Why Do Tomatoes Crack, Cucumbers Grow Bitter, And Beets Grow With A Beard?

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read part 1. ← What determines the taste and quality of the grown crop

Cucumbers

Why are cucumbers bitter? The taste of a cucumber depends on the conditions in which it grows. If the plant is bad: there is little sun, moisture or too hot and humid, then the development of greenery is delayed. At this time, bitterness begins to accumulate in it.

Therefore, if bitter cucumbers have gone, you need to find out what is holding back their growth. If the weather is cold, cover the bed with plastic wrap. Never water cucumbers with cold water.

This alone can cause unwanted taste. Bitter cucumbers, if they still work out, do not need to be thrown away. When salted, the bitterness disappears.

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The appearance of freak

cucumbers If the cucumbers have become like a question mark or a pear, this is a signal to the owner that they are missing something.

1. For example, if you notice that the fruits are like balls, and sharply narrow towards the opposite end, then they do not have enough nitrogen. Feed them mullein (1 part to 8 parts water). You can, of course, and a urea solution (no more than a matchbox for 10 liters of water).

2. And if the cucumbers look like a pear, then you need to feed them with potassium (potassium sulfate). It is also good for potash starvation to sprinkle wood ash on the beds (in fact, this is useful for cucumbers for many reasons).

3. If the cucumbers went with constrictions, ugly, twisted, it means that the temperature in the greenhouse is too high (above 33 ° C), and the humidity is low (below 55%). Therefore, it is necessary to monitor watering and airing.

There are other reasons for the appearance of cucumber freaks. First of all, these are long breaks in watering. At the same time, cucumbers shed flowers and ovaries and form many ugly, and sometimes bitter fruits. Therefore, you need to water the cucumbers depending on the weather, of course, but not 1-2 times a week.

In addition, cucumbers are overly sensitive to bad weather, as well as sudden temperature fluctuations. In a rainy and cold summer, due to insufficient fertilization of the ovaries, ugly fruits are not at all uncommon. Therefore, one cannot do without stimulants of growth and fruit formation, because we cannot change bad weather.

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Ugly fruits appear in large numbers when plants are infected with viral mosaics, usually transmitted by aphids. In this case, the cucumber plants will look oppressed, their internodes are usually shortened, and the whips and foliage gradually turn yellow and dry, the resulting fruits will be ugly.

Why are cucumbers poorly stored? This means that you collected them at the wrong time or did not immediately put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. When picking cucumbers, you need to remember one important rule - you should only pick them early in the morning and immediately send them into the cold.

Tomatoes

Ugly Fruit

Double flowers produce ugly fruit. Therefore, they must be plucked faster, since they retard the growth of other fruits.

Why do green tomatoes crack?

There can be two reasons: excess moisture or excess nitrogen in the soil. It should be borne in mind that an overdose of nitrogen is possible not only with the introduction of mineral fertilizers. For example, such a rich organic fertilizer as chicken manure is especially rich in effective nitrogen, so you need to be very careful when feeding them tomatoes (which is very popular with gardeners).

Why are the fruits small?

- Small fruits on tomatoes are formed both with a lack of nitrogen and with a lack of phosphorus or potassium.

- Small underdeveloped fruits can form on tomatoes and with a lack of moisture. In this case, as a rule, the leaves of the tomato become smaller and curled, and the fruits are formed small, ugly and are also very often affected by apical rot.

Why aren't the fruits sweet?

Perhaps this is a lack of potassium, as a result of which a "marginal burn" appears on the lower leaves. The yield decreases, the fruits are small, they can fall off, their quality is low - there is less sugar, vitamin C.

The emergence of hollow fruits

I would like to draw attention to the formation of hollow fruits - fruits with internal voids. Hollow fruits are the result of poor pollination of tomato flowers. This happens for a variety of reasons: at high air temperatures (above 35 ° C), with temperature drops or low air temperatures (less than 12 ° C). Air humidity also affects this. The pollen in tomatoes is heavy, and in the humid air of greenhouses it does not get enough sleep from the anthers of flowers.

That is why it is necessary to lightly shake tomato plants several times a week in the morning for better pollination of flowers and fruit setting. Better yet, regularly use fruit formation stimulants. To avoid overheating of the air, it is necessary to properly organize the ventilation system in greenhouses.

Beet

Why do beets grow with beards?

The main reason is the breakage of the main root during the pick. And the more it broke off, the stronger the "beard" grows. In this case, the beet root system turns from a pivotal system into a fibrous one. Moreover, you can learn about this, in fact, only when harvesting root crops, because with normal care, plants with a torn tap root take root well, and root crops are poured in a timely manner.

The break occurs only when the beet seeds were planted in a regular bed, and not in a greenhouse, and then were thinned out. In this case, excess plants were pulled out (and not carefully removed) and planted in another place. When pulling out, the breakage of the main root is inevitable. Therefore, this technology automatically leads to the appearance of bearded beets.

Better, I repeat, to plant the beets in a greenhouse (greenhouse), and then plant them carefully, not pulling out the plants, but digging them out with all the precautions. Well, if this option does not suit you, then you need to sow only single-sprout beets.

In addition, when planting, it is imperative to straighten the roots of the plants so that they do not bend. It also contributes to the formation of even and beautiful root crops.

Timely watering also plays a role, because with irregular, but abundant watering, root crops crack.

Why are beets savory?

Beets love humus-rich soil, well loosened so that there is sufficient air access to the root system. Roots grown in dry, hard and barren soil acquire a bitter taste.

Improving the taste of root crops is facilitated by:

- feeding with ash;

- watering plants with boric acid solution;

- spraying with the drug "Two harvests";

- feeding with ordinary table salt: 1 teaspoon of salt in a bucket of water (this is the norm for 1 m2).

Why are the roots small?

There may be three reasons:

- acidic soil, and beets do not tolerate acidic soil, and is, in fact, an indicator of acidity: if your beets do not grow, then liming is absolutely necessary for 100% in autumn;

- a very dense arrangement of plants - if the plants are too close, then the roots of the beets are very poorly poured; - lack of moisture, especially at the time of filling root crops.

Why are beets poorly stored?

Beets are extremely sensitive to frost. Root crops harvested after frost are worse stored.

Carrot

The appearance of ugly root crops

The first mistake some growers make is to use carrot plants that have been removed during thinning for planting. Carrots, admittedly, take root quite well, but there is little sense from this. And the harvest obtained from such ridges can be used only for livestock feed. Root crops are small and so highly branched and ugly that there is not the slightest opportunity to clean them. Therefore, all the same, it should be recognized that carrots, unlike beets, are not bred with seedlings.

Equally important, stony soils are completely unsuitable for carrots: they also grow ugly and branched root crops. And although, at first glance, carrots are rather unpretentious and seem to grow on such soils, in this case one cannot expect a good harvest from them. The thickness of the root layer is also very important.

If this layer available to carrot roots is insignificant (and how difficult it is to create a normal, at least 30 cm, fertile and loose soil layer in garden plots where initially there was no soil), then the root crops will not be large and even, because they will have to bend and branch out to fit into the existing thin layer of root soil.

Regular watering is also important, and good watering so that the entire root layer is soaked. Surface watering only worsens the matter and leads to the appearance of carrot freaks: ugly root crops of carrots are formed, in which not one long root, but several short roots departs from a very wide head. With a lack of watering, carrot roots become rough and tasteless. And with irregular but abundant watering, they crack.

Do not forget about the timely thinning and, of course, weeding of carrots. With strong thickening (or clogging of the beds with weeds), small and ugly root crops are formed. Therefore, it is in no case to be late with thinning.

The introduction of fresh manure under the carrots can also lead to the appearance of branched and ugly root crops, which is completely unacceptable.

Small roots with large tops

This is evidence that you have gone too far with nitrogen fertilizers.

Why are carrots unsweetened?

To obtain sweet root crops, in addition to suitable varieties (it is preferable to choose varieties with a small heart, such as Carlena, Callisto and Nandrin), it is necessary to sow carrots on loose and fertile soil. Without this, the taste of carrots will be mediocre.

To improve the palatability of root crops:

- avoid a lack of phosphorus and potassium (phosphorus increases the sugar content of carrots, and potassium increases the tenderness of the tissues of root crops); - to carry out foliar dressing twice with the drug "Two harvests".