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Any gardener considers it his sacred duty to grow delicious and crispy cucumbers to enjoy them throughout the summer and to make large supplies for the winter. But not everyone can easily cope with this task, since cucumbers are a rather demanding culture in terms of heat, humidity, and intensive nutrition. I would like to dwell on the latter in more detail. Because on loose, well-filled soils with organic matter, the cucumber itself grows practically without additional fertilizing. But not everyone has such soil. They also need to be able to create. And I want to grow cucumbers here and now. Therefore, feeding for cucumbers is almost an indispensable item in the care of this crop. Moreover, they respond to them with great gratitude.
Top dressing: what they are
Everyone knows the most traditional liquid dressings - when some dark liquid is diluted in a watering can with water and cucumbers are poured with the resulting solution under the very root. You can do the same with powder and crystal-like solid fertilizers, diluting them in water. All these methods are called in one word - root feeding.
They can be mineral and organic. Fertilizers for mineral dressing are usually bought in stores. Organic fertilizers can also be bought ready-made, which is very convenient for city dwellers - summer residents who sometimes have nowhere to take the ingredients for such dressings. But more often they are already prepared on their site from various ingredients: manure, poultry droppings, grass, hay, ash, etc.
There is also a whole class of dressings, when any substances that are useful for cucumbers are dissolved or infused for some time in water, and then the cucumber bushes are sprayed from bottom to top with the resulting liquid. Our grandmothers used brooms for this purpose, while modern industry has created a whole army of all kinds of sprayers - from manual to automatic.
Such an operation is called foliar or leaf feeding cucumbers... After all, plants receive nutrition through the leaves, and not through the roots, which means that all nutrients are absorbed several times faster. Accordingly, the effect of this procedure becomes visible soon enough, which cannot but please the eyes of the gardener. This is probably why foliar dressing of cucumbers have become so popular lately.
In addition, cucumbers, unlike the same tomatoes, love such procedures, since they quite approve of the effect of high humidity. It is only necessary to take into account that feeding on a sheet for cucumbers will be much more effective in cool, cloudy weather.
- Firstly, at low temperatures, the roots begin to absorb nutrients from the soil much worse, which means that foliar feeding will come in handy.
- Secondly, in cloudy weather, it is less likely to get burns on the leaves of cucumbers from simultaneous spraying and lighting them with the sun. In any case, for this reason, foliar feeding is best done early in the morning or in the evening, when there is still or no sun.
This is done so that the cucumber leaves do not get burned.
Mineral fertilizers
The first thing that comes to mind when you need to think about fertilizers for cucumbers is the use of mineral fertilizers. Indeed, in recent decades, they have become a means of traditional feeding of most vegetable and horticultural crops, due to their ease of use and speed of action.
Azofoska
It is one of the most popular fertilizers to use, including in the cultivation of cucumbers. Nitroammofoska (azofoska) is a complex fertilizer that contains all three essential nutrients in equal proportions. It dissolves well in water. To prepare a fertilizer solution for root feeding, 1 tablespoon of azophoska is diluted in a 10-liter bucket of water.
For feeding cucumbers, one liter of this solution is poured under the root of each bush. The ground under the cucumbers must be wet before that.
If you want to carry out a foliar top dressing with Azofoskaya, then reduce the concentration by half and do it before setting the fruit. When the first ovaries appear, it is better to switch to root feeding and use other fertilizers with a high potassium content.
Urea or urea
If you urgently need to saturate cucumber plants with nitrogen, then urea is usually used for these purposes. In case of acute lack of nitrogen dilute 40 g of the substance in 10 liters of water, if rather preventive feeding is required, then you can use from 15 to 25 grams per 10 liters of water. Why exactly urea? Unlike ammonium nitrate, it will not harm cucumber plants when foliar feeding. But you should not be zealous with him either - it is always better to underfeed a little with nitrogen.
Superphosphate
During the flowering of cucumbers and in subsequent periods, other nutrients, for example, phosphorus, are more relevant for plants. The simplest top dressing will be the use of superphosphate at a concentration of 35 grams per 10 liters of water. It should be taken into account that superphosphate is very poorly soluble in water. Therefore, usually experienced gardeners use the following trick: the required amount of substance is poured with boiling water and insisted for about a day. Then the sediment is carefully filtered and the fertilizer solution is brought to its original volume.
Other types of fertilizers
For feeding cucumbers, both traditional root and leafy, in recent years it has been convenient to use a variety of complex fertilizers, among which the following varieties are most popular:
- Kristalon is a fertilizer of many different brands, differing in the ratio of nutrients in them. It is important that there is no chlorine in its composition, but magnesium, sulfur and a number of the most important microelements in a chelated form are present. This form greatly facilitates their assimilation by plants. Nitrogen in the Kristalon fertilizer is in amidium form, which is ideal for foliar dressing. For feeding cucumbers, you can choose a special or green crystal. Its NPK composition is 18:18:18, so it is a universal fertilizer. Cucumber crystal, which has been specially formulated for cucumbers, is also ideal. NPK in it is 14:11:31, so it can be applied at any stage of development and on any type of soil.
- Master - if the above fertilizer was the brainchild of the Netherlands, then the master fertilizer is a product of the Italian company Valagro. Otherwise, in terms of the variety of compositions and effects on plants, they are very similar. It also dissolves very well in water, so it can be used for both root watering and leaf dressing.In addition, the presence of magnesium also makes it possible to use the master for fertilizing during flowering and fruiting of cucumbers, when this element is vital.
- Plantofol is a high quality complex fertilizer originally from Italy, specially developed for foliar feeding of plants.
Organic fertilizers
In recent years, many gardeners are increasingly turning their backs on chemical fertilizers, dreaming that self-grown cucumbers would be natural and environmentally friendly.
Herbal infusions
Of course, the classic organic fertilizers are infusions based on manure or poultry droppings. But in recent years, when feeding animals and poultry with various compound feeds, one cannot vouch for the complete safety of even such infusions. Therefore, the use of so-called green fertilizers is gaining more and more popularity.
Usually, this fertilizer is prepared as follows - any container from 50 to 200 liters is stuffed 2/3 with weeds: nettle, dandelion, quinoa, burdocks, dandelion, wheatgrass, etc. The container is filled to the top with water, covered with a lid and left to infuse for several weeks ...
The liquid must be stirred daily. After the specified period, green fertilizer can be diluted in a ratio of 1:20 and the resulting solution can be used for feeding cucumbers by spraying and watering at the root.
Foliar feeding with hay infusion is very useful for cucumbers. For its preparation, rotten hay is poured with water in a ratio of 1: 1, insisted for several days and then filtered. The resulting solution serves not only for feeding, but also for protecting cucumber plants from powdery mildew. Hay can be obtained by mowing siderates sown before winter. It is enough just to leave it outside in the rain for several weeks and by the summer there will already be a sufficient amount of rotten hay.
Isabion
Quite recently, the Swiss company Syngenta launched a new biological fertilizer on the Russian market - Isabion. This drug is composed of 62.5% amino acids and peptides. It is able to penetrate into cucumber plants using ordinary diffusion, accelerates the overcoming of various starvation. Transfers various nutrients when used together with fertilizers. It is a biostimulant of plant growth. For foliar dressing of cucumbers, 20 grams of the substance must be dissolved in 10 liters of water.
Some folk remedies
Eggshell fertilizer is popular with many gardeners. If you have acidic soils, then you can use it when transplanting cucumber seedlings into open ground. It is better to take the shell from raw eggs that have not been cooked. For use as a fertilizer, it is recommended to grind it thoroughly. Eggshells can be added directly to the soil to deoxidize the soil and feed it with calcium. But this method of application is not very effective, since calcium from its composition is poorly absorbed by the roots of cucumbers.
Also, an infusion for foliar feeding is prepared from eggshells. For this, the shell of 5 eggs is thoroughly crushed and poured with 1 liter of warm water, after which it is insisted for 5 days. The appearance of a specific smell indicates that the infusion for foliar feeding of cucumbers is ready.
Probably, many have heard about banana dressing. And this is not surprising, since bananas contain significant amounts of potassium, as well as magnesium, calcium and phosphorus. The listed elements are especially necessary for cucumbers both during flowering and especially during fruit ripening.In particular, potassium and magnesium increase the number of ovaries, which means they have a beneficial effect on yields.
There are many ways prepare fertilizer from the peel of bananas. But the best option is the following: the peel of 3-4 bananas without tails is placed in a 3-liter jar, filled with completely filtered water (without chlorine) and left for 4-5 days. Then the solution is filtered, diluted twice and cucumbers are sprayed with it several times with an interval of 10 days.
It is interesting that even ordinary brilliant green can serve as fertilizer for feeding cucumbers. True, to a greater extent, this solution will serve to protect plants from powdery mildew and other fungal diseases. To prepare it, you need to dilute 40 drops of brilliant green in a 10-liter bucket of water. Watering the beds with cucumbers with a more concentrated solution of brilliant green (a 10 liter bottle of water) will help get rid of slugs.
Conclusion
In order to grow a bountiful harvest of delicious and crunchy cucumbers, you can choose any of the above fertilizers. By trying, combining them in different sequences, you can derive your own ideal formula for feeding cucumbers, which can then be passed on to future generations.
