Pepper Care And Greenhouse Feeding

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

Read the previous part. ← Soil preparation in a greenhouse for seedlings of peppers

There is no vegetable garden without peppers. Part 5

Greenhouse and greenhouse pepper care

Water regime. Pepper needs high soil and air moisture. With a lack of moisture in the soil, plants develop poorly, remain dwarf, yield decreases, the fruits become thin-walled and ugly.

Due to the limited distribution of the root system (especially if the seedlings are grown through a pick, and there is no central root), the plant does not extract moisture well, and spends a lot of it on evaporation and fruit formation. Pepper drinks especially a lot during flowering and fruit formation. And this happens, as a rule, from the moment of planting it in the greenhouse until the end of the growing season. The pepper blooms at the same time, sets the fruit, then large fruits are poured.

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Watering should be carried out frequently, but not flood the soil. If it's hot, then every other day, if it's cool, then after 2-3 days, about 2 liters per plant. I calculate the watering rate not by square meters, but by the number of plants on each of them. If there is no biofuel in the ridge, then less water will be required. My biofuel is hay, which means more moisture is required. It is better to water in spring with warm water + 22 … 24 ° С, in hot weather + 20 ° С.

There are many recommendations for watering times. Practice has shown that you can water at any time of the day, the main thing is that the leaves dry up by night. I water both cucumbers and peppers at the same time, but no matter how carefully I do it, the water still gets on the lower and middle leaves, so I keep the greenhouse open until the leaves are dry.

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Pepper dressing

Phosphorus is required from germination to fruit formation, or more precisely, from germination and for fruit formation. Nitrogen is needed for growth, before flowering and during the formation and ripening of fruits. Potassium is required from fruit setting to the end of their ripening. Calcium is required throughout the growing season.

When to start feeding? In the greenhouse - 10-15 days after transplanting. It depends on how, what and when the ridge is filled. In small greenhouses, where the ventilation is stronger (usually the film is removed for a day), you can feed in 15-20 days. In small structures with temporary shelter, peppers "eat" 3-4 times less than in my greenhouse, so the feeding rates for each gardener are different.

What can you feed? Be sure to alternate mineral fertilizers with organic ones. From organic fertilizers, I use infusions from mullein, collection of herbs (the so-called "green fertilizer") and, rarely, from bird droppings. I prepare slurry for feeding as follows. In some container, let's say a tank, I pour 2/3 of the volume of the tank without bedding mullein. I add water to the top. I put it in a greenhouse (who has a greenhouse, then in a greenhouse), and there it is infused for 1-3 days (it depends on the temperature in the greenhouse). I pour one liter of this thick slurry into a plastic bucket, add 9 liters of water. I add one liter of this solution for each adult plant.

I insist on bird droppings in the same way, but I pour only 0.5 liters of slurry into a 10-liter bucket. I prepare the "green fertilizer" as follows: I fill the tank completely with nettles, horsetail, wheatgrass, woodlice, plantain, yarrow, dandelion, tansy, coltsfoot, dampness, but do not tamp it. I fill all these herbs completely with water and put them in a greenhouse without a lid, who has a greenhouse - it is possible in a greenhouse.

When the grass ferments, i.e. rises up, I periodically stir the liquid. I let you wander for 2-4 days (it depends on the temperature in the greenhouse), you need to catch the moment when the grass begins to sink to the bottom, but so that it does not completely sink, i.e. so that fermentation does not stop. I pour 1 liter of this infusion into a plastic bucket and add 9 liters of water. Sometimes mineral fertilizers are added to organic solutions. Manure can be of poor quality, it contains a lot of shavings, sawdust.

You can add them, but I don’t know how to set the concentration correctly, since I didn’t have to do this: we have no bedding manure, and peppers do not tolerate a strong concentration at a time. Here is just one example: several times in a row the gardener has carried out top dressing with "green fertilizer". But he sees that the peppers are something badly poured. I decided to adjust it with mineral fertilizers, but I exceeded the concentration. As a result, the peppers shed their flowers, small ovaries crumbled.

If I have a "weak" slurry or "green fertilizer", then it is better to feed with organic matter, which is, and after 5 days with mineral fertilizers. But if you rarely visit the site and there is no time to often feed the plants, then you can add mineral solutions to organic solutions.

Sometimes the symptoms of phosphorus deficiency appear on the peppers (when filling the ridge, they did not add superphosphate or underestimate the rate). The lower leaves, and then the middle ones, first become bluish-green, and later purple-red, brown-red. The lower leaves begin to fall off, flowering is late, the fruits ripen slowly. In such situations, you can prepare a superphosphate extract and feed. But the best fertilizer in such a situation would be potassium monophosphate (K-34%, P-52%) - this is an easily soluble fertilizer from the Buisk plant. It is necessary to sprinkle it at the rate between the plants, loosen the soil slightly, water it with water and loosen it again.

Before you begin to determine the cause of the lack of phosphorus, measure the temperature of the soil, especially in rainy weather and where groundwater is near. It is believed that at temperatures below + 10C, phosphorus does not work. In practice, I have never observed phosphorus starvation in my beds, since I always fill the soil with superphosphate at the rate, and I feed it with complex fertilizer, most often with Solution B or A of the Buy plant.

With a lack of potassium, the edges of the leaves of the pepper begin to dry out, the branches stop growing, spots appear on the fruits, the fruits are unsweetened, ripen unevenly, biological ripeness does not come for a long time. For example, what happened at my neighbor's site. He completely laid bird droppings in a trench under the peppers. I decided that there was no need to feed the plants with anything else, only water. As a result, by October 1, all other gardeners had not only harvested, but the plants were also removed from the greenhouses, and his fruits did not turn red and yellow.

Separately, I did not have to feed the peppers with nitrogen fertilizers, probably enough of the nitrogen that is included in complex fertilizers.

Peppers, like all other plants, also need magnesium. With its lack, the older leaves become covered with brown spots, they start from the edges, then the entire leaf turns yellow. The leaves quickly fall off, only a few pieces remain on the tops. Flowers and fruits are damaged. In this case, you can make foliar or root feeding with magnesium sulfate. I use Solution A, which, in addition to nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, contains magnesium and trace elements. You can sprinkle the potassium magnesia of the Buisk plant (K-30%, Mg-10%) between the plants, loosen the soil, water it and loosen it again.

My observations on calcium. It is believed that during the growing season, the soil should contain a sufficient amount of calcium, the lack of which leads to such a phenomenon as top rot of the fruit (not to be confused with sunburn). When you find top rot on the first fruits, consider that some of the early harvest is lost. How can a gardener not lose the very first peppers? In order to prevent this disease, you can make foliar feeding with a 0.2% solution of calcium nitrate, however, it is rarely found on sale.

But with an excess of calcium, plants will feel a lack of boron, iron, nitrogen, potassium. The apical buds of the peppers will develop poorly, the leaves will turn yellow and fall off, and the fruits will remain underdeveloped. Therefore, in order not to create an alkaline reaction in the soil, do not overdo it with calcium.

How to feed the peppers and what? According to agricultural technology, they need to be done once every 7-10 days. For those who work and on the site it is rare, it is convenient to feed the peppers once a week. Once again, I draw your attention to the fact that the amount of dressings and their volumes largely depend on what the ridge is filled with, on the temperature in the greenhouse, on the varieties.

In greenhouses, peppers need nutrients and water, in my opinion, 10 times more than in open ground. Once, doing gardening near Rostov-on-Don in the open field, I used organic matter and mineral fertilizers only in a ridge. I did not feed the peppers with anything else during the entire growing season, only very abundantly watered once a week. Now, in a greenhouse near Vyborg, the peppers have to be fed regularly. If someone has them growing in a greenhouse with a temporary shelter from frost, then consider that the peppers are in your open field, which means that less fertilizing will be required.

During the growing season from the moment of planting on May 1 to October 1, I feed the peppers three times with slurry, twice with green fertilizers, twice with dark raspberry potassium permanganate, twice with magnesium sulfate (purified) 20 g per 10 liters of water (1 liter of solution per plant), the rest of the dressing I do with Solution B, if I use Solution A, then I do not feed the plants with magnesium sulfate. On average, 11 dressings are obtained per season, in September I no longer do them, I only water them.

Practice has shown that in a cool, cloudy summer, the ripening of peppers to biological ripeness is slower, they fill up for a long time, but they turn out to be thick-walled, "fatty", and there is no need to drive them with additional dressings. The load on one plant in such a summer should be done less. If, when feeding, the concentration of the nutrient solution is abruptly changed (from weak to high), then cracks may appear on the peppers, they shed flowers.

Airing

Greenhouses and greenhouses should be opened early in the morning for airing, since the night temperature there is + 12 … + 13 ° С, and in the morning, by nine o'clock, it will rise sharply to + 25 … + 30 ° С, and even higher in greenhouses. Due to such sudden changes in temperature, peppers can shed flowers and ovaries. If you open the doors and frames in the morning at seven o'clock, then the temperature in the greenhouse and the heifer will rise gradually.

Usually there is no wind in the morning, I open two doors. The vents and gables are open around the clock after June 10, when the threat of frost disappears, and they close by August 15, when the first frosts are possible again. In the afternoon, at noon, the wind appears, then, so that the peppers do not break with a draft, I close one door, and cover the opposite one, leaving a gap. In greenhouses in the wind, the film must be lowered, and the ends must be left open. If the temperature in the shelters is higher than + 30 ° C, there is no pollination, the pollen is considered sterile. The shedding of flowers and ovaries can also occur at low temperatures.