Poté co zálivka skončí, necháme substrát prosychat.

to end

Breakdown of Poté co zálivka skončí, necháme substrát prosychat.

• nechat: to let; to leave
• substrát: the potting substrate
• zálivka: watering; the watering

Questions & Answers about Poté co zálivka skončí, necháme substrát prosychat.

What does poté co mean here?

Poté co means after in the sense of after/once a certain thing happens.

So:

• Poté co zálivka skončí = after the watering ends

Literally, poté is something like after that / then, but together with co it functions as a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause.

You may also see very similar expressions such as:

• potom co = after
• jakmile = as soon as
• až = when/once

In this sentence, poté co is a fairly neutral written way to say after.

Why is there a comma after skončí?

Because Czech uses a comma to separate a subordinate clause from the main clause.

Here the subordinate clause is:

• Poté co zálivka skončí

And the main clause is:

• necháme substrát prosychat

So the comma marks the boundary between them:

• Poté co zálivka skončí, necháme substrát prosychat.

This is very similar to English:

• After the watering ends, we let the substrate dry out.

If the order were reversed, the comma would still separate the two clauses:

• Necháme substrát prosychat, poté co zálivka skončí.

Why does the sentence use zálivka instead of zalévání?