Thinning out seedlings

From Gardening Wiki

Thinning out Seedlings

Because most seeds may be bought cheaply, and partly because the gardener wants to make sure of a good, full row of seedling plants, most people sow seeds much more thickly than they should. This makes it necessary to pull up a good many of the superfluous seed- lings and this is called "thinning out."

The main purpose of thinning out is to give each plant a fair chance for normal development. Plants growing in "crowded" rows will become spindly and either not form a properly developed product at all (as, for instance, lettuce) or the crop will be seriously cut short, as with beans and other plants of which we eat the product rather than the plant itself.

Thinning out is most important work and should be done promptly. How to do it and when or how to plant so that thinning, in connection with some classes of plants, does not have to be done is covered in other sections of this website.

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