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To grow vegetables successfully, it is always advisable to transplant the seedlings from a nursery bed to the main garden. Farmers can prepare their own nurseries to cut costs and below are easy steps on how to;
- Get well-drained loam soils and mix them with compost manure. Manure can be directly decomposing kitchen waste or livestock droppings.
- If you are picking soil for the nursery, avoid picking it from spots that have previously been used for similar crops because these may be infected.
- Set the nursery in an area that is not prone to flooding because this will affect the tender crops.
- Make sure that the seedlings have enough light but not too much. This means that you have to cover the nursery with leaves or if you have resources, put it in a translucent polythene roofing.
- To plant the seeds in the nursery, drill lines of 2cm deep across the nursery bed and sparsely drop the seeds in lines.
- Water the bed until it is well-soaked. Thereafter, watering depends on the weather conditions. If there are rains,
- The seedlings will be ready for transplanting between 15-20 days.
However, if you cannot propagate your own seed, then you can buy mature seedlings. Each seedling costs sh300 which means that if you are planting an acre with 10,000 seedlings, that is about sh3m on seedlings alone.
