Content
Sweet pepper is one of the most common vegetable crops. It is difficult to imagine a garden without this heat-loving plant. In our conditions, pepper is grown exclusively by seedlings, and the choice of variety or hybrid depends on climatic conditions. Can be planted in greenhouses any varieties suitable for indoor soil. There you can meet all the requirements of this fastidious plant for temperature, watering, and lighting. Open priming involves careful selection of varieties, hybrids and choice of location for growing pepper.
Today we will talk about how to plant it correctly and tell you when to plant peppers in the ground. If everything is done correctly in the initial stages, then it will be easier to care for it, and we will reap a good harvest.
Features of growing pepper
Pepper came to us from Mexico and Guatemala, which determines its needs:
- short daylight hours, no more than 8 hours;
- moderate moisture requirement;
- light fertile soils;
- increased doses of potash fertilizers.
Pepper is a rather fastidious crop. It may happen that you can only plant the variety you like in a greenhouse.For regions with a cool climate and short summers, only low-growing, early-ripening varieties with small or medium-sized, not too fleshy fruits are suitable.
Planting seedlings in the ground
We will assume that we have chosen the right varieties and successfully grown the seedlings. Now all that remains is to transplant the peppers into the ground and wait for the harvest.
Selecting a location
You cannot plant peppers after other nightshade crops - tomatoes, potatoes. They suffer from similar diseases and are plagued by the same pests, which often overwinter in the ground. To choose a place to plant pepper, you need to take into account that this crop needs a short daylight hours - it is impossible to get a good harvest in an area illuminated throughout the day.
Peppers should be protected from strong winds. It can be planted along plantings of fruit bushes or trees, covering part of the daylight hours the plant from the sun and providing protection from the wind.
If you are planting a few peppers and do not plan to dedicate a separate area for it, you can place the bushes along the rows of tomatoes - then it will not be attacked by aphids.
Soil preparation
Light fertile loams with a neutral reaction are suitable for pepper. Chernozems do not need to be specially prepared for planting this crop; the fertilizers that you apply to the hole during planting will be sufficient. But if the soil is worked out and has not rested for a long time, it would be useful to apply per square meter. m bucket of well-rotted humus.
- On heavy clay soils per sq. m of area for digging, add 1 bucket of humus, peat, sand, 1/2 bucket of rotted sawdust.
- Before planting peppers in open ground, the peat area is enriched with 1 bucket of humus and 1 bucket of turf, or perhaps clay soil.
- Before planting, add 1 bucket of peat, clay soil and rotted sawdust, 2 buckets of humus per 1 square meter into the sandy soil before planting.
Of course, it is best to prepare the soil in the fall, but it is not forbidden to do this in the spring, only no later than 6 weeks before planting the pepper in the ground, otherwise it simply will not have time to sag.
Landing dates
You can't plant peppers in cold soil. It should warm up well and have a temperature of at least 15-16 degrees, and the threat of repeated spring frosts should pass.
If you plant peppers in open ground when it is still cold, the seedlings may die and you will have to buy new plants at the market. Not only will all the work spent on growing seedlings go to waste. You cannot be sure that you will buy the right variety.
Although rooted peppers can withstand a short-term decrease in temperature to minus one degree, at 15 they stop developing. No one, especially in the northwest, can guarantee that after several warm weeks the weather will not worsen and the temperature will not drop.Be prepared for this; build arcs of strong wire above the pepper bed in advance. At the slightest threat of frost on the ground, cover the planting with agrofibre, spunbond or film. The shelter is opened for the day and returned to its place at night.
Planting plan
Distance between seedlings planted in the ground is very important for pepper, it will definitely affect the yield and condition of vegetables. We must remember that this plant suffers greatly from excess lighting. With some thickening of pepper plantings, the leaves protect the fruits from the sun's rays, protecting them from burns. But if the plants are planted very densely, loosening and weeding the soil will be difficult, the fruits will grow smaller than they could, and overly dense plantings provoke stem rot.
Remember that each pepper hybrid or variety has a specific feeding area; when planting seedlings, follow the directions given on the seed packets. This makes sense if you buy certified planting material from trusted manufacturers.
General recommendations for planting peppers are as follows:
- Plant the seedlings at a distance of 35-40 cm between the bushes, one or two plants per nest, the gap between the rows is 70 cm;
- It is convenient to plant peppers in open ground in two rows - two close rows are at a distance of 30 cm, between plants 20-25 cm, the next pair is 70 cm from the first. With this type of planting, there is only one plant per hole.
Planting seedlings
During hot sunny hours, planting peppers is unacceptable - it is better to do it in the late afternoon or on a cloudy day. The day before planting in the ground, water the plant well. Dig holes of such depth that the seedlings, along with a lump of earth, can fit there freely.
Pour into each planting hole a tablespoon of potassium fertilizer that does not contain chlorine (it is not tolerated by peppers) or a special fertilizer for peppers according to the instructions. To protect against pests, potash fertilizer can be replaced with a handful of ash or crushed eggshells. If humus was not added when digging the soil, throw it directly into the hole at the rate of 1-2 handfuls at the root.
Fill the hole with water, as soon as it is absorbed, start planting. Carefully remove the seedlings, being careful not to destroy the earthen ball and thus not damage the fragile root. When planting pepper in open ground, you should not bury it; plant the seedlings in the same way as they grew in the pot.
Compact the soil around the peppers and immediately tie tall varieties to the stakes. If possible, immediately mulch the planting with peat - this will protect the soil from drying out and prevent growth weed.
If you live in regions with a cold climate, it makes sense to cover the soil with a covering material.
Care after landing
Pepper care begins immediately after planting seedlings in the soil. This culture is extremely demanding in terms of care, especially nutrition and watering.If, when planting in the ground, you poured fertilizer into the hole, then for the next two weeks, during which the seedlings take root, you can forget about fertilizing. But mistakes in watering made at first are fraught with low yields and sometimes even death of plants.
Planting
A certain amount of planted pepper will definitely not take root, so dead plants must be replaced with seedlings left for these purposes. Falls occur for various reasons, but damage caused by the fall armyworm and mole cricket comes first.
Sometimes the number of dead plants ranges from 10 to 20% and if we do not replace the dropped peppers with others, the harvest will be significantly reduced. In addition, if there are a significant number of missing plants, the shading that we achieved with thick planting will disappear. This can lead to sunburn of the ovary, especially the very first fruits.
On light sandy soils, with drying winds and prolonged drought, which is accompanied by heat, the death of peppers can occur as a result of wilting. This happens especially often in southern regions and with elongated seedlings.
Watering
When growing peppers in the ground, the importance of irrigation is difficult to overestimate. It is impossible to give universal advice on when and how to water a plant. In Kuban, pepper is an exclusively irrigated crop; in regions with large amounts of summer precipitation, it can be grown without it at all.
The restorative abilities of peppers are much inferior to tomatoes, and it takes a long time for them to take root. Even a minimal violation of the watering regime and a change in temperature can cause a delay in establishment and, in some cases, lead to the death of the plant.Most often, gardeners make mistakes when the soil is moistened.
The pepper is watered for the first time when planting in the ground; there is no need to rush with the next one. If the plant wilts a little on a hot sunny day, do not rush to pour water on it - this is not dangerous and is not an indication for immediate moisture. If the leaves look up early in the morning and in the evening, water early.
To correctly determine the pepper's need for irrigation, monitor the plant and determine the degree of soil moisture.
In order to determine humidity, take a handful of soil from a depth of about 10 cm and squeeze it forcefully in your fist:
- The soil is dry if the lump crumbles after you unclench your fist.
- If water seeps through your fingers, the soil is waterlogged.
- The lump remained in your palm and did not lose its shape. Throw him on the ground. If it is crumbling, it may need watering soon. If the lump spreads like a cake, forget about moistening the soil for a while.
The pepper should not be watered a second time until it is well established. This will happen when first the upper and then the lower leaves darken. When growth appears, we can assume that the pepper has taken root. After planting, the roots recover on average 10 days.
At the beginning of the growing season, watering is given rarely; the number depends on precipitation and soil composition. It must be remembered that on light sandy soils irrigation is carried out more often.Pepper's need for moisture increases with the beginning of fruit ripening.
At no stage of development should this crop be allowed to get wet - the leaves will turn yellow, the flowers and ovary will fall off, and the plant will get sick. On heavy soils, after overwatering, pepper often does not recover and dies.
Loosening
Treatment of row spacing is carried out not only to destroy weeds, but also to retain moisture. In order to reduce evaporation and reduce the number of waterings, the soil is loosened after each. Sandy soils are treated to a depth of 5-6 cm, clay soils - to a depth of 10 cm.
It is important to process the soil carefully, since pepper roots are superficial and do not recover well. Any damage to them leads to a long delay in the development of the plant.
Feeding
The plant cannot do without fertilizing. Organic and mineral fertilizers are used for them, and it is best to use the latter specially designed for pepper.
The first feeding is given the day after the first loosening, when the pepper is well rooted, the next - after the ovaries begin to form.
Pleasant and not so nice neighborhood
If you are not a farmer who can allocate a separate field for each crop grown, you will have to choose neighbors for your pepper. It will grow well next to onions, spinach, coriander, tomatoes and basil. It is not recommended to plant peppers next to beans, fennel, or in the place where beets previously grew. Moreover, this is not superstition, but the result of serious research, which has a scientific basis.
Conclusion
Planting pepper seedlings is no more difficult than any other. Among the instructions on what to do next, there is a predominance of a list of what not to do. Let's take care of the plant correctly, grow a good harvest and provide ourselves with tasty and vitamin-rich products for the winter.
