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Tomatoes and peppers are wonderful vegetables that are present in our diet throughout the year. In summer we eat them fresh, in winter they are canned, dried, or dried. Juices, sauces, seasonings are prepared from them, and they are frozen. They are remarkable because anyone can plant them in their garden - the variety of varieties and hybrids allows you to grow peppers and tomatoes in almost any climate zone. This article is devoted to feeding seedlings, in particular, many are interested in yeast, we will dwell on this issue separately.
What you need to successfully grow pepper and tomato seedlings
Peppers and tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, but their needs are different. To make this clearer, we have compiled a comparison table.
Some points that are not included in the tables should be noted separately:
- Tomatoes love frequent transplants; their roots can be pinched, this stimulates the development of lateral roots. Pepper does not tolerate transplantation very well, and if the root is damaged, it may die altogether.
- When transplanting tomatoes, they are buried, and additional roots appear on the stem, which improve the nutrition of the plant.Peppers prefer to be planted at the same depth as previously. The part of the stem buried in the ground may rot.
- Tomatoes do not like dense plantings - they need good ventilation, and dense plantings contribute to the occurrence of late blight. Peppers, on the other hand, should be planted closer to each other. Its fruits ripen better in partial shade.
As you can see, these cultures are in many ways similar to each other, but they have significant differences that should not be forgotten.
Feeding tomato and pepper seedlings
Our article is devoted to feeding tomato and pepper seedlings. There are no difficulties here if you have a good idea of what you are doing. Let's figure it out together.
Why feed plants
We are so scared of herbicides, pesticides, nitrates that sometimes we think that it is better not to feed the plant at all - weeds grow without any fertilizers.
Retreat! Aesop was once asked why cultivated plants are groomed and cherished, but they still grow poorly and die, but the weeds, no matter how you fight them, grow again. The wise slave (and Aesop was a slave) replied that nature is like a woman who has married a second time. She tries to take the tasty morsel from her husband’s children and give it to her children. That’s how weeds are children for nature, while cultivated garden plants are stepchildren.
Peppers and tomatoes are plants from another continent, where the climate is hot and dry. In nature, these are perennial plants that can develop in the absence of strong winds and mechanical damage into very large plants several meters tall.Those little ones that we grow in gardens and greenhouses are the fruits of selection; they are unlikely to survive without our help.
In addition, the opinion that all fertilizers are harmful is a misconception. Plants need nitrogen to grow green mass, phosphorus for flowering and fruiting, and potassium for the development of the root system. This is not the entire spectrum of action of macroelements, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, but this information should be enough for an amateur gardener.
Microelements for garden plants are not as important as for perennials - often peppers and tomatoes during the period of their development do not fully feel the consequences of a deficiency of microelements, moreover, they are present in small quantities in the soil itself, in the water for irrigation. But their lack leads to many diseases: for example, late blight develops exclusively against the background of a lack of copper, and is treated with copper-containing drugs.
General rules
Tomatoes love phosphorus. Peppers love potassium. Neither peppers nor tomatoes like fresh manure and increased doses nitrogen fertilizers. But this only applies to its excess; the correct doses of nitrogen are vital for any plant.
Pepper feeding, tomatoes are best done in the morning. During the day you can feed plants only in cloudy weather.
Feeding is carried out after the seedlings have been moistened. If you pour fertilizer on young sprouts of peppers and tomatoes on dry soil, the tender root may get burned and the plant will most likely die.
Fertilizers are dissolved in soft, settled water at a temperature of 22-25 degrees.
Firstly, watering the pepper and tomato with cold water is harmful, and secondly, at low temperatures, beneficial substances are less absorbed, and at 15 degrees they are not absorbed at all.
Growth stimulants
There are many plant growth stimulants, in particular for seedlings. But if you sowed quality seeds in good soil, you don't need them. Exceptions are natural preparations such as epin, zircon and humate. But they cannot be called growth stimulants - these drugs of natural origin stimulate the plant’s own resources, help them more easily survive a lack of light, low or high temperature, lack or excess of moisture, and other stress factors, and do not specifically stimulate growth processes.
They should be used at the stage of preparing seeds for sowing - soaking pepper and tomato seeds. This will help them germinate better; in the future, peppers and tomatoes will be more resistant to the influence of negative factors. Epin can be used to treat seedlings one leaf at a time every two weeks, and humate, a teaspoon of which is poured with a glass of boiling water, then topped up with cold water to two liters, can be well diluted and used for watering seedlings.
Other stimulants should not be used.If peppers and tomatoes develop well, they are simply not needed; they can cause stretching, and then lodging and death of the seedlings. In addition, treatment with stimulants can cause early formation of buds, which will be very inappropriate before planting tomatoes and peppers in the ground or greenhouse. In northern regions, regions with extreme climates or under particularly unfavorable weather conditions, stimulants may be required at the stage of flowering, fruit set, and ripening, but this is not a topic for our discussion.
There is a danger that tomato and pepper seedlings were simply treated with preparations similar to tur - Atlant, Kultar or others. They're slowing down height aboveground part of the plant. This is appropriate for ornamental crops if we want to get more compact bushes than are inherent in the varietal characteristics of the plants. When used for vegetable crops, these drugs inhibit growth, the seedlings are subsequently forced to catch up with their untreated counterparts, their development is inhibited, the fruits become smaller, and the yield falls. It’s better to buy overgrown seedlings or grow them yourself.
Fertilizers for tomato and pepper seedlings
Peppers are fertilized 3 times from planting to planting in the ground, and tomatoes - 2 times. Let us say right away that it is best to feed with special fertilizers for each plant. There are drugs on sale for every budget. Of course, it is better to fertilize Kemiroy for seedlings, but there are much cheaper preparations of good quality, and they are often suitable for adult plants.
Nitroammofoska and amophoska are good fertilizers, but they are universal; specialized fertilizers are distinguished by the fact that the manufacturer himself took care to take into account the needs of a particular plant. Naturally, do not sprinkle fertilizers thoughtlessly - read carefully and strictly follow the instructions.
Tomatoes are fed for the first time on the twelfth day after picking with special fertilizer with a concentration two times lower than recommended for seedlings, with the addition of 1 teaspoon of urea per 10 liters of solution (calculate the required dose yourself). At this time, tomatoes really need nitrogen.
A week later, a second feeding is carried out either with a special fertilizer, or a teaspoon of amophoska is dissolved in 10 liters of water. If the seedlings develop well, you don’t need to give any more mineral fertilizers before planting. But if there is a need, tomato seedlings are fed every two weeks in the same way as the second time.
Pour a tablespoon superphosphate a cup of boiling water, let it brew overnight. Add the solution to 2 liters of water, pour the tomato seedlings over the leaves and soil.
Peppers are fed for the first time with a special fertilizer when the first two true leaves appear. The second feeding is given two weeks after the first, and the third – three days before planting. If you feed peppers with amophoska, prepare a solution as for tomatoes, only for each liter of solution add a tablespoon of wood ash, pour a glass of boiling water for 2 hours.
Feeding tomato and pepper seedlings with ash
If the weather is cloudy for a long time and pepper and tomato seedlings do not have enough light, this negatively affects the plants, especially shortly before planting in the ground. Wood ash can help us here.
Pour a glass of ash into 8 liters of hot water, let it brew for a day and filter. Water the pepper seedlings over the leaves and into the soil.
If it turns out that you flooded the seedlings, they began to lie down, or the first signs of blackleg appeared, sometimes it is enough to dust the soil in the boxes with seedlings with wood ash.
Feeding tomato and pepper seedlings with yeast
Yeast is a wonderful, highly effective fertilizer. In addition, they protect the plant from certain diseases. But they are not suitable for seedlings. Yeast stimulates plant growth, but we don’t need elongated sprouts of tomatoes and peppers. Even if the seedlings are lagging behind in development, it is better to accelerate their growth in other ways. Yeast feeding It is very good to give to both peppers and tomatoes after planting in the ground.
Watch a video about feeding seedlings:
