Wood ashes are also safe, and good to add to the potting soil. They help to make a firm, hard growth, as a result of the potash they furnish. Where plants seem to be making a too rapid, watery growth, wood ashes may be applied to the surface and worked in.
With a soil prepared as directed in the first part of this chapter, there will be very little need for using any other of the fertilizers, until plants have been shifted into their last pots and have filled them with roots. When this stage is reached the use of liquid manures as described later will frequently be beneficial. If, however, a plant for any reason seems backward, or slower in growth than it should be, an application or two of nitrate of soda will often produce results almost marvelous. Be sure, however, that your troubles are not due to some mistake in temperature, ventilation or watering, before you ascribe them to improper or exhausted soil.
Now, having had the patience to find out something about the conditions under which plants ought to succeed, let us proceed to the more interesting work of actually making them grow.
CHAPTER IV
STARTING PLANTS FROM SEED
One of the ways of getting a supply of plants for the house is to start them from seed. With a number of varieties, better specimens may be obtained by this method than by any other. Most of the annuals, and many of the biennials and perennials, are best reproduced in this way.
Simple as the art of starting plants from seed may seem, there are a number of things which must be thought of, and done correctly. We must give them a proper situation, soil, temperature, covering and amount of moisture, and when once above ground they need careful attention until lifted and started on their way as individual plants.
The number of plants of one sort which will be required for the house is naturally not large, and for that reason beginners often try starting their seeds in pots. But a pot is not a good thing to try to start plants in: the amount of earth is too small and dries out quickly. Seed pans are better, but even they must be watched very carefully. A wooden box, or flat, is better still. Cigar boxes are often used with good results; but a more satisfactory way is to make a few regular flats from a soap or cracker box bought at the grocer's. Saw it lengthwise into sections two inches deep, being careful to first draw out nails and wire staples in the way, and bottom these with material of the same sort. Either leave the bottom boards half an inch apart, or bore seven or eight half-inch holes in the bottom of each, to provide thorough drainage. If they are to be used in the house, a coat or two of paint will make them very presentable. Of course one such box will accommodate a great many seeds—enough to start two hundred to a thousand little plants—but you can sow them in rows, as described later, and thus put from three to a dozen sorts in each box.
Where most beginners fail in attempting to start seeds is in not taking the trouble to prepare a proper soil. They are willing to take any amount of trouble with watering and heat and all that, but they will not fix a suitable soil. The soil for the seed box need not be rich, in fact it is better not to have manure in it; but very porous and very light it must be, especially for such small seeds as most flowers have. Such a soil may be mixed up from rotted sod (or garden loam), leaf-mould and sharp sand, used in equal proportions. If the loam used is clayey, it may take even a larger proportion of sand. The resulting mixture should be extremely fine and crumbling, and feel almost "light as a feather" in the hand. If the sod and mould have not already been screened, rub the compost through a sieve of not more than quarter-inch mesh—such as a coal-ash sifter. This screening will help also to incorporate the several ingredients evenly and thoroughly.
While we provided holes in the seed box for drainage, it is best to take even further precautions in this matter by covering the bottom of the box with nearly an inch of coarse material, such as the roots and half decayed leaves, screened out of the sods and leaf-mould. On the top of this put the prepared soil, filling the box to within about a quarter of an inch of the top, and packing down well into the corners and along sides and ends. The box should not be filled level full, because in subsequent waterings there would be no space to hold the water which would run off over the sides instead of soaking down into the soil.