How to grow pepper seedlings

Sweet peppers began to be grown in Europe 500 years ago. Since then, the number of varieties of this culture has increased several times - today there are more than two thousand varieties of sweet, or as it is also called, bell peppers are known. The love of gardeners for this culture of the nightshade family is quite justified, because the fruits of pepper contain the maximum amount of vitamins and useful trace elements, this is a real vitamin cocktail.

Bell pepper is a thermophilic and rather capricious plant. On the territory of Russia, it is planted with seedlings, and we learn about how to grow bell pepper seedlings, how to properly care for pepper seedlings, from this article.

How to grow good pepper seedlings

To get high yields, first of all, you need to plant strong and healthy seedlings in the beds or greenhouses. Such a delicate culture as bell pepper has its own characteristics that every gardener should know about:

1. Pepper does not like watering too often - the soil between the rows should not dry out, but it should not be too wet.
2. The soil between the rows must be loosened to a depth of about five centimeters, it is recommended to do this before each watering.
3. The leaves of plants will tell about the lack of minerals or fertilizers - they curl, change color, dry out or are thrown from the bushes.
4. Most bell peppers are pollinated crops, so the gardener must take care to attract bees or other pollinating insects to the plot or greenhouse.
5. Excessive soil moisture is signaled by a specific disease of bell pepper - a black leg, which is easily recognized by the decaying lower part of the stem.
6. Peppers, unlike tomatoes, do not need to be pinned - the thick lower leaves are designed to protect the soil under the bush from excessive drying out. It is necessary to remove stepchildren only if the summer turned out to be too hot and humid at the same time - this will protect the plants from decay and contribute to better airing of the bushes.
7. The culture has a very delicate root system, therefore it does not tolerate picking and transplanting well. Growing pepper seedlings is best done in disposable peat cups, which are planted in the holes along with the seedlings.
8. At all stages of cultivation, both the soil and the seed must be disinfected - the culture is prone to diseases and viruses.
9. Plants must be fed, and they do this not only after planting in a permanent place, but even at the stage of growing seedlings, feeding is applied twice.
10. Air temperature below 13 degrees is considered "frost" for bell pepper. With such drops in temperature, the bushes must be covered with film or agrofibre.

How to grow pepper seedlings

Growing bell pepper seedlings, in principle, is no different from the cultivation of other vegetable crops. To get a good harvest, you need to find the right variety for your particular region.

Pepper, like other crops, is zoned, that is, more thermophilic, drought-resistant varieties that can withstand extreme heat, but die from too low temperatures or an excess of cloudy days, have been selected for the southern regions.While cold-tolerant varieties can be found for the north and center of the country, this crop will not shed leaves due to lack of sun, it will tolerate nighttime cold snaps well and give a stable harvest.

Growing pepper seedlings largely depends on the method of planting, because the growing season of this culture is long - from three to four and a half months. Therefore, seedlings need to be grown 80-90 days before the transfer of plants to a permanent place - this is about mid-February. In any case, sowing seeds for seedlings should be no later than mid-March.

Stages of growing sweet pepper seedlings

All preparatory and planting work can be divided into several stages:

1. Soil preparation. For such a culture, the soil is considered optimal, consisting of two parts of humus, one part of sand, one part of land from the garden and several tablespoons of wood ash. You can also use commercially available universal seedling soil. In any case, the soil should be loose and not too acidic.
2. The mixed soil must be disinfected. To do this, you can use either the method of calcining the earth in the oven or freezing the substrate outside.
3. The disinfected soil is poured into boxes or pots, holes are made for seeds - about 1.5-2 cm.
4. 5-6 hours before planting seeds for seedlings, soil in boxes and pots is spilled with a strong solution of copper sulfate.
5. In turn, the seeds also undergo a disinfection procedure - they are placed in a 1% iodine solution for 30 minutes. Another way is water heated to 50 degrees. The seeds are soaked in hot water and covered in a thermos for 4-5 hours (you can overnight).
6. After that, the seeds must be wrapped in a damp cloth and placed in a warm place for a couple of days, during which time they should hatch.
7. The seeds are now ready to be planted in the ground. They are placed in recesses and a little sprinkled with earth. After that, the soil is carefully watered, taking care not to wash the seeds.

Planting pepper seeds for seedlings is over. Now the boxes or pots need to be covered with plastic or glass and placed in a warm place where the temperature will be kept at 24-27 degrees. Sunlight is not needed at this stage of the seedlings, on the contrary, let the place for germination be dark.

After the first sprouts appear, the film or glass is removed, and containers with pepper seedlings are placed on windowsills or tables, providing them with enough sunlight.

In any case, the seedlings will have to be illuminated, because in the first month after disembarkation, the seedlings need 12 hours of lighting - from 7 to 21 hours. To do this, use fluorescent lamps and be sure to control the temperature near the plants.

It is very important that the night temperature does not drop further than this level, otherwise the plants will start to ache and wither.

Pepper seedling care

Since the seedlings of sweet pepper should be in the house until they reach 25-30 cm in height, they will not get stronger, the first buds will not appear on it, the plants will have to be regularly looked after during this time. Moreover, caring for pepper seedlings will largely depend on the age of the plants and their condition.

So:

• when the pepper grows a little and two leaves appear on the stalks, it will be time to pick the seedlings.If the seeds were sown in individual pots, then this stage can be skipped, but for plants from a common box, picking is inevitable. To do this, the seedlings are watered abundantly with warm water and allowed to stand for a while. After that, the plants are carefully removed together with an earthen clod in the roots and transferred to individual containers.
• Seedlings are watered once or twice a week - the ground should not be excessively wet. For this, it is recommended to use thawed or at least boiled settled water, the temperature of which is about 30 degrees. Cold water has a detrimental effect on the seedlings of a heat-loving culture - the plants begin to ache, rot and die. Sprinkler irrigation is preferable - when the plants are irrigated completely (stems, leaves). For watering small plants, it is convenient to use a spray bottle, then you can switch to a watering can with a diffuser.
• You need to feed the seedlings of a sweet vegetable twice. The first dose of fertilizer is applied at the time of diving or when two leaves appear on the stems. At this stage, a solution of potassium, superphosphate and ammonia is used as fertilizer. Fertilizer should be in liquid form, so all components are pre-dissolved in warm water. The second feeding is done two weeks after the first, or when the seedlings already have 3-4 leaves. The ingredients are the same, only the dosage of mineral fertilizers should be doubled.
• The earth it is imperative to loosen around the bushes, this contributes to the saturation of the soil and pepper roots with oxygen, the better growth of seedlings. Loosening is performed carefully, trying not to damage the delicate root system.
• To maintain a healthy microclimate in a room with sweet pepper seedlings, you need to spray the plants with a spray bottle with warm water and regularly ventilate the room. However, you need to be very careful about drafts - they are detrimental to bell pepper seedlings.
• Peppers grown in boxes and pots must be prepared for transplantation to a permanent place: in a greenhouse or in open ground. For this, the seedlings need to be hardened. They start by opening the window on the window, the windowsill of which is occupied by the pepper, for a few minutes. Gradually, the cool air baths become longer and longer, the window is kept completely open for several hours. Now you can take the pepper outside or on the balcony, however, you should avoid wind and drafts, which can damage the delicate stems of plants. When the seedlings get a little stronger, they are left in boxes outside overnight. An important condition is that the air temperature at night should be above 14 degrees.

Transplanting pepper seedlings to a permanent place

Growing sweet pepper seedlings is still half the battle, you need to properly transfer it to the ground and pay sufficient attention to caring for the plants.

You need to prepare a plot for growing bell peppers at least a year before planting seedlings.

First of all, you need to know that the predecessors for sweet pepper should not be its "relatives" from the nightshade family - potatoes, tomatoes, blue, physalis. The rest of the crops are considered good precursors for pepper., especially pumpkin, eggplant, carrots. It is these vegetables that need to be grown in the previous season in the area set aside for bell peppers.

In the spring (in the year of planting seedlings), the beds are dug up, removed weeds, use professional disinfecting agents or a solution of potassium permanganate. They arrange ridges: about 40 cm should be left between the bushes, adjacent rows are made at a distance of 50-60 cm from each other.

The seedling grooves should be exactly the depth to which the plant will be buried in the soil. It is best to deepen the plants to the same level they grew in cups or boxes.

If the seedlings were grown in peat cups, they are simply buried in the ground up to the side of the container.

A handful of ammonium nitrate is preliminarily added to the hole, which is mixed with earth in the hole. A plant is placed and a hole is half buried. Now the seedlings need to be watered. There should be a lot of water - three bushes will need a bucket of water. The water, again, should be warm and settled.

After watering, the hole is completely buried, making sure that the earth does not reach the lower leaves, and they do not touch the ground.

In the first few days after transplanting, pepper seedlings will be lethargic, but this is normal - the plants will acclimate to a new place. There is no need to make a mistake common among gardeners and water the seedlings every day, this will not help it to take root, but it will harm, contribute to decay of the roots.

If the climate in the region is not very warm, in the first weeks after planting, the seedlings must be covered overnight using film or special agrofibre.

Tips for gardeners

For those who first decided to start growing bell pepper on their own, we can recommend:

• to acquire seeds, albeit not very productive, but resistant varieties of bell peppers. Such varieties and hybrids are much better able to tolerate weather "whims", lack of nutrition and moisture. The harvest will be small but stable.
• For more ovaries, it is recommended to remove the central inflorescence located at the top of the main stem. This will increase the yield of the bush.
• The culture is grown in two or three stems, if there are more shoots on the bushes, it is better to pinch them (remove).
• The plant feels very comfortable in mulch beds, mulch retains moisture well, does not let weeds through. Peat or a ten-centimeter layer of rotted straw is used as a mulching layer.
• To attract pollinating insects to pepper bushes, it is necessary to spray them with sweet water with the addition of bromine during the flowering period. When flowers appear on the bushes, any insecticide treatments must be stopped, because the bees will not pollinate the poisonous plants.
• For the whole season, culture needs fertilize about 4-5 times. The best fertilizer for this crop is urea dissolved in water in a ratio of 1:10.
• The beds need to be weeded and loosened regularly.

Self-grown bell peppers are undoubtedly tastier than those purchased at the store or market. And most importantly, such vegetables are much healthier and more nutritious. How to properly grow pepper seedlings is described in detail in this article - even a novice gardener can cope with this task.

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