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Sweet peppers began to be grown in Europe 500 years ago. Since then, the number of varieties of this crop has increased several times - today more than two thousand varieties of sweet, or as it is also called, bell pepper are known. The love of gardeners for this crop of the nightshade family is completely justified, because pepper fruits contain the maximum amount of vitamins and beneficial microelements; this is a real vitamin cocktail.
Bell pepper is a heat-loving and rather capricious plant. In Russia, it is planted as seedlings, and we will learn from this article how to grow bell pepper seedlings and how to properly care for pepper seedlings.
How to grow good pepper seedlings
To get high yields, you first need to plant strong and healthy seedlings in beds or greenhouses. Such a delicate crop as bell pepper has its own characteristics that every gardener should know about:
- Pepper does not like too frequent watering - the soil between the rows should not dry out, but should not be too wet.
- The soil between the rows must be loosened to a depth of about five centimeters; it is recommended to do this before each watering.
- Plant leaves will tell you about a lack of minerals or fertilizer - they curl, change color, dry out or fall off the bushes.
- Most varieties of bell peppers are pollinated crops, so the gardener should take care to attract bees or other pollinating insects to the plot or greenhouse.
- Excessive soil moisture is indicated by a specific disease of bell pepper - black leg, which is easily recognized by the rotting lower part of the stem.
- Peppers, unlike tomatoes, do not need to be pinched - the thick lower leaves are designed to protect the soil under the bush from excessive drying out. It is necessary to remove stepsons only if the summer was too hot and humid at the same time - this will protect the plants from rotting and will contribute to better ventilation of the bushes.
- The culture has a very delicate root system, so it does not tolerate picking and replanting. It is better to grow pepper seedlings in disposable peat cups, which are planted in the holes along with the seedlings.
- At all stages of cultivation, both soil and seed material must be disinfected - the crop is prone to diseases and viruses.
- Plants definitely need to be fed, and this is done not only after planting in a permanent place, but also at the stage of growing seedlings, feeding is applied twice.
- An air temperature below 13 degrees is considered “frost” for bell peppers. 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 cultivating other vegetable crops. To reap a good harvest, you need to choose the right variety suitable for a particular region.
Pepper, like other crops, has been zoned, that is, for the southern regions, more heat-loving, drought-resistant varieties have been selected that can tolerate extreme heat, but die from too low temperatures or too many cloudy days. Whereas, for the north and center of the country, you can find cold-resistant varieties; this crop will not shed its leaves due to lack of sun, will tolerate night cold snaps well and will produce a stable harvest.
Having decided on the variety, you need to pay attention to the method of planting the pepper: in beds or in a greenhouse.
Growing pepper seedlings largely depends on the planting method, because the growing season of this crop is long - from three to four and a half months. Therefore, seedlings need to be grown 80-90 days before transferring the plants to a permanent place - this is approximately mid-February. In any case, seeds for seedlings should be sown no later than mid-March.
Bell pepper, the seedlings of which were grown in accordance with all the rules, will give a consistently high yield.
Stages of growing sweet pepper seedlings
All preparatory and planting work can be divided into several stages:
- Soil preparation.For such a crop, the optimal soil is considered to be two parts humus, one part sand, one part soil from the garden and a few tablespoons of wood ash. You can also use purchased universal soil for seedlings. In any case, the soil should be loose and not too acidic.
- 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.
- The disinfected soil is poured into boxes or pots, and holes are made for the seeds - approximately 1.5-2 cm.
- 5-6 hours before planting seeds for seedlings, the soil in boxes and pots is spilled with a strong solution of copper sulfate.
- In turn, the seeds also undergo a disinfection procedure - they are placed in a one percent iodine solution for 30 minutes. Another way is water heated to 50 degrees. The seeds are soaked in hot water and closed in a thermos for 4-5 hours (overnight is possible).
- After this, the seeds need to be wrapped in a damp cloth and placed in a warm place for a couple of days, during which time they should hatch.
- Now the seeds are ready to be planted in the ground. They are placed in recesses and sprinkled with a little earth. After this, the soil is carefully watered, being careful not to wash out the seeds.
Planting pepper seeds for seedlings is finished. Now the boxes or pots need to be covered with polyethylene or glass and placed in a warm place where the temperature will be kept at 24-27 degrees. The seedlings do not need sunlight at this stage; on the contrary, let the place for germination be dark.
After the first shoots appear, the film or glass is removed, and the 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 planting, 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.
After two leaves appear, the seedlings should be in the following temperature conditions: during the day - from 22 to 27 degrees, and at night - from 14 to 16 degrees.
It is very important that the night temperature does not drop further than this level, otherwise the plants will begin to get sick and wither.
Caring for pepper seedlings
Since sweet pepper seedlings should be kept in the house until they reach 25-30 cm in height, become stronger, and the first buds appear on them, the plants will have to be regularly cared for 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 stems, it is time to pick the seedlings. If the seeds were sown in individual pots, then this step can be skipped, but for plants from a common box, picking is inevitable. To do this, water the seedlings generously with warm water and let them stand for a while. After that, the plants are carefully removed along with the earthen lump in the roots and transferred to individual containers.
- Water the seedlings once or twice a week - the soil should not be excessively wet. To do this, it is recommended to use melted or at least boiled, settled water, the temperature of which is about 30 degrees. Cold water has a detrimental effect on the seedlings of heat-loving crops - the plants begin to get sick, rot and die. Irrigation using the sprinkling method is preferable - when the plants are completely irrigated (stems, leaves).To water 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 sweet vegetable seedlings twice. The first dose of fertilizer is applied at the moment of peaking or when two leaves appear on the stems. A solution of potassium, superphosphate and ammonia is used as a fertilizer at this stage. The fertilizer must be in liquid form, so all components are first 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.
- Earth It is necessary to loosen around the bushes, this helps to saturate the soil and pepper roots with oxygen and improve the growth of seedlings. Loosening is done 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 warm water from a spray bottle 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 need to be prepared for transplanting to a permanent place: in a greenhouse or in open ground. To do this, the seedlings need to be hardened off. They start by opening the window on the window whose window sill the pepper occupies 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 onto the balcony, however, you should avoid wind and drafts, which can damage the delicate stems of the 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 only half the battle; you need to properly transfer them to the ground and pay sufficient attention to caring for the plants.
You need to prepare a site for growing bell peppers at least a year before planting seedlings.
First of all, you need to know that the predecessors for sweet peppers should not be its “relatives” from the nightshade family - potatoes, tomatoes, blueberries, physalis. Other crops are considered good predecessors for pepper, especially pumpkin, eggplant, and carrots. It is these vegetables that need to be grown in the previous season in the area reserved for sweet peppers.
In the spring (in the year of planting seedlings), the beds are dug up and removed. weeds, use professional disinfectants or a solution of potassium permanganate. The ridges are arranged: about 40 cm should be left between the bushes, adjacent rows are made at a distance of 50-60 cm from each other.
The recesses for seedlings 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 at which 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 first added to the hole, which is mixed with the soil in the hole. Place the plant and bury the hole halfway. Now the seedlings need to be watered. There should be a lot of water - for three bushes you will need a bucket of water. The water, again, must be warm and settled.
After watering, bury the hole completely, making sure that the soil does not reach the lower leaves and that they do not touch the ground.
In the first few days after transplanting, the pepper seedlings will be lethargic, but this is normal - the plants will acclimatize to the new location. There is no need to make the common mistake among gardeners and water the seedlings every day; this will not help them take root, but will cause harm and contribute to rotting of the roots.
If the region does not have a very warm climate, in the first weeks after planting the seedlings must be covered at night using film or special agrofibre.
Tips for gardeners
For those who have decided to start growing bell peppers on their own for the first time, we can recommend:
- purchase seeds of bell pepper varieties, albeit not very productive, but resistant. Such varieties and hybrids tolerate weather vagaries and lack of nutrition and moisture much better. The harvest will be small but stable.
- For a larger number of 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 crop is grown in two or three stems; if there are more shoots on the bushes, it is better to pintle (remove) them.
- The plant feels very comfortable in mulched beds; mulch retains moisture well and does not allow weeds to pass through. Peat or a ten-centimeter layer of rotted straw is used as a mulch 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 should be stopped, because bees will not pollinate poisonous plants.
- For the entire season the culture is needed fertilize about 4-5 times. The best fertilizer for this crop is considered to be 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 bought in a 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.
