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, care peppers after disembarkation Not all farmers carry out soil cultivation correctly, making mistakes that affect crop yields. So, in order for all your efforts to care for seedlings not to be in vain, you should clearly know and follow all the rules given below.
Peppers in the open ground
With the onset of truly warm summer days, it’s worth thinking about planting seedlings. So, peppers can be planted in open ground starting from the end of May. In some northern regions, planting should be postponed until the tenth of June. By this time, the plants need to be hardened off, preparing them for new conditions.
Site selection and soil preparation
Peppers are heat-loving plants that require high air humidity. They do not tolerate strong winds and constant drafts, so for planting seedlings you should allocate a sunny plot of land on the south side.Wind protection for peppers can be natural, stationary, for example, the wall of a building, or artificially created by planting tall plants. Decorative fences or wattles can also become man-made protection from the wind.
As with any cultivated plant, there are good and bad predecessors for pepper. Plants can be planted in soil where legumes, pumpkin crops, and root crops previously grew. For growing in close proximity to peppers, you can select “good neighbors.” So, onions, leeks and carrots will help peppers grow better. The “bad neighbor” for pepper is the tomato. The plant is neutral towards other crops.
To grow peppers, you should choose well-drained, fertile soil. It is better to prepare it in the fall. To do this, you need to remove the remaining vegetation and dig up the ground. During digging, organic matter (humus, manure) should be added to 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 applied to the soil in the fall will successfully rot. The concentration of nitrogen in it will decrease, and the composition of organic matter will become more gentle. It is impossible to apply fresh manure in the spring before planting seedlings, as this can destroy the plants.
The prepared plot of land, dug up in the fall, is loosened in the spring. Phosphorus and potassium fertilizers are added to the soil in a volume of approximately 30 g/m2, after which the soil is leveled with a rake.
An area prepared in this way will become an excellent springboard for growing plants in open ground. Organic matter will not contain aggressive nitrogen. As it decomposes, it will warm the roots of the peppers and preserve the plants even in adverse weather conditions. Potassium and phosphorus added in the spring will allow the seedlings to take root better and tolerate 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 at the end of May. Before planting, the plants must be watered abundantly so that the soil does not crumble during planting, remaining in a lump on the root.
It is recommended to plant seedlings after sunset or in cloudy weather. The absence of heat and direct sunlight will allow plants to adapt better. It is necessary to plant seedlings at distances that depend on the tallness of the variety. Thus, standard, low-growing peppers, up to 60 cm high, are planted 4 pcs/m2. Seedlings of tall varieties are planted 2 bushes per 1 m2 soil.
Having marked the beds, taking into account the required distances, it is necessary to make holes and then water them. The 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 on the root, remove the pepper and place it vertically in the hole.The planting depth should be such that the cotyledon leaves are in the ground. Subsequently, roots form on the section of the trunk that is embedded in the ground. They will help the pepper take more nutrients from the soil.
Protection from cold and heat
You can plant peppers in open ground ahead of schedule, 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. The covering material in this case can be polyethylene, cardboard, burlap, old carpeting and even roofing felt. You can lift the material above the plants using wooden blocks. In this case, special attention should be paid to the reliability of the structure in order to avoid damage to the plants. Temporary shelter will help keep the earth warm at night. During the day, the greenhouse must be opened.
It often happens that in warm, favorable weather, the forecast of frost comes as a complete surprise. There is no longer time to install a greenhouse, but the plants need to be protected. In this case, you can resort to the “old-fashioned” method of smoking. So, it is necessary to make a fire near the plantings. For combustion, it is better to use highly smoking materials, for example, roofing felt. Plumes 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). It is placed directly next to the bed with peppers. Small drops of water have a positive temperature, over +100C. By irrigating plants with this method all night, you can prevent them from freezing.
Excessively high air temperatures can also harm peppers. If the weather becomes stable with a temperature of +30-+350C, then in a few days the pepper flowers will fall off. This is primarily due to excessive moisture evaporation and nutrient consumption. The situation can be corrected with regular, abundant watering.
Watering
Peppers are very fond of high soil and air humidity, and if a person cannot influence the atmospheric parameters, then it is not at all difficult to provide the necessary soil moisture. Regularity and abundance of watering are mandatory conditions for growing peppers. So, immediately after planting, the plants should be watered once every 2 days. Water consumption should be approximately 1-2 liters per seedling. Watering should be done at the root of the plant.
Two weeks after planting the seedlings, the plants should be watered rarely with small portions of water. This will allow the plant to produce ovaries abundantly. Also, “fine” watering has a beneficial effect on the taste of the vegetable. At the same time, during harvesting, peppers should be watered generously once every 5 days. Compliance with watering conditions allows you to grow tasty, fleshy, juicy peppers.
Weeding and loosening
To grow peppers properly, you need to carefully monitor the soil. It should be loose and free of weeds. When loosened, 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 intensify their activity, warming the plants and protecting them from diseases.
It is worth noting that after planting, peppers stop growing for about 2 weeks. 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 cause harm to 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, you need to loosen the soil superficially, without going deeper than 5-7 cm. However, heavy, clay 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 you detect a hard, earthy crust. So, you need to loosen the soil quite often: after heavy rain, after several waterings.
Weeding of peppers should be regular. Moreover, weeding should be done not only in the beds, but also in the row spacing, since plant roots can be located in close proximity to them. Loosening, in turn, is a preventive measure that allows you to fight weeds.
Top dressing
Peppers need to be fed 3 times during the entire growing period. As plants grow, they consume increasing amounts of 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 organic matter with added minerals. Slurry is the most common fertilizer 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 fertilizing must be done 3 weeks after the initial application of fertilizers. You can use the same manure infusion or bird droppings infusion. The third feeding should be planned for the period of active fruiting. At 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 open ground and at the same time get a good, abundant 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 greenhouses are used for growing 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 during the day, and the vagaries of summer weather. By growing indeterminate peppers in greenhouses, you 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 plant productivity.
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 intended planting.
Aphids, slugs, and other pests can hide in parts of the protective structure. That is why it should be treated in the spring:
- a greenhouse made of polycarbonate or glass must be washed with soapy water;
- Clean the wooden frame of the greenhouse from dirt and treat it with copper sulfate, dissolving it in water in a ratio of 1:10. Additionally, it is recommended to whitewash the wooden structural elements with lime;
- Metal parts of the shelter should be treated by pouring boiling water over them.
When cleaning a greenhouse, it is necessary to remove all remnants of previous plants, as well as moss and lichen.
For final victory over pests, you can resort to smoking with lump sulfur. To do this, you can use special smoke bombs or the substance itself, spread out on iron sheets. When setting the substance on fire, it is necessary to take care of personal protective equipment, since the gases released when burning lump sulfur are harmful not only to insects, but also to humans.
It is worth noting that smoking will be effective only if the room is relatively sealed and does not have through holes or open windows. After the procedure, the greenhouse must be closed for 3-4 days. After this treatment, you can safely plant pepper seedlings without fear that voracious pests will encroach on them.
Soil preparation
The bulk of parasites and fungi live in the top layer of soil, so the soil in the greenhouse should be completely changed regularly or at least the top 10 cm of soil should be replaced. A new layer of soil for growing peppers must be sifted and mixed with well-rotted organic matter and mineral trace elements. You can also kill pest larvae and fungi in the soil by pouring a manganese solution or boiling water.
Transplanting
You can plant pepper seedlings in a greenhouse at a time when the soil is warmed to a temperature of +150C. Such conditions in central Russia can be expected in early May. For even earlier planting, greenhouses can be equipped with a heating system. In this case, the peppers can be planted at the end of March.
Immediately before planting 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. The day before planting, the peppers should be well watered.
Young plants should be planted in beds no more than 1 m wide. The distances between seedlings depend on the tallness of the plants. Thus, 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 cotyledon 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 open ground. So, for the first time after planting, regular, abundant watering should be carried out. Insufficient moisture will reduce plant productivity and make the fruits small and “dry”. You can conserve soil moisture and reduce the need for watering by mulching the soil.
Peppers in a greenhouse can grow at temperatures from +230From to +300C. In this case, exceeding the indicator can negatively affect the process of ovary formation. 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, closing the room at night can preserve daytime heat and minimize temperature fluctuations, which has a beneficial effect on the growth of peppers.
Pepper is demanding of high air humidity. So, the optimal value of this indicator is 70-75%. You can create such a microclimate by installing water containers in the greenhouse.
By feeding pepper you can speed up its growth and improve the quality of the fruit. So, peppers in a 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, bird droppings infusion, or urea solution to fertilize peppers. Complex mineral fertilizers for feeding peppers can be additionally applied in small quantities, approximately once a month.
Bush formation
Regardless of the conditions in which pepper is grown, be it 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 tallness:
- On tall pepper varieties, side shoots should be partially removed and the tops of the plants should be pinched;
- On peppers of medium-sized varieties, remove the lower and barren side shoots. This thinning allows air to circulate better. This is especially important when growing peppers in protected ground, where the plantings are quite dense and there is no natural air movement. Such conditions can encourage disease development, and pruning plants prevents this problem.
- Low-growing peppers do not need pruning at all.
When forming plants, remember the following rules:
- flowers formed at the branching point of the pepper must be removed for further normal development of the plant;
- a properly formed pepper bush has only 2-3 main, strong, fruit-bearing shoots;
- shoots that do not form fruits must be removed, they uselessly consume the plant’s energy;
- You can speed up the ripening of fruits with the approach of autumn by pinching the main fruit-bearing shoots.
A properly formed plant will not take up much space, but will provide high yield. You should not feel sorry for useless shoots, because they consume nutrients that should be used for the formation of fruits.
Conclusion
Thus, caring for peppers is quite simple. To do this, you need to know the basic requirements of the plant and in every possible way contribute to the creation of favorable conditions.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 listed activities, of course, requires time and effort, however, the grateful return of the harvest in this case will not take long to arrive.
