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Everyone knows zucchini. However, not everyone knows about the benefits of the fruits they eat. Many people grow it to feed birds or eat it themselves only at first, when the fruits have just appeared.
Zucchini contains a lot of nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants. Zucchini fruits have minimal calorie content, which is important for those losing weight. Fiber has a beneficial effect on the digestive system. Another benefit of zucchini is that it can be consumed at any age with virtually no restrictions. Zucchini is especially useful for pregnant women and for babies when introducing complementary foods.
The plant is very unpretentious. If you follow the growing conditions and regular feeding, you can get a rich harvest.
Soil preparation
First of all, think about the right place to grow your zucchini. The culture loves the best-lit areas of the garden, sheltered from cold winds. With good lighting, it is possible to get the first harvest much earlier.
Proper gardening involves maintaining crop rotation. The reserves of nutrients on the site have their limits. By planting related crops in the same place, you doom the soil to depletion and, as a result, a drop in yield.
Zucchini grows best after:
- Early and cauliflower;
- Onion, garlic;
- Peas, beans, beans;
- Spices.
You will get the worst harvest if you grow the crop after:
- Tomato;
- Carrots;
- Turnips;
- Pepper;
- Eggplant.
It should be remembered that zucchini works like a pump, sucking out from the soil everything it needs for its nutrition. Therefore, soil preparation should be done with special attention. Zucchini loves fertile soil. Preparatory work begins in the fall. They bring in manure and dig up the ground. If necessary, add lime, since zucchini grows best in neutral soils.
But you can add compost, superphosphate (about 50 g per square meter) and ash.
If the soils are clayey, then their structure is improved by adding humus, river sand, and the mineral composition with superphosphate (1 tbsp) and ash (3 tbsp). The norms are indicated for one square meter. m of soil.
If there are loams or sandy loams, then apply humus and the same fertilizers as for clay soils.
Sandy soils are too light and infertile for zucchini. They are fertilized by adding peat, humus and clay soil to balance the composition of the soil. The same fertilizers are used.
Spring work to prepare the soil for zucchini consists of the following: digging up the soil, applying fertilizer if this was not done in the fall. The compost is mixed with garden soil, a pinch of potassium sulfate or superphosphate and one tablespoon of ash are added to each hole. Before sowing, you can water the holes with Agricola or Rossa, or fertilize 1 tbsp. l. "Effectona"
Place 2-3 zucchini seeds in the hole at a depth of approximately 4-5 cm if the soil is light. On heavy clay soils, the seeds do not need to be buried too deeply; they are sown to a depth of 2 cm.Before sowing, seeds are germinated in a growth stimulant, potassium humate or sodium humate.
Stages of feeding zucchini
After waiting for the seedlings to appear a week later, you can water them with the following preparation:
- “Bud”, “Agricola”, “Veriohumus”. Read the instructions carefully before use. These drugs promote the formation of the root system, increase the yield and quality of future fruits, and stimulate plant development. For those gardeners who prefer to fertilize according to tradition: mullein infusion (1:10);
- To feed zucchini, use a mixture dissolved in 10 liters of water that contains ammonium nitrate, superphosphate and potassium (25, 35 and 20 g, respectively).
The point of feeding in the early period of development is so that the plants have the potential to increase green mass.
The following feeding of zucchini is carried out during preparation for flowering, when the buds are laid:
- Use complex compound fertilizers that contain the elements needed at the stage when the crop is laid. Fertilizer "Agromix" can be applied to the soil during loosening (25 g for each square meter of plot) or dissolved (50 g in ten liters of water), and then watered 5 square meters. m of planting zucchini;
- Another option for feeding zucchini grown in open ground: infusion of slurry (proportion 1 to 10) and nitrophoska (1 tbsp. l);
- Fertilizer "Rossa" is suitable for feeding zucchini at the budding stage (2 tablespoons of the drug per 10 liters of water), one liter of the prepared solution per plant, respectively.
A feature of liquid fertilizers is their convenience for using foliar fertilizing of zucchini. It is known that plants absorb nutrients not only through the root system, but also through the leaves through spraying.Gardeners immediately notice the effect of using foliar fertilizing. This type of fertilizer is especially good for weakened, sick plants.
Another feeding of zucchini is done during flowering.
Add ash (2 tablespoons) to the “Effecton” fertilizer solution (2 tablespoons per bucket of water), stir well and water the zucchini, based on the norm: 1 liter of solution for each individual plant.
During fruiting, zucchini require another feeding. Zucchini fruits are large, and the plant spends a lot of energy and nutrition on their development. Be sure to support the plants with fertilizing:
- In the solution obtained by adding 1 tbsp. l. regular urea in 10 liters of water, add 200 g of ash, mix well and pour over the zucchini;
- Nitrophoska solution (3 tablespoons dissolved in 10 liters of water);
- A solution of superphosphate and potassium nitrate. 50 g of each substance should be added to 10 liters of water, then water each individual plant with one liter of solution;
- Fertilizers for zucchini, consisting of several elements: copper sulfate, boric acid, manganese sulfate. Take 4 g each;
- Ready-made complex fertilizers: “Kemira”, “Biohumus”, “Agromix” and others. Follow the instructions for preparing the zucchini feeding solution. Use them as sprays for foliar feeding.
Zucchini will respond to timely fertilizing with a rich, tasty harvest within a month and a half after planting in open ground. Video tips for growing and feeding zucchini during the growing season:
Folk remedies
Traditional methods for feeding zucchini in open ground are a worthy alternative to ready-made mineral fertilizers.
Ash
Ash is a natural fertilizer that contains all the nutritional elements necessary for zucchini, except nitrogen. Nitrogen is added separately. If a sufficient amount of manure was applied in the fall, then nitrogen is present in the soil and there will be enough for the vegetative season of zucchini. Therefore, ash can become the only fertilizer for the crop.
It should be understood that 1 kg of ash can easily replace fertilizers such as superphosphate, potassium chloride and lime, which are used to deoxidize soils. Ash successfully corrects high acidity levels to lower or neutral ones.
If the plant has brown spots on the leaves or yellowness, the plant will not be able to bear fruit. Feel free to use ash to feed zucchini. Since the ash contains more than three dozen micro- and macroelements.
Ash is most effectively used in dry form or in the form of an ash solution (2 cups/bucket of water). Before planting, zucchini seeds are soaked in an ash solution (2 tablespoons/1 liter of water). When planting, dry ash is added directly to the holes (2 tablespoons), and around an adult plant you can make a groove and place fertilizer there, based on the norm of 1 kg per 1 plant, 500 g of ash per square meter. m of soil is added in the spring when digging up the soil.
Do not use ash from burning coal, polyethylene, roofing felt, foam plastic, rubber.
Yeast
Fertilizing with yeast is very good when combined with fertilizing with ash. Everyone knows that yeast is a fungus.In the process of their life activity they release substances that are very beneficial for plants. Zucchini responds by actively growing the root system, on which the formation of the future harvest of zucchini depends.
Yeast causes the development of bacteria that are found in the soil and participate in the decomposition of compost and humus with the release of nitrogen.
Yeast can be used to feed zucchini in different ways. Some gardeners add dry yeast to the soil. However, when using solutions, the effectiveness of fertilizing increases.
100 g of live yeast per half liter of warm water. Give some time for the mushrooms to begin their life activity (1-2 hours); use the prepared starter in a bucket of water to water the zucchini.
Use a packet of dry yeast (11 g) per 10 liters of slightly warm water, adding 3 tbsp. l. granulated sugar. The solution should stand in a warm place (for example, in a greenhouse) for 2 hours before use.
Yeasts live and develop only in warmth. It is best to feed zucchini in warm weather, otherwise the yeast will have no benefit when it gets colder.
Instead of yeast, you can use bread crusts, crackers, and old jam for fermentation. This mixture takes a little longer to prepare. It should be kept in a warm place for 5-7 days.
"Herb tea"
“Herbal tea” or herbal infusion is used to feed all plants in the garden. This fertilizer is safe, easy to prepare, and does not require any financial costs. Gardeners advise preparing herbal infusion in large quantities at once.The best option is a 100-liter barrel, which is half filled with grass, topped with water and left to ferment.
If the weather is warm, then the fermentation process will take place actively, and the infusion will be ready in 10-14 days. Fermentation can be accelerated by adding a jar of fermented jam and bread crusts.
At first, the infusion will actively bubble and foam. The readiness of the infusion is indicated by its transparency. It is usually recommended to fertilize zucchini by diluting herbal tea in a ratio of 1:10. The most experienced gardeners recommend making a higher concentration, diluting the infusion in a 1:2 ratio. For each bucket of ready-to-use solution, add a glass of ash.
To prepare a herbal infusion, you can use mowed lawn grass, grass obtained by weeding, but a particularly useful fertilizer is obtained from nettles and legume stems. Video instructions for preparing herbal infusion:
Another type of feeding for zucchini and more. Prepared on the basis of herbal infusion. A container of 100 liters is required. Ingredients: 3-4 buckets of grass, 2 kg of dolomite flour, 1.5 kg of bone meal, Baikal preparation 50 g.
All components are placed in a container, water is added, everything is mixed well. The mass will actively bubble for 2 weeks. Then it will settle. To use, take 3 liters of infusion per 100 liters of water (use a different container). The infusion is stored for about 2 weeks. The total volume of infusion is enough for 2 treatments of a plot of 15 acres.
Conclusion
Grow zucchini - a healthy vegetable will diversify your diet and keep you healthy. To get a rich harvest, cultivate the plant correctly using fertilizers. Fertilizing will not only increase the amount of harvest, but also speed up its ripening.And using folk remedies will also save your wallet from additional costs.
