Growing And Planting Seedlings Of Peppers

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

Ural peppers will not yield to Dutch ones

Remember how tempting sweet peppers brought from faraway Holland look, and compare them with the peppers that appear on the shelves of our vegetable stalls and with those brought from Central Asia or Ukraine. Agree, the "Dutch" look irresistible. Moreover, we did not even think that such a pepper exists in principle.

I'm not talking about the prices for this miracle of nature. It is clear that this is not for you and me. But it is very possible to raise such "Dutchmen" at home. True, it will not be easy work, but you and I are no strangers, right? And I'm talking about the true "Dutch" - thick-walled (with a wall thickness of up to 10 cm) and a length of as much as 20 centimeters, and sometimes more, besides, any colors of the rainbow.

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Pepper history

Pepper is believed to be home to Central and South America, although some species probably originated from South Asia. The German naturalist Humboldt figuratively determined the purpose of pepper in the diet of the Indians, comparing it in importance with table salt in the diet of the white population. The first information about the appearance of pepper in Europe dates back to the 15th century. One of the members of the Columbus expedition, in a letter written in the fall of 1493, indicated that Columbus brought peppers more pungent than peppers from the Caucasus.

At first, pepper was grown as an ornamental and medicinal plant in Spain and Portugal, from where it gradually spread to Europe. Pepper came to Russia as a medicinal plant in the 17th century, but by the middle of the 19th century, thanks to the efforts of wandering Bulgarians, gardeners, it firmly entered the culture as a vegetable. In the 19th century, the first industrial plantations of sweet pepper were established near Astrakhan. There he is still widely divorced. The countries of Eastern Europe, first of all, Hungary, are considered to be the generally recognized international exporter of sweet pepper.

The nutritional value of pepper

Pepper fruits are considered a very valuable food product, a real multivitamin culture. They contain more vitamin C alone than any other vegetable. Pepper is a real record holder for vitamin C content (up to 300 mg of vitamin per 100 g of raw material). Moreover, an interesting feature is recorded: in green, i.e. unripe peppers have much more vitamin C than ripe ones.

Peppers are also a rich source of vitamin P (rutin), which is higher in peppers than in lemons. Rutin is extremely necessary for our body because it increases the strength of blood capillaries and promotes the accumulation of ascorbic acid in the body. It also contains a lot of carotene (provitamin A), vitamins B1, B2, PP. Pepper fruits are rich in minerals, especially potassium, phosphorus, calcium, aluminum, silicon and iron. All this makes pepper not only very useful, but also medicinal.

Due to the high content of vitamins, bell peppers are widely used in medical nutrition - for anemia, loss of energy, hypo- and avitaminosis, to stimulate appetite and stimulate digestion. Eating it in food contributes to the accumulation of ascorbic acid in the body and strengthens blood vessels, and also softens the clinical course of acute radiation sickness.

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Sweet green pepper juice mixed with carrot peppers cleanses the skin of age spots, and taken together with spinach and carrot peppers reduces the formation of gases in the intestines and eliminates colic. Dried sweet pepper powder, called paprika and containing up to 1000 mg% ascorbic acid, is an effective treatment for scurvy.

Preparing a greenhouse for peppers

Obviously, no matter how good the seeds are, it is worth sowing them in cold, infertile soil, and everything will go down the drain. Everyone knows that pepper is a more thermophilic plant than tomatoes. In principle, it does not tolerate a sharp temperature drop. Therefore, I recommend growing it not in a greenhouse, but in a sufficiently high greenhouse, a small volume of air in which it is much easier to warm up than a large volume of air in a greenhouse. Moreover, it is quite understandable that the ground in a pepper greenhouse should be warmer. The only question is how to achieve this.

The greenhouse formwork must be very high. For example, on our site, the height of the formwork from the ground is 45 cm, and by 40 cm, respectively, the greenhouse is filled with a thick layer of biofuel. We see that the layer of biofuel required for the pepper is much larger than that in a tomato greenhouse.

I would also like to say a few words about the peculiarities of opening a greenhouse. Of course, it should open so that when it is in a half-open state, the plants would be completely protected from the cold wind, because pepper to a strong cold wind is extremely negative.

Naturally, if there is only one greenhouse for peppers, then every autumn you have to perform completely hard labor to remove all the earth from it. This is an axiom that should not be violated. Otherwise, there will be no harvest.

Already in autumn, to a depth of 30 cm, the greenhouse is filled with a variety of organic residues: tops (but not from nightshades), garbage, leaves from the forest, other waste, crushed bark, used bath brooms, etc. If it is difficult for you to collect such an amount of organic matter, then at the very bottom of the greenhouse you can put branches, wood debris, chips remaining during construction, which constantly goes in every garden. You can find, in the end, in the forest half-rotten stumps, which are falling apart before our eyes, chop them a little and also send them there.

The principle should be this: the larger the residues, the deeper they should be located. In the upper tier, you should have leaves and the remains of tops. Then the resulting layer cake is sprinkled with thick lime, and everything remains in this state until spring. The only thing that still needs to be foreseen is the availability of land, which will be required to cover the greenhouse in spring. Therefore, at the edges of the greenhouse, right on top of the lime, I form compact piles of 35 buckets of soil on each side. The soil is taken from a cucumber greenhouse or from zucchini or pumpkins.

Growing seedlings of peppers

In our conditions, pepper is grown, of course, only through seedlings. That being said, there are some important truths to keep in mind about pepper seeds:

Pepper seeds retain their germination capacity poorly enough, therefore, in no case should you buy them in reserve;

· The period from planting seeds to emergence of seedlings is quite long and ranges from 10 to 21 days (maybe less); but usually late emerged plants are discarded, because you can't wait for a good harvest from them;

· Due to the extremely slow development of plants, seeds have to be sown very early: approximately from 1 to 15 February;

Seedlings need to be grown only in a pot method due to the fact that peppers are extremely negative about transplanting;

· Pepper plants develop extremely slowly in the initial period.

· Before sowing seeds, you need to buy them. I have already said that fresh seeds have high germination capacity. There is no need to be afraid of hybrids (they are marked with F1). They are very productive, resistant to growing conditions, are less affected by diseases, begin to bear fruit early and produce fruits of excellent quality. At my site I grow hybrids: Atlant F1, Indalo F1, Kerala F1, Denis F1, Talion F1, Cardinal F1 and Aries F1.

The seeds you bought have already passed the necessary pre-planting preparation, so it is enough to spray them with the Epin growth stimulator and sow. I have long ago adapted to sowing them not into the soil, but into stale sawdust - it turns out much more efficiently, because the root system in sawdust forms much faster, and by itself it is larger in size, which allows plants to develop much faster in the future. In addition, in pots with sawdust, seeds can be sown thickly, which means that in the initial period of development in February, the total number of planting places will be small, and it will be much easier for plants to provide the required conditions: backlight and heat.

There is no need to be afraid that the plants have nothing to eat in the sawdust: there really are no nutrients, but the seedlings will spend only 2-3 weeks in it (before picking or transplanting into separate pots), and at this time they have enough food reserves. available in the seeds. But after this period, it is by no means possible to overexpose the seedlings in sawdust, because there will be no more food, and the plants will begin to turn yellow and decay right before our eyes. Therefore, it is important to choose the right time for transplanting - underexposing in sawdust is bad, because the root system will not have time to form large enough, and it is impossible to overexpose, because the plants will start to wither.

Now about the technology of sowing in sawdust. Small flat containers are taken - it is convenient to use white packaging containers from under various products, for example, cookies, etc. The sawdust is placed in them in a layer of about 0.5 cm. Then the seeds are carefully laid out. When laying out seeds, you need to monitor the distances between them, given that the plants will spend some time in containers and should not interfere with each other's development. Then the seeds are covered with another layer of sawdust about half a centimeter or slightly less.

Seed containers should be placed in an ajar plastic bag and placed on the battery. Check the temperature on your battery beforehand: if it's too hot, cover it with newspapers or a cloth. The optimum temperature for seed germination is 28 ° C. During seed germination, do not forget to regularly monitor the moisture content of the sawdust and airing the bowls - these are very important points. The fact is that the layer of sawdust is small and, therefore, dries up quickly, and when dry, the seeds will die. So you have to adapt. Airing is also extremely important - without it, the seeds will suffocate and rot.

After sprouting, the containers are placed in the warmest and lightest place. Naturally, you cannot do without additional lighting using fluorescent lamps. Moreover, at the initial stage of development (with small plants), the containers should be as close to the lamps as possible, because it's warmer there. At night, move them closer to the battery. When the first true leaf appears, the plants can be safely transplanted into pots. From the moistened sawdust, it will not be difficult to gently get any plant out of the moistened sawdust, no damage to the root system will occur. Moreover, you will be surprised at how extensive the root system is.

Further technology for growing seedlings is traditional. Therefore, I will only recall a few points:

· Do not allow the slightest dry out of the earth, because pepper is extremely hygrophilous;

· 1 time in 10 days water the seedlings with a solution of biopreparations of Rhizoplan (1 tablespoon per 1 liter of water), black yeast (2 tablespoons per 1 liter of water) and trichodermine (1 hour spoon per 1 liter of water);

· After the beginning of intensive growth (say, after the appearance of the third true leaf), start feeding your pets once a week, alternating the following preparations: "Planta", "Kemira" and, as before, a solution of biological products: trichodermin, rhizoplan and black yeast; · Spray plants with Epin growth stimulant once a week.

Mulching will increase air exchange, prevent the appearance of a soil crust, and reduce the reaction to temperature changes during the day and at night

Planting pepper seedlings

As soon as possible, and usually this happens in mid-April, you should intensively prepare the soil in the greenhouse so that it warms up well by the time the seedlings are planted. In the spring, on a layer of plant residues and lime, prepared in the fall, you need to add a layer of manure and sawdust, and then, if possible, mix the layers with a pitchfork and cover everything with prepared earth.

Then, as a fertilizer, it is a good idea to add pre-crushed "Giant", sprinkle everything well with ash, superphosphate and loosen it. In principle, the greenhouse is ready. But in the Urals, and in other more northern regions, at this time it is still quite cold. So take a greenhouse with radishes for now. On such a soil, it will succeed wonderfully, provided that you sow the seeds less often and water the radishes regularly. And when it gets relatively warmer, around mid-May, you will begin to selectively remove radishes at the sites of pepper planting and plant prepared and well-watered seedlings from pots.

When planting, the stem of the plant should not be buried in the ground, because it gives no collateral roots. At the end of planting work, be sure to water the planted plants with a mixture of biological products (trichodermin, rhizoplan and black yeast). I pour 1 glass of the diluted solution under each plant. Be sure to mulch the soil around the plants with leaf litter. Then cover the pepper with an additional thick covering material.

And one more important note. Pepper tolerates a thickened planting rather calmly. Suppose 1 sq. meter I plant up to 10-11 plants. Of course, this leads to some difficulties in agricultural technology, but it significantly increases the yield.

Read the second part of the article. The main problems when growing pepper →