficult, but the sawdust substitute is not only compact but also lightweight. Sawdust sells for next to nothing at the sawmill, meaning there's no need for significant financial outlay.

It's common to grow seedlings of zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. These garden crops have fragile root systems, which are easily damaged when transplanted or pricked out. Because of this, the plants remain in place after planting, needing to establish themselves and recover.

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Sawdust has excellent drainage properties, is breathable, lightweight, and doesn't damage roots. When planting, it's not cleaned, which helps preserve even the thinnest shoots. When planting in beds, even if the soil isn't warm enough, it prevents the seedlings from freezing, preventing them from dying and starting to root immediately.

Methods of growing in sawdust

You can use wood waste from any type of wood, but softwood scraps are best. They have antiseptic properties and are lighter. Wood shavings from chipboard, fiberboard, and other materials made with adhesives are not suitable.

If the sawdust is large, you can grind it at home. There's no need to use a food processor, which can be damaging. Simply dry the thin pieces of wood, cover them with newspaper or a thick cloth, and then crush them with a rolling pin. The wood filler doesn't require any additional processing.

The easy way

Sawdust is poured into a colander and rinsed with boiling water a couple of times. This rinses out resinous substances and household contaminants.

The "soil mixture" is ready by touch—the lump should not fall apart when squeezed in a fist. Distribute the scalded material among prepared containers with drainage holes: ceramic pots, plastic containers, etc. There's no need to wait for the sawdust to cool. The layer height should be 4-6 cm.

Dry seeds are spread over the surface, spaced 2-3 cm apart, and covered with a thin layer of damp wood shavings, 0.8-1.2 cm thick. Cover with cling film to create a mini-greenhouse and place in a warm place (22-25°C). Cucumber seedlings will emerge in 3-5 days, and tomato seedlings by the end of the week.

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As soon as the sprouts appear, the film is removed. The seedlings are then cared for as if they were in soil: watered, pricked out, etc. When planting in the garden bed, the root ball is not exposed. Wood shavings are an effective organic fertilizer and mulch.

Mittlider method

In this case, wood chips are prepared as described above, but mixed with sand at a ratio of 1/4 or with cleaned garden soil. A general-purpose potting mix can be used—it contains more nutrients, but this will increase costs.

To increase yields when growing cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, or tomatoes, it's a good idea to add fertilizer. For 7 liters of soil, add 1 tablespoon of wood ash and 0.5 tablespoons of azophoska. A complex mineral fertilizer containing nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus can be used instead.

It's best to first prepare a mixture of soil (sand) and fertilizer, and then mix it with hot sawdust. Place it in containers, sow the seeds, and sprinkle with a thin layer of fine shavings.

They are kept under plastic for 3-5 days. Then the mini-greenhouses are dismantled. Seedlings planted using the Mittlider method require generous watering and fertilizing with azophoska once a week. For foliar spraying or root application, the infusion is diluted in the following ratio: 1 tablespoon of azophoska to 10 liters of settled (room temperature) water.

Combining the Mittlider method with the simplified cultivation method of wood chips can increase yields severalfold. Heat-loving garden crops are first germinated in sawdust, then, without removing the root ball, they are transferred to a soil mixture enriched with minerals and planted not in open ground, but in containers—like barrel buckets.

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In warm weather, they are taken out into the garden; in cool weather, they are moved to a greenhouse. In warm summers, simply firm cucumbers or tomatoes, with established roots, are transferred to the garden beds. They are dumped from the containers into prepared trenches, lifted by the stems, and the soil is lightly compacted. This is best done during the growing season—fruit grown in an open bed is much sweeter. It is best to plant early-ripening garden crops in sawdust.