Content
Most gardeners grow peppers in seedlings, paying maximum attention and taking care of the small plant. It often takes a lot of time and effort to grow strong, healthy seedlings. However, caring for peppers after disembarkation in the soil, not all farmers carry out correctly, making mistakes that affect the yield of the crop. So, in order for all the efforts to care for the seedlings are not in vain, it is worthwhile to clearly know and follow all the rules below.
Peppers in the open field
With the onset of really warm summer days, you should think about planting seedlings. So, peppers can be planted in open ground, starting at the end of May. In some northern regions, planting should be postponed until the tenths of June. By this time, the plants must be hardened, preparing them for new conditions.
Site selection and soil preparation
Peppers are heat-loving plants that require high humidity. They do not tolerate strong winds and constant drafts, therefore, a sunny plot of land on the south side should be allocated for planting seedlings. Wind protection for peppers can be natural, stationary, for example, a building wall, or artificially created by planting tall plants. Decorative fences or wattle fence can also be man-made wind protection.
As with any cultivated plant, there are good and bad predecessors for the pepper. Plants can be planted in the ground where legumes, pumpkin crops, and root crops previously grew. For cultivation in close proximity to peppers, you can pick up "good neighbors". For example, onions, leeks, and carrots will help the peppers grow better. The "bad neighbor" for pepper is tomato. The plant is neutral to other crops.
For growing peppers, you should choose a well-drained, fertile soil. It is better to prepare it in the fall. To do this, you need to remove the remnants of vegetation and dig up the ground. During digging, organic matter (humus, manure) should be introduced into the soil. The recommended consumption of organic fertilizer is 5-10 kg / m2... Wood ash and superphosphate (50 grams of each substance) should be added to the same area of land.
Manure introduced into the ground in the fall will successfully crush. The nitrogen concentration in it will decrease, and the organic composition will become more gentle. It is impossible to apply fresh manure in the spring before planting seedlings, as this can destroy the plants.
A plot of land prepared, dug up in the fall, loosened in the spring. Add phosphorus and potash fertilizers to the soil, in a volume of about 30 g / m2, after which the soil is leveled with a rake.
The site prepared in this way will be an excellent springboard for growing plants in the open field. Organics will not contain aggressive nitrogen. While decomposing, it will warm the roots of the peppers and preserve the plants even in adverse weather conditions. Potassium and phosphorus introduced in the spring will allow the seedlings to take root better and transfer the planting painlessly.
Transplanting
Planting peppers in open ground necessary after the threat of frost has passed.In most regions of the country, this time falls on the end of May. Before planting, the plants must be watered abundantly so that the soil does not crumble during planting, remaining lumpy on the vine.
It is recommended to plant seedlings after sunset or in cloudy weather. Lack of heat and direct sunlight will allow plants to adapt better. It is necessary to plant seedlings in compliance with the distances, which depend on the height of the variety. So, standard, undersized peppers, up to 60 cm high, are planted at 4 pcs / m2... Seedlings of tall varieties are planted in 2 bushes per 1 m2 soil.
Having marked out the beds, taking into account the required distances, it is necessary to make holes, and then water them. Water consumption for such irrigation should be 1 liter per 1 hole. In this case, it is better to use warm rain water. After the liquid has been absorbed, you can proceed directly to planting the peppers. To do this, you need to thoroughly knead the container in which the seedlings are located, then carefully, keeping the soil at the root, take out the pepper and place it vertically in the hole. The planting depth should be such that the cotyledonous leaves are in the ground. Subsequently, roots are formed in the section of the trunk that is embedded in the ground. They will help the peppers take more nutrients from the soil.
Protection from cold and heat
It is possible to plant peppers in open ground earlier than the due date, but in this case the plants will have to provide additional protection from cold and frost. To do this, you can build a temporary greenhouse or tent. In this case, polyethylene, cardboard, burlap, old carpets and even roofing material can serve as a covering material. You can raise the material above the plants using wooden blocks. In this case, it is worth paying special attention to the reliability of the structure in order to avoid damage to plants. A temporary shelter will keep the earth warm at night. During the day, the greenhouse must be opened.
It often happens that in warm, favorable weather, frost forecast is a complete surprise. There is no time to install a greenhouse, but you need to protect the plants. In this case, you can resort to the "old-fashioned" method of smoking. So, not far from the plantings, it is necessary to make a fire. For combustion, it is better to use strongly smoking materials, for example, roofing material. Puffs of thick smoke will be an excellent temporary protection against frost.
There is another long-proven method of protecting plants from unexpected frosts - sprinkling. To implement it, you need to have a sprinkler (sprinkler installation). It is placed directly next to the pepper bed. Small drops of water have a positive temperature, over +100C. By irrigating plants in this manner overnight, freezing can be prevented.
Excessively high air temperatures can also harm peppers. If stable weather is established with a temperature of + 30- + 350C, then in a few days the flowers of the pepper will fall off. This is primarily due to excessive moisture evaporation and nutrient intake. You can correct the situation with regular, abundant watering.
Watering
Peppers are very fond of the high humidity of the soil and air, and if a person cannot influence the parameters of the atmosphere, then it is not at all difficult to provide the necessary soil moisture. Regular and abundant watering is a prerequisite for growing peppers. So, immediately after planting, the plants should be watered once every 2 days. The water consumption should be approximately 1-2 liters per seedling. Watering should be carried out at the root of the plant.
Two weeks after planting seedlings, plants need to be watered rarely with small portions of water. This will allow the plant to form plentifully. Also, "thin" watering has a beneficial effect on the taste of the vegetable. At the same time, during harvesting, peppers should be watered abundantly once every 5 days. Compliance with the watering conditions allows you to grow tasty, fleshy, juicy peppers.
Weeding and loosening
For the normal cultivation of peppers, you need to carefully monitor the soil. It should be loose and free of weeds. When loosening, the soil is saturated with oxygen, which allows the peppers to grow quickly. Also, the presence of oxygen in the soil allows beneficial microorganisms to activate their activity, warming plants and protecting them from diseases.
It is worth noting that after planting, the peppers stop growing for about 2 weeks. At the same time, some gardeners try to speed up the growth process by loosening the soil. This method is erroneous, since during this period the root system of plants is not adapted and loosening can harm it. That is why the first loosening of the soil must be carried out no earlier than 2 weeks after planting.
Pepper has a developed root system, which is located in the upper layers of the soil. In order not to damage the roots, it is necessary to loosen the soil superficially, without deepening lower than 5-7 cm. However, heavy, clayey soils require deeper loosening, up to 10 cm deep.
In general, the regularity of loosening depends on the composition of the soil. You can understand the need for loosening when a hard, earthen crust is found. So, you need to loosen the soil quite often: after heavy rain, several waterings.
Weeding peppers should be regular. Moreover, not only the beds should be weeded, but also the aisles, since the roots of plants can be located in close proximity to them. Loosening, in turn, is a preventive measure that allows you to fight weeds.
Top dressing
It is necessary to feed the peppers 3 times during the entire growing period. Plants, as they grow, consume more and more micronutrients, depleting the soil. That is why, 3-4 weeks after planting the seedlings, you need to feed the peppers for the first time. To do this, you can use special ready-made fertilizers or organics with the addition of minerals. Slurry is the most common fertilizing in rural areas. The manure solution will bring additional benefits to peppers if mineral fertilizers with phosphorus and potassium are added to it. Wood ash can also be a useful additive.
The second top dressing should be done 3 weeks after the initial fertilization. In this case, you can use the same infusion of manure or infusion of bird droppings. The third feeding must be planned for the period of active fruiting. During this time, peppers consume a lot of minerals, including nitrogen, which can be added in the form of ammonium nitrate.
Thus, peppers can be successfully grown in the open field and still get a good, bountiful harvest of tasty, large fruits. An example of such cultivation is shown in the video:
Features of growing peppers in a greenhouse and greenhouse
Greenhouses and hotbeds are used to grow peppers not only in the northern regions, but also in warmer areas. They allow you to get an early harvest of vegetables, protect plants from spring frosts, temperature fluctuations at night and daytime, and the vagaries of summer weather.Growing indeterminate peppers in greenhouses can significantly extend their fruiting period. Thus, the greenhouse is a unique structure that allows you to artificially create a favorable microclimate for peppers and increase the productivity of plants.
Greenhouse preparation
One of the most significant disadvantages of protective structures is the accumulation of harmful insects, their larvae and fungi. It is necessary to get rid of pests in the spring, a week before the planned planting of plants.
Aphids, slugs, and other pests can hide in parts of the protective structure. That is why it should be processed in the spring:
- a greenhouse made of polycarbonate or glass must be washed with soapy water;
- clean the wooden frame of the greenhouse from contamination and treat it with copper sulfate, dissolving it in water in a ratio of 1:10. Additionally, it is recommended to whitewash wooden structural elements;
- the processing of the metal parts of the shelter must be carried out by pouring boiling water over it.
When cleaning in a greenhouse, it is necessary to remove all remnants of previous plants, as well as moss and lichen.
For the final victory over pests, you can resort to smoking lump sulfur. To do this, you can use special smoke bombs or the substance itself, spread out on sheets of iron. When igniting a substance, it is necessary to take care of personal protective equipment, since the gases released during the combustion of lump sulfur are harmful not only to insects, but also to humans.
It should be noted that smoking will be effective only if the room is relatively airtight, has no through holes and open windows. After the procedure, the greenhouse must be closed for 3-4 days. After such processing, you can safely plant seedlings of peppers, without fear that gluttonous pests will encroach on it.
Soil preparation
The bulk of parasites and fungi live in the upper layer of the soil, so the soil in the greenhouse should be completely changed regularly or at least the top 10 cm of the soil should be replaced. A new layer of soil for growing peppers must be sieved, mixed with well-rotted organic matter and mineral trace elements. It is also possible to kill pest larvae and fungi in the soil by spilling it with manganese solution or boiling water.
Transplanting
You can plant seedlings of peppers in a greenhouse at a time when the soil is warmed up to a temperature of +150C. Such conditions in central Russia can be expected in early May. For even earlier planting of plants, greenhouses can be equipped with a heating system. In this case, the peppers can be planted at the end of March.
Immediately before planting the peppers, it is necessary to add a certain amount of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers to the soil, and then loosen the soil surface with a rake. Plants should be planted in the evening, after the atmospheric temperature has dropped. On the eve of disembarkation day, the peppers should be well watered.
Young plants should be planted in beds no more than 1 m wide. The distance between seedlings depends on the height of the plants. So, low-growing peppers in a greenhouse can be planted at a distance of 20 cm from each other, tall giants are recommended to be placed no closer than 40 cm from each other. When planting, the cotyledonous leaves of the pepper should be at ground level. The soil in the root zone of the plant must be compacted and mulched.
Basic care
Caring for peppers after planting in a greenhouse is not much different from caring for plants in the open field. So, the first time after planting the plants, regular, abundant watering should be carried out. An insufficient amount of moisture will reduce the yield of plants and make the fruits small, "dry".You can save moisture in the soil and reduce the need for watering by mulching the soil.
Peppers in a greenhouse can grow at temperatures from +230From to +300C. At the same time, an excess of the indicator can negatively affect the formation of ovaries. You can regulate the temperature by ventilating the greenhouse and watering the plants. You can also cool the plants by sprinkling. At the same time, by closing the room at night, you can preserve the daytime heat and minimize temperature fluctuations, which has a beneficial effect on the growth of peppers.
Pepper is picky about high air humidity. So, the optimal value of this indicator is 70-75%. Such a microclimate can be created by installing containers with water in a greenhouse.
Feeding peppers can speed up their growth and improve the quality of the fruit. So, peppers in the greenhouse should be fed twice: the first feeding should be done during flowering, the second during the period of active fruiting. You can use slurry, infusion of bird droppings, urea solution to fertilize peppers. Complex mineral fertilizers for feeding peppers can be additionally applied in a small amount, about 1 time per month.
Bush formation
Regardless of the conditions in which the pepper is grown, whether it is open or protected ground, it is necessary to form plants during the growing season. This will allow the plant to grow a large number of lateral fruiting branches and, as a result, increase productivity.
The principle of plant formation depends on its height:
- On tall varieties of peppers, side shoots should be partially removed and the top of the plants should be pinched;
- On peppers of medium-sized varieties, the lower and sterile lateral shoots are removed. This thinning allows the air to circulate better. This is especially important when growing peppers in greenhouses, where the plantings are quite dense, and there is no natural air movement. Such conditions can contribute to the development of diseases, and pruning of plants prevents this problem.
- Low-growing peppers do not need to be pruned at all.
When forming plants, the following rules should be remembered:
- flowers formed in the place of branching of pepper must be removed for the further normal development of the plant;
- a properly formed pepper bush has only 2-3 main, strong, fruiting shoots;
- shoots that do not form fruit must be removed, they uselessly consume the energy of the plant;
- it is possible to accelerate the ripening of fruits with the approach of autumn by pinching the main fruiting shoots.
A properly formed plant will not take up much space, but at the same time it will provide high yields. Do not spare useless shoots, because they consume nutrients that must be used up for the formation of fruits.
Conclusion
Thus, peppers are easy to care for. For this, it is necessary to know the basic requirements of the plant and in every possible way to contribute to the creation of favorable conditions. A nutritious soil, high air humidity and moderate, regular watering are the determining factors in the process of growing pepper. Also, do not forget about plant formation, fertilizing, weeding, loosening and mulching the soil. The complex of all the above measures, of course, requires time and effort, however, the grateful return of the harvest in this case will not keep itself waiting long.
