Ash added to the soil to stimulate the growth of garden crops is an excellent, mineralized fertilizer for cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini, but can the substance be used as a fertilizer for bell peppers? It turns out that it is not only possible, but also necessary, especially on highly acidic or depleted soils.
Ash fertilizer serves as an excellent antiseptic, preventing the spread of fungal diseases. Ash does not contain chlorine elements, and this environmentally friendly fertilizer does not cost anything to obtain, especially knowing what type of raw material it is intended for and for what purpose.
Types of ash for feeding peppers
Stove ash is any ash obtained from natural wood, and vegetable ash is the ash that arises after burning herbs.
The main condition for obtaining a product suitable for use is the absence of artificial impurities in the burned material, in the form of glue, plastic or cellophane elements, fabric inserts.
It is believed that ash extracted from peat or coal has the least nutritional value for the soil - the benefit and harm from such raw materials for the plant is practically zero, but it is still used when there is a need to reduce the acidity of the soil.
Here is a brief background overview of the value of the different types of ash used for pepper:
- the product obtained from burning birch logs contains: 40% calcium, 7% phosphorus and almost 15% potassium;
- if you burn walnut shells, the finished fertilizer product will be rich in potassium (up to 20%), calcium (about 7%), phosphorus (4-6%);
- dried potato tops are rich in lime (29-32%), phosphorus (5-8%) and potassium (22-25%);
- buckwheat and straw, is in first place in value among all types of plant ash, it contains 30-34% potassium, 16-18% calcium, 3% phosphorus;
- ash from rye straw is slightly poorer, it contains only 15% potassium, 6-8% calcium and no more than 8% phosphorus.
Due to the absence of heavy elements, plant or wood ash is excellent for any type of soil, improving the quality and increasing the productivity of even the poorest and most depleted areas.
Thus, a substance added to clay or loamy soil before winter increases the looseness of the soil several times, and to reduce acidity, the soil must be sprinkled with ash at the rate of up to half a kilogram per 1 m2.
How to feed peppers with ash
First feeding of peppers carried out even before germination - as a preventive measure against infection of seeds by fungus and to saturate them with necessary microelements. For seeds, a reduced concentration of ash solution mixed with “soft” water – melt or rain – is used. Take 0.5 tbsp per liter of water. spoons of the sifted substance, stir the composition well and filter after a day. Soak the seeds for 5 hours.
The second feeding of pepper with ash is carried out when planting seedlings in the ground, but the root system of the young plant should not come into direct contact with the fertilizer, so the hole spilled with the solution is sprinkled with earth and only then the seedling material is lowered into the hole. The recipe for making an infusion in this case is the same as for the primary feeding of seeds.
When the plants take root, they can be fed with an ash solution prepared “with herbs”. To do this, you can use any weeds that grow in the garden.
First, the roots of the grass are cut off and the seed pods are removed, then the greens are finely chopped and, in a volume of 5 to 7 kg, placed in a container into which several handfuls of ash and 5 liters of mullein are poured. All this porridge-like mass is diluted with a sufficient amount of warm water and settled for a week. Peppers are fed with this composition at the rate of 1 liter of fertilizer per bush.
You can also fertilize with ash in its pure form as a concentrate - for this, the substance can not even be sifted, but crushed directly in your hands. Furrows are made between the rows of pepper - no closer than 10 cm from the plants - and dry fertilizer is generously poured into these grooves. Watering can be carried out along these grooves.Complex dry mixtures are also applied to the soil using ash as the main component. The composition is supplemented with purified sand and peat - both of which are taken in half the amount of ash.
Foliar feeding
In open ground, fertilizing with ash is common by spraying the composition onto the foliar part of the plants. Aphids and most caterpillars will not survive this “washing”; Naked slugs and mole crickets will try to avoid treated plants.
For spraying, prepare a decoction of 200 g of ash, brewed with 1 liter of boiling water and kept for another half hour over low heat. The solution is kept for a day, then filtered and diluted with a bucket of warm water. Some gardeners, before feeding the peppers, add a quarter of a bar of grated, fragrance-free baby soap to the finished mixture. This addition gives the solution “tenacious” and it lingers on the leaves and stems of plants for a long time.
It is necessary to spray peppers with an ash solution often, as the liquid is quickly washed off by heavy dew and rain. The recommended frequency of pollination is three times a month, but in rainy summers the product can be used more often - once a week. Peppers love ash, but you should not over-fertilize or, even worse, increase the concentration of the substance, as the plants can get burned and die.
Another option for external treatment, which is suitable even for plants in a greenhouse, is pollination with sifted ash mixed in equal quantities with tobacco dust.
This powder is made during the period when the third true leaf appears on the stem and serves, at the same time, as a growth stimulant for the young seedling, feeding and protection from harmful insects.
Feeding peppers with ash in a greenhouse
Plants in a greenhouse require a special nutritional base to compensate for the substances that they could receive if they were in the open ground. Therefore, a one-component ash solution in this case will not be enough.
It is recommended to include ash in a complex fertilizer applied directly to the soil. This composition can be a fertilizer prepared according to the following recipe:
- 150 g of wood ash;
- 0.5 tbsp. spoons of potassium sulfate;
- 1 tbsp. spoon (without top) of superphosphate;
- 0.5 buckets of rotted compost.
This amount of fertilizer is given per 1 square meter. meter of soil in a greenhouse. The soil is sprinkled with fertilizer, and then everything is thoroughly loosened and watered with slightly warmed water from a watering can. To obtain condensation, the entire treated soil surface is covered with polyethylene and left there for 3-4 days, after which you can plant peppers.
In the future, ash can be added to plants in the greenhouse in its pure form, pouring it directly by the handful between the rows of pepper.
Rules for fertilizing with ash fertilizer
In order not to damage the plants and get a good harvest of large fruits, both in the greenhouse and in the open air, it is not enough to know only the composition and benefits of fertilizers, you also need to know how to use them. There is a small set of rules that you will have to follow when dealing with mineral fertilizers such as ash:
- if mulch is not used around the plants, each fertilizing should be accompanied by shallow loosening of the soil;
- you cannot use the same type of fertilizer all the time - mineral fertilizing is rich in useful elements, but it does not have the qualities that organic matter has, which means that these two types of fertilizers need to be alternated;
- ash is not applied to dry soil, but even in very moist soil its effectiveness is low, therefore, you need to make it a rule to use ash fertilizer a day or two after good watering;
Peppers love heat, so all ash solutions must be diluted with water heated to average soil temperature - if we are talking about a greenhouse and 1-3 0C is higher if watering is done in open ground.
