Peppers are vegetables that are often grown in gardens. Most new vegetable growers think that growing bell peppers is a difficult job. However, this is far from true if you know how to properly care for the plant.
Young bushes need regular feeding. Therefore, it is recommended to familiarize yourself in advance with what to feed peppers in the greenhouse during and after planting.
Landing in the ground
Before planting seedlings in the ground, it is necessary to prepare the planting soil. Special fertilizers are added to it, to which urea and a little manure are added. When planting, small holes are made for planting seedlings. The distance between them should be 25-30 cm. Half a bucket of water should be poured into each prepared hole. If necessary, you can add a little potassium permanganate to it so that the first shoots appear faster.
It is recommended to plant young seedlings in the soil at the very end of May. By this point, more than five sheets should appear on them. In some cases, by the end of spring, the first flowers appear on pepper bushes in a polycarbonate greenhouse.
The first weeks after planting, seedlings must be covered with plastic wrap. To secure it, it is recommended to make special supports from wooden or metal rods. However, you should not attach the film too tightly, as it will still need to be ventilated periodically.
Growing conditions
To grow sweet peppers, care must be taken to create optimal conditions. This is the only way to get the maximum amount of harvest. Mandatory growing conditions include the following:
- It is recommended to use only slightly acidic, fertile and light soil.
- Daylight hours for peppers should last no more than eight hours.
- During cultivation, it is recommended to take care of the air and soil temperature. The soil should be heated to 20 degrees, and the air to 25 degrees. If these indicators decrease, the development of pepper may stop.
- Young bushes need to be watered periodically. In this case, the first abundant watering is carried out 2 weeks after planting the plant. For this, only warm water heated to 25 degrees is used.
- Peppers need to be fed regularly so that the plants have enough potassium.
Also, every vegetable grower must know due to what conditions growing pepper can lead to failure:
- It is not recommended to use soil that is too dense, as it will have to be loosened regularly.
- Seedlings that have already been planted in the ground cannot be transplanted to another place.
- The temperature in the greenhouse cannot be increased, as this may negatively affect the growth of the bushes.
- Peppers should not be planted in areas where they will be exposed to direct sunlight, which can cause burns to young fruits.
Organic fertilizers
The first feeding of peppers in the greenhouse is carried out immediately after they have been planted in the ground. Quite often, organic fertilizers are used for this, which ensures the development and rapid growth of young bushes.
Peat
Peat feeding of peppers in a greenhouse helps maintain nitrogen in the soil. Most often, it is not pure peat that is used, but a mixture prepared with the addition of manure. The scheme for creating such compost is quite simple: part of the peat is mixed with manure and added to the soil. The prepared mixture can be improved using phosphate rock. To do this, about 30 kilograms of flour are added to one ton of compost.
Prefabricated fertilizers
Organic residues are often used to prepare high-quality compost. These include tops, dried grass and fallen leaves. All these components can be used to feed peppers in a greenhouse.
When preparing compost, all ingredients are thoroughly compacted in a plastic or wooden container. Then they are filled with manure and infused for several months. You should not cover the containers, as compost contains too much nitrogen.You can add several kilograms of phosphorus and a little lime to the present compost.
Manure
Many vegetable growers prefer to fertilize sweet peppers with manure. Fresh fertilizer contains a large number of aggressive elements that can harm young shoots. Therefore, it is recommended to use already settled manure, which contains practically no harmful components.
Manure humus is ideal for fertilizing peppers in a greenhouse. No more than three buckets of substrate are added under one bush. To distribute manure evenly throughout the area, it is recommended to use a wide rake.
Ash
Some people don’t know what to feed peppers during flowering and fruiting. Quite often, ash is used for this, which contains large amounts of iron, phosphorus, manganese and boron. However, it contains absolutely no nitrogen, so ash is applied in parallel with nitrogen-containing fertilizers. This fertilizer is often used in areas with dense soil and high acidity levels. With the help of ash, the soil is loosened and the pH level is lowered.
Many inexperienced gardeners use it when digging up beds, but this method is not very effective. It is recommended to use ash for spraying on the surface of the soil. For this, a special mixture is prepared, which consists of 5 liters of water and one glass of ash. Then it is used to treat the pepper bushes and the soil surface.
Bird droppings
It is not recommended to use fresh fertilizer as it contains urea. Most often, compost is prepared from bird droppings, to which peat, soil and turf are added. All components are mixed in equal quantities and 15 liters of water are poured.Then the mixture is infused for several hours and stirred thoroughly. Sometimes iodine is added in small quantities. In order for the fertilizing to be better absorbed, it should be applied to pre-moistened soil.
Bird droppings can also be used as a basic fertilizer. In this case, about two kilograms of fertilizer are applied per square meter. The procedure must be repeated three times throughout the entire growing period.
Mineral fertilizers
Not everyone knows what mineral supplements can be used to feed peppers during cultivation. There are several types of fertilizers that are used most often.
Ammonia
Such fertilizers contain not only ammonia, but also chalk, phosphorus, limestone and phosphorus gypsum. Ammonia fertilizers must be used very carefully. They cannot be used in areas with podzolic soil, as this may negatively affect the beneficial properties of the soil.
With proper use of ammonia fertilizers, you can protect young seedlings from many diseases and increase productivity by one and a half times.
Urea
Almost half of this fertilizer consists of nitrogen. If it is scattered over the soil surface, almost all the nitrogen will evaporate and ammonia will form instead. Therefore, you should apply fertilizer 5-10 cm deep so that it does not evaporate so quickly. Urea is universal, as it can be used in greenhouses and vegetable gardens. Quite often it is used in liquid form, since an aqueous solution is better absorbed by the soil.
To feed peppers, a special solution is created from 10-15 liters of water and 100 g of the substance. The mixture can also be supplemented with mullein.You can feed the plant for the first time a week after the start of flowering, and the second time after 5 weeks.
Potassium salt
The fertilizer consists of chlorides, which in appearance resemble small crystals with a reddish tint. Many gardeners use the most successful form of potassium salt - sylvinite. It is recommended to use it in late spring or early summer. About 50 g of fertilizer is consumed per pepper bush.
Ammophos
Quite often, this complex fertilizer is used to feed peppers in a greenhouse. A distinctive feature of Ammophos is that it contains such a rare substance as sulfur. It is very convenient to use Ammophos, as it is crumbly. This allows it to be evenly applied to the soil surface.
Folk means of feeding
Various folk remedies are often used to feed young peppers.
Iodine
Iodine is very useful for vegetable seedlings. With its help, you can protect bushes from diseases and speed up their growth several times. Iodine is used in parallel with watering bell peppers, adding it to clean and settled water. To create an iodine mixture, ten grams of the substance are mixed in a bucket of water and left for several minutes. Iodine can also be used together with potassium and phosphorus.
Eggshell
Vegetable crops are often fed with eggshells and peppers are no exception. It contains a huge amount of useful substances that pepper needs. Anyone can prepare such fertilizer. To do this, place the shells of 2-3 eggs in a small container and fill with warm water. The solution is infused for 2-4 days, after which the soil is treated with it.
Banana peel
People who prefer to feed plants with folk remedies often use banana peels for this. With its help you can increase the amount of potassium in the soil. If there is little potassium in the soil, the bushes will gradually begin to fade.
To prepare the fertilizer, five banana skins are placed in a two-liter jar and filled with boiled water. After this, the solution is infused for several days. During this time, potassium should come out of the skins and fill with liquid. Foliar feeding of peppers in the greenhouse is carried out three times per season.
Yeast
Yeast is used to fill the soil with nutrients that are beneficial for the growth of peppers in a greenhouse. To create a top dressing, two tablespoons of sugar are mixed with 20 g of yeast and 10 liters of water. If desired, iodine can be added to the solution.
Conclusion
Not everyone knows how to feed peppers after planting them in a greenhouse. There are many different feeding methods that you need to familiarize yourself with before growing peppers.
