Sales of plants, seeds and equipment increased during the Covid-19 emergency with many activities being organized for home deliveries. Here's where to order and how to start your own home production
In this exceptional first part of spring that we are spending at home because of the emergency Coronavirus, we did not want to give up on ourselves flowers and plants beautifying balconies and gardens and not even planting sowing for vegetables, fruits and herbs that will sprout in this period and in the coming months. According to a monitoring carried out by Coldiretti, the weeks of quarantine have registered a boom of terrace gardens: sales of seeds, seedlings, fertilizers and domestic tools for cultivation have increased in supermarkets and nurseries (which have organized themselves with home sales). Who has enough space on the balcony or in the garden or even just on a windowsill has organized to start one home production of tomatoes, courgettes and lettuces, but also basil, rosemary, sage, thyme and mint.
Vegetable garden on the terrace: how to start
To start your own home growing, Coldiretti offers some tips.
Light, soil and anti-parasite nets
Consider the exposure of the balcony, because the seedlings need a good dose of light and heat to grow well.
Choose a suitable type of soil that must be sufficiently rich in nutrients, retain the water without creating water stagnation.
Do not use pesticide products, but to defend your crops with anti-insect nets or non-woven fabric, even by manually removing the insects.
If you are a beginner, choose seedlings to decant instead of seeds. They are more practical and allow you to see the fruits of your work first.
What to grow
Salad is the simplest cultivation (in fact it is the most requested) and guarantees the harvest after just 40 days with a cost of only a few cents.
Tomato seedlings are also very popular, even in miniature format.
Peppers, cucumbers, aubergines, spicy chillies with a thousand shapes, tomatoes with small and sweet fruits, green beans and any type of vegetable capable of growing in pots. It is – Coldiretti points out – in some cases of dwarf varieties obtained naturally through crosses, while other times they are normal garden products that adapt to growing even in small spaces such as pots, or in special supports that develop in vertical, making the most of limited space.
Home plants and seeds
On the company website Orto Mio, specialist in Forlì (FC) in the production of peat cube vegetable seedlings, in the Stores section there are the activities that deliver home delivery in your area (from north to south of Italy). You will also find a section dedicated to tips for growing the vegetable garden, one dedicated to cooking and one with the Live Garden where you can observe a vegetable garden in real time through a webcam.
Online plants grown especially for home delivery hobbyists are also found on The Garden of Wonders with nurseries in the province of Ragusa. From the site you can download guides on the cultivation of the vegetable garden and the sowing calendar.
If you are looking for certified organic plants you can buy them on The Ortofruttifero, a Tuscan company that with the University of Pisa has also started the "SuperBio" project to obtain plants which, in addition to presenting greater nutraceutical characteristics, also bring benefits to the vegetable garden.
The site piantinedaorto.it offers fruit, vegetable seedlings, various types of hot peppers, aromatic plants, berries and even ready-made kits with different types of plants and indications for planting them, from the size of the pot to the period.
To buy flowers and decorative plants to embellish gardens or balconies with an eye also to the social you can rely on Cascina Bollate, the nursery inside the Bollate Prison (MI) where prisoners learn a trade alongside professional gardeners. The large catalog can be browsed online and always with a click you can buy and order at home with deliveries throughout Italy (free of charge on Milan and neighboring in this period of health emergency).
On the Coldiretti websites you will find several lists divided by region of the companies that have organized themselves for home delivery: here, for example, you can find those of the Lombardy, here those Venetian.
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