How to Prepare the Seedbed in a Greenhouse

Preparing a seedbed in a greenhouse allows you to get several weeks’ jump on spring planting, thus bringing vegetables and flowers to market when they command higher prices. You can also just enjoy anything from lettuce to annual flowers much earlier. The seedbed allows you to efficiently use your space to best advantage and start tender young plants while other areas of the greenhouse host maturing plants, notes Jeremy Dore, founder of GrowVeg.com.

Flats
Tables
Rake
Compost
Soil
Wheelbarrow
Garden sieve

Instructions

- 1
  Prepare the seedbed in a bright area of the greenhouse, either directly in a raised bed or in flats on elevated tables.
- 2
  Pick out weeds and rake debris off the surface of the dirt.
- 3
  Mix compost and extra soil in a wheelbarrow. Shake it through a garden sieve with a 1/4-inch screen onto the soil to a depth of 4 inches.
- 4
  Smooth the sieved mixture of soil and compost level with the back of a rake. Your goal is to create a seedbed of fine-sized particles to allow good contact between the soil and the vegetable seed surface, which is typically small or medium in size.
- 5
  Leave the seedbed alone for 10 days so that pests, such as flies attracted to freshly turned soil, depart and so you can pull up any weeds.

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