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What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the Epic Gardening Podcast. Today we're answering a basic question and the question is this:

Do seedlings need fertilizer?

We know that fertilizing plants in general is obviously a good idea when it comes to gardening and trying to get the most out of your garden. But do seedlings need it?

Well technically no, and technically yes. Seeds have enough energy inside themselves to germinate. The nutrients that are essential to healthy growth are not usually present in the soil. At least in most seed starting mixes. Now that's of course different if you are using your own seed starting soil mix. If you're a subscriber to the Epic Gardening YouTube channel, I have a video about how to make the best seed starting mix possible and in that particular video, you will have all of the nutrients needed for healthy growth.

However, there's something to be said for the seeds, right? The seeds do quite a bit on their own and when you're growing microgreens, you really don't need to fertilize your growing medium - the seed nutrition is more than enough.

The seeds are doing most of the work there, and that's because when we're growing microgreens, we are going to harvest them well before they would actually need any fertility from the soil.

But, when you're growing seedlings, especially if you're prepping for spring, yeah at some point, those seed leaves and the nutrition within the seed itself is going to run out and they're going to need something from the soil itself.

What I would recommend is solving that problem in a seed starting mix itself. Make your own seed starting mix. Here is my recipe:

• 1/3 Perlite
• 1/3 Peat Moss
• 1/3 Blended, Screened Compost

That is a STELLAR mix, but make sure you screen it. You must screen it because seedlings really don't appreciate a lot of rocks, debris, bark, etc. A lot of larger pieces of matter in there. So make sure you have a nice uniform mix. if you want to juice it up a bit, what I would then do is add a little Azomite, add a little worm tea if you have some and from there, you'll have a really strong mixture for your seedlings.

Final Thoughts

To answer the question in short form: No, seedlings don't need to be fertilized if you're growing them to a microgreen stage. If you're growing them past that stage, yes you definitely need to fertilize them. The best way to do it is actually within the soil itself, not to dump extra fertility on top. But of course, if you're making soil from scratch, you do need to add fertility to that soil, right?

That's the quick answer. Hopefully that was helpful. Good luck in the garden and keep growing.

Thanks For Listening!

If this is your first time reading my writing, thank you! Please leave a comment so I can get to know you better.

My name is Kevin and I run Epic Gardening, a website, podcast, and YouTube channel. My goal is to teach 10,000,000 people how to grow their own food.

I'm a big believer in Steemit and decentralized platforms, so I'm going all in on Steemit, dtube, and dsound. Be sure to check me out there too! You'll find me writing about gardening, travel, health, and philosophy - I can't seem to stick to one topic :P

Thanks and happy Steeming,

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