How to grow bell peppers in open ground. Pepper: growing seedlings from seeds, planting in open ground and care. Growing greenhouse peppers
Growing bell peppers in open ground possible not only in regions with warm climates. Therefore, in the garden of many vegetable growers you can find beds with this cultivated plant. In order for each bush to have a strong stem and strong roots, and for the fruits to begin to form in a timely manner, it is necessary to plant ready-made seedlings grown at home.
How to plant peppers in open ground, seedlings or seeds is everyone’s choice. But you are more likely to get a good result in the first case. Seeds are germinated independently at home, following several rules.
Growing sweet peppers in open ground begins three months after sowing the seeds. Therefore, grains need to be planted in early February. For the rapid appearance of healthy sprouts, the seeds must be subjected to various manipulations.
Caring for sweet peppers begins from the seeds. The preparatory stage in the technology of growing pepper in open ground is based on seed treatment. To remove fungal and bacterial infections from the seed shell, a disinfection procedure is carried out. A weak solution of potassium permanganate will come in handy.
It is enough to add 1 g of the substance to water, the solution should be weak pink shade. The exposure time of the grains in such a solution should be about 25 minutes.
After disinfection, it is recommended to carry out care by hardening the seeds. How to carry out the procedure correctly? For this purpose, the seeds are alternately placed in a cold and warm place for three days. Hardening will allow the bushes to withstand adverse weather conditions in the future.
In order for the seedlings to grow faster and enjoy a high-quality harvest in the future, it is recommended not to skip the soaking procedure. For this purpose, you can buy special preparations or make your own from natural ingredients. You can use a recipe based on wood ash or aloe juice. Aloe juice will additionally increase resistance to various diseases. A cloth bag containing pepper seeds is placed in the juice of two fleshy leaves.
Planting seeds
It is faster to grow peppers if you wrap the seeds in a damp cloth and put them in a warm place. After two days, the seeds can already be sown in a prepared container with soil. The distance between the holes should be at least 1.5 cm. One seed should be placed in each hole. The container is covered with plastic film or glass. As soon as most of the seedlings appear, the seedlings are opened.
The soil for peppers should be light. You can mix black soil, humus and sand yourself. Useful to add charcoal. The soil with seedlings is watered with water, which has settled for at least a day.
Seedlings should be protected from drafts and provided with sufficient light access. Be sure to apply mineral or organic fertilizers. The first time feeding the seedlings is done immediately when the first leaves bloom. The last feeding is carried out two weeks before transplanting into an open area.
Peppers are very difficult to tolerate transplantation, so many experienced gardeners omit the stage associated with picking (pinching long roots). But if planting pepper seedlings is accompanied by correct and careful picking, then the root system will be branched and strong. In one of the experiments it was described positive result of this procedure: “I’ve been growing peppers for several years now. The picking procedure greatly increases the strength of each bush and allows seedlings to quickly adapt to a new location.”
If you decide to plant pepper seeds in open ground, then sowing begins three weeks earlier than with seedlings. It is recommended to place 4-5 grains in holes about 4 cm deep. The method of heaping seeds makes it possible to facilitate the process of seedling development. More attention should be paid to sowing seeds.
Features of planting under the open sky
There are many secrets on how to grow a good pepper crop in open ground.
How to plant sweet pepper seedlings in open ground? Before planting pepper seedlings in open ground, you need to choose a place and prepare the beds. Bell peppers should be planted in a place where there is no piercing wind. In the fall, a suitable plot of land is dug up and fertilized. Planting peppers and caring for them in open ground cannot be done without feeding them with potassium and phosphorus substances.
Also, sweet peppers in open ground do not tolerate too hot air and direct sunlight. You need to take care of shading the beds in hot weather.
In the spring, you need to loosen the soil again, adding ammonium nitrate. The pepper planting scheme can be varied, but the variety is always taken into account. At what distance from each other is it recommended to plant seedlings in the ground? The holes are dug at a distance of 35 cm. The distance between the rows should be approximately 45 cm. If two pieces are planted in a hole, then the distance should be increased to 60 cm.
The square-cluster planting method is known and often used. The hole must have equal sides, at least 60 cm. You can plant two pepper bushes in each hole. How to plant a plant if there are three in a nest? In this case, the dimensions of the sides should be equal to 70 cm. More details about this method of planting can be seen in the video.
Peppers are planted in the ground at the end of spring. If the weather does not settle, then the planting of pepper is postponed to the beginning of June. It is better to plant peppers in the ground in the evening or on cloudy days.
The seedlings are thoroughly watered and one bush at a time is carefully removed from the container along with the earthen lump that is enveloped by the roots. What fertilizers should I apply when planting peppers? When planting, it is useful to add a composition with humus and nitrophoska to the hole. The plant is placed to a depth of the first pair of leaves.
Useful layer
A valuable care step is mulching the pepper. The peculiarities of cultivation lie in covering the soil with an organic or inorganic layer called mulch. Mulching the soil is necessary to reduce weeds, retain moisture, and protect from heat and cold. In the soil that is covered with mulch, beneficial flora spreads and it becomes fertile.
You can mulch the area where the pepper will be planted with the following substances.
- An organic layer of straw can quickly cool the ground, reduce the number of weeds, and allow you to get a good harvest. The depth of the mulch layer is at least 10 cm.
- For growing sweet peppers, humus and compost are useful and nutritious mulches. They contain beneficial microorganisms that fight pathogens. Pepper grows better, the fruits ripen faster and become juicy.
- Mulch the ground with chopped grass. Any herb can be used. Planting sweet peppers in such a place will only bring benefits. The layer retains moisture well and promotes rapid development plants and fruit formation. The thickness of the mulch should be at least 30 cm.
- You can plant seedlings using inorganic mulch. This includes black film. The soil under the black film retains moisture well and protects against weeds. Many experienced vegetable growers plant peppers under the film, since there is no need for constant watering and weeding of the beds.
On the Internet you can find detailed information about each type of mulch, and also watch the video.
In addition to its benefits, mulching can lead to problems. Most often this occurs when a thick layer of mulch is installed. Stagnation of moisture in the soil can lead to rotting of the roots. Periodically you should replace the old layer with a new one.
To avoid mistakes, each type of mulch should be laid in the thickness recommended by agronomists. The layer is laid on well-heated, dry soil. Every spring, the old layer of mulch should be removed.
Caring attitude
The first days after transplantation, pepper growth slows down, the leaves are sluggish and drooping. Within a few days, when the bushes take root, a strong stem will begin to develop. Caring for peppers in open ground is accompanied by regular watering, fertilizing the soil and weed control.
Growing and caring for peppers in open ground should be accompanied by proper, regular watering. The first watering is carried out at the time of planting, and then 5 days later. If the weather does not favor rain, then water until the first fruits appear, it is recommended every week. During rapid fruiting, watering is reduced. As soon as the first harvest is harvested and new flowers appear on the plants, the previous watering regime is resumed.
As soon as the height of the plant reaches 35 cm, pinch off the top. Thanks to this, new side branches will appear. In order for the flowering to be abundant and many ovaries to form, the flower located in the center is removed.
Throughout the entire period of growing bell peppers, you need to pick off excess leaves and twigs. This provides better access to sunlight and air to the stem.
Pepper loves soft, well-loosened soil. Therefore, a hard crust should not be allowed. During loosening, the soil is enriched with oxygen, the plant grows faster, and the activity of beneficial bacteria improves. At the same time, weed control is underway. The first loosening should be carried out no deeper than 6 cm. In the future, it is useful to loosen the soil after each watering or rain.
Since the peppers heat-loving plants, then they can hardly endure unfavorable weather surprises. You can protect peppers from frost as follows. Shelters are constructed from cardboard and warm fabric over the beds. If cold nights continue for a long time, it is better to cover with film.
Additional nutritional components
Pepper Bulgarian cultivation cannot do without adding nutrients. The frequency of applied fertilizer should be once every 12-14 days. The plant needs to be fertilized at least three times. Peppers especially urgently need nourishment during flowering and fruit formation.
First feeding nutrients occurs 14 days after disembarkation. During this time, the peppers will take root and get used to the new place. The best compositions on at this stage those containing mullein. Water is added to the manure in a ratio of 1:5, infused and mixed with water 1:2 before watering.
When flowers appear, you can use the following recipe based on herbal infusion and mullein. Nettle, plantain and dandelion leaves are poured with water, mullein is added and infused for a week. Apply the prepared solution at the root of each bush. You can repeat watering every 2 weeks. The nutrients obtained during this feeding contribute to the activation of growth and better education fruits
To attract pollinating insects during the flowering period, you can use a solution with sugar. Sugar and boric acid are dissolved in water. The resulting mixture is sprayed onto the bushes. As a result, ovaries form faster.
During fruit formation, you can care for it using fertilizer based on chicken manure and nitroammophoska. The components are mixed and left to infuse for the whole week. Fertilizer is transferred to the garden bed between the rows.
Bell peppers can be cared for using nettle infusion. An infusion of nettle alone stimulates the growth and development of pepper. Young nettle is best suited for infusion. It contains magnesium, iron, potassium and other essential micronutrients. The stems are crushed and infused in a barrel of water, covered with a lid, for two days. Before feeding, the solution is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10.
Before adding organic or mineral fertilizing, the beds should be watered with plain water. Such care will allow the nutritional components to be evenly distributed and avoid burns to the root system.
Agricultural technology for growing peppers does not allow the use of fresh manure as fertilizer. Manure contains a lot of nitrogen, so the risk of an excess of this element increases. The stem and leaves begin to gain mass and strength, and fruiting stops.
When problems arise
If it has been noticed that the leaves change shape, color, the stems look lethargic, or other signs appear, the cause is often a lack of mineral components:
- with a lack of potassium, the leaves curl, and their tips dry out and turn yellow;
- It’s time to apply nitrogen fertilizers when the leaves have lost their saturated green color and became gray;
- if the leaves are pressed against the stem and have acquired a bluish tint, it means there is not enough phosphorus;
- white spots indicate magnesium deficiency;
- leaves and ovaries fall off when there is an excess of nitrogen.
To grow sweet peppers, you need to create conditions. If not proper care he is exposed to the development of various diseases. The most common disease is blackleg, which develops in soil that is too wet. You can notice the problem by the dark part of the stem with a coating that runs near the ground. If measures are not taken, then all the roots will rot and the plant will die.
To reduce the risk of developing blackleg, seeds are planted only in treated soil; only strong, healthy seedlings are transplanted into open ground. The distance between the bushes must be large, this will reduce the rate of spread of the disease. In addition, closely planted bushes will not allow air and light to pass through well.
Late blight is a fungal infection that affects the green part of the plant. You can recognize it by the appearance of brown spots on the stem and leaves. To avoid this disease, care must begin from the seeds. Before planting, they are soaked in potassium permanganate, and seedlings in open ground are foliar sprayed with protective solutions. You should also avoid the proximity of peppers to tomatoes and potatoes.
Pepper is a rather demanding crop, and you can get a harvest only with proper care. Experienced gardeners achieve excellent results no problem, but beginners often have difficulty growing peppers. It often happens that strong healthy bushes produce 2-3 fruits that are not very best quality or the ovaries fall off for no apparent reason. But you really want to collect pepper in buckets, so that it is juicy, big, and aromatic! In fact, achieve good harvest not so difficult, you just need to carefully study a few important rules of agricultural technology for this wonderful crop.
When planning to grow peppers in open ground, first of all you need to choose the right variety. The growing season of pepper is very long, and even in early varieties, the first fruits ripen 100 days after germination. Therefore, in order to get the harvest in time, you need to pay attention only to early and mid-season varieties. In addition, you should take into account the climatic features of your region. For example, peppers are successfully grown in the south of the country different terms ripening, since the conditions there are the most favorable, and in the northern and eastern regions top scores show mainly cold-resistant early-ripening varieties.
The shape and size of the fruit also matter. For stuffing and canning, you should choose varieties with small, cone-shaped fruits; for fresh consumption, large, thick-walled, cube-shaped fruits are more suitable.
If you are going to grow peppers for sale, take a closer look at the hybrids of Dutch selection: they are cold-resistant, ripen early and quickly, and are less likely to be affected by diseases.
It is difficult for a novice gardener to understand the abundance of varieties, so below are the most popular and reliable:
Preparing the site
You should select and prepare a site for peppers in the fall. Well-prepared soil is a guarantee of normal growth and fruiting of plants next year. The ideal place is beds on the south side of the house or outbuildings, located in light shade in the afternoon. This arrangement provides protection from both wind and leaf burns in the July heat. Peppers should not be planted where tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and other nightshade crops have grown in the previous three years. The best predecessors of pepper are legumes and pumpkin crops, cabbage, melons, and green manure.
Preparing a bed for peppers
The soil for peppers should be neutral or slightly acidic. In beds with acidic soil, plants take a long time to take root after transplantation, develop poorly, and hardly bloom or bear fruit.
Advice! It is very easy to check acidity at home: you need to take a little earth and moisten it with ordinary table vinegar. If no reaction follows, the soil is acidic and needs liming, but if bubbles appear on the surface, this indicates neutral acidity.
So, if the soil in the selected area is acidic, when digging, add slaked lime(1 cup per square meter) or wood ash (1.5-3 kg). If the soil is neutral, you need to add rotted organic matter (from 5 to 10 kg per m2) and dig the beds to a depth of 20-25 cm. In the spring, an additional 40 g of potassium-phosphorus fertilizers are added per meter of area, the soil is well loosened and leveled.
Growing seedlings
It is not advisable to sow pepper seeds in open ground; the plants will not have time to begin bearing fruit before the cold weather. That is why both sweet and hot pepper varieties are grown through seedlings. Mid-season and mid-late varieties are sown around the beginning of February, early varieties - in early March. Please note that overgrown seedlings take a very long time to adapt to open ground, especially if you plant already flowering plants.
Step 1. Seeds are immersed in warm water for 5-6 hours for swelling. Then they are laid out on a damp cloth, wrapped and left in a warm place for 2-3 days until the sprouts hatch.
Step 2. Mix 1 part garden soil, 1 part sand and 2 parts rotted organic matter, heat in a microwave or regular oven for disinfection. Then add a tablespoon of wood ash to 1 kg of the mixture and mix thoroughly.
Step 3. For sowing, take peat pots or disposable cups with a capacity of 0.5 liters and fill them with prepared soil. You can sow seeds in a common container, but as the seedlings grow, it will become cramped, and peppers do not like picking.
Step 4. The hatched seeds are placed one in each pot, lightly sprinkled with earth, and moistened through a spray bottle. Then the containers are covered with glass or film and placed in a warm place. The temperature must be maintained within 22-24 degrees.
Sprouts appear already 2-3 days after sowing. At this time, they need to be provided with at least 12 hours of lighting, so prepare phytolamps in advance. The film is removed from the pots so that high humidity does not destroy the tender sprouts. Water the pepper seedlings very sparingly, only when the substrate begins to dry out. Use only warm and settled water, from cold water seedling development slows down.
If the air in the room is too dry, the seedlings should be sprayed in the morning (also warm water). When ventilating the room, be sure to cover the seedlings from drafts and avoid sudden changes in temperature. A week after germination, it is recommended to reduce the night temperature to 15°C. Grown and strengthened seedlings should be hardened little by little. On warm days, when the temperature outside the window rises to 13°C, the pepper should be set to open air, providing protection from the wind. The first time, half an hour is enough, then the time spent in the air is increased daily. On cold days, seedlings are not tolerated, since plants can be damaged even at 10°C.
Landing in the ground
Before planting seedlings, the beds are weeded, loosened and leveled. The holes are made at a distance of 30 cm in the row, 60-70 cm are left between the rows. Peppers should be planted in the evening or in cloudy weather, since the heat of the day is additional stress for the plant. Approximately 5-6 hours before transplanting, the seedlings are watered abundantly so that the root system can more easily adapt to the new conditions. Water for irrigation is also prepared in advance: it is collected in buckets or a large container and placed in the sun to heat.
Step 1. 2-3 liters of water are poured into each hole and allowed to soak a little.
Step 2. The seedlings are carefully removed from the containers so that the earthen lump does not disintegrate. If used peat pots, peppers are planted along with them.
Step 3. The plants are lowered into the hole a little deeper than they grew in the cups, sprinkled with earth on all sides, and compacted with hands.
Advice! Peppers cross-pollinate easily, so if you plan to collect seeds, plant different varieties as far apart as possible. Additionally, you can alternate them with tall crops, for example, corn, sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke and others. Hot and sweet peppers also need to be planted at a maximum distance, otherwise all the fruits will have a pungent taste.
Caring for peppers in open ground
Watering and fertilizing
2 days after planting, the pepper is watered and the ground is sprinkled with fine straw, dry grass or sawdust. In the future, the plants need to be watered once a week until the ovaries form, after which watering is increased more often - once every 5 days. To avoid watering so often, you can increase the mulch layer to 10 cm.
Feed the plantings three times:
- For the first time, fertilizer is applied 10 days after planting. For this purpose, bird droppings are used, diluted in a ratio of 1:10, with the addition of 200 g of ash and 40 g of superphosphate per 10 liters of solution. The indicated volume is enough for about 10 bushes;
- the second time the pepper is fed at the beginning of fruiting with a solution of mullein in a ratio of 1:5 or diluted bird droppings (1:10);
- The third time, fertilizers are applied during the mass formation of fruits, when the plants most need replenishment of nutrients.
By appearance Pepper is easy to determine which substances it lacks. If the leaves dry out along the edges and then curl, this indicates a lack of potassium. A lack of nitrogen is expressed by leaves becoming dull and having a grayish tint. In addition, the leaves become small. But when there is an excess of nitrogen, the ovaries and flowers begin to fall off. The deep purple color of the back of the leaves indicates a lack of phosphorus; the marble pattern occurs with a lack of magnesium. Using mineral fertilizers, but do not forget to strictly follow the dosage, otherwise all the excess will end up in the fruit.
If the autumn turns out to be warm, with the help of another feeding you can prolong the fruiting of early varieties. To do this, dilute 50 g of superphosphate, 15 g of ammonium nitrate and potassium chloride in 10 liters of water.
Loosening
The soil between the rows must be regularly loosened to a depth of 10 cm. The formation of a soil crust slows down the development of pepper, causing oxygen starvation root system. It is best to carry out loosening the morning after watering, while the soil is still quite moist. If mulch was not used, loosening is carried out under the bushes itself, but very carefully, since the roots are located very close to the surface. During the period of budding and flowering, it is advisable to hill each plant to a height of 10-12 cm.
Bush formation
To obtain large ripened fruits, excess shoots (stepchildren) should be removed from the plant. All shoots located below the first branch are removed completely, since they only draw juices from the plant and interfere with fruiting. In addition, the crown should be thinned out so that each branch receives enough air and light. Too dense bushes form few ovaries, the fruits on them grow small and thin-walled.
On average, pruning is carried out once every two weeks, but if the summer is rainy, the stepsons will have to be removed more often - about once every 10 days. It is advisable to combine pruning with loosening the soil in order to disturb the plant less.
Pepper shoots are quite fragile, and any careless movement can damage the stems. To avoid this, it is recommended to tie tall varieties to supports.
Diseases and pests
This crop is susceptible to late blight, white rot and blossom end rot, tobacco mosaic and some other diseases. The best way to combat them is prevention and proper care. Compliance with the planting scheme, timely thinning and pruning, proper watering, removing diseased plants from the garden will help you keep your plantings healthy and get a full harvest.
Dusting bushes with wood ash is effective against pests. This should be done at least 5 times per season, preferably in the morning while the leaves are wet. Spraying peppers with garlic infusion also helps against spider mites and aphids. Slugs that don’t mind eating fresh leaves are collected using traps or repelled with salt, lime, mustard, and pepper powder scattered along the rows.
Video - Pepper: growing and caring in open ground
Video - Planting pepper seedlings
Video - Forming a pepper bush
Plant Capsicum annuum (lat. Capsicum annuum) refers to a species of herbaceous annuals of the Capsicum genus of the Solanaceae family, widely cultivated in agriculture. The pepper vegetable comes from Central America; it came to Europe in the 15th century and, despite its demanding care and increased heat tolerance, quickly became the most popular garden plant. Today there are about 2,000 varieties of capsicum, but most of them belong to the sweet pepper subspecies, while others belong to the bitter pepper subspecies. In this article we will tell you about how to plant peppers, how to pick peppers, how to water peppers, how to fertilize peppers, how to grow pepper seedlings and when to plant sweet pepper seedlings. Hot pepper will be the topic of a separate article.
Planting and caring for peppers
- Landing: sowing seeds for seedlings - in February or March, planting pepper seedlings in the garden - at the stage of formation of the first buds, in late May or early June.
- Lighting: bright sunlight.
- The soil: light, neutral reaction, well drained and pre-fertilized.
- Predecessors: good ones - cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, green manure, pumpkins; bad - all nightshade crops, including peppers.
- Watering: before flowering - once a week, during the period of fruit formation - 2 times a week, using up to 6 liters of water per m².
- Feeding: twice during the seedling period: two weeks after picking and at the stage of development of the second pair of leaves, then twice after planting the pepper in the ground. Both organic and mineral solutions are used as fertilizers.
- Reproduction: seed.
- Pests: spider mites, aphids, slugs, wireworms.
- Diseases: verticillium, bronzing (or spotted wilt), phytoplasmosis (or stolbur), late blight, fusarium, black leg, apical and gray rot.
Read more about growing peppers below.
Vegetable pepper - description
Sweet pepper, or bell pepper, is an annual vegetable plant that in nature is perennial shrub. Its leaves are simple, petiolate, collected in a rosette or single; the color of the leaves, depending on the variety and variety, can be different shades Green colour. Pepper flowers are axillary, large, collected in a bunch or solitary, with a white, purple or greenish corolla. The fruits are false hollow multi-seeded berries that are yellow, red, brown or orange color various shapes, masses and sizes.
Growing peppers from seeds
Sowing pepper seeds
Sweet peppers in our latitudes are usually grown in seedlings by seed method. The timing of sowing seeds for seedlings depends on climatic conditions, however, in any case, sweet peppers are sown no later than the beginning of March.
Planting pepper seedlings begins with pre-sowing seed treatment: first, they are dipped in water at a temperature of 50 ºC for five to six hours to swell, then, wrapped in a damp cloth, they wait 2-3 days at a temperature of about 20 ºC until the seeds hatch, and only after that they are sown in the ground. This preparation of seeds accelerates their germination, and seedlings can appear within 2-3 days after sowing.
Soil for pepper seedlings is prepared as follows: 2 cups of garden humus are mixed with 1 cup of sand, one cup of garden soil, add a spoon or two of wood ash, stir well and sterilize this mixture in the oven or in the microwave, after which it is still hot, put in boxes, leveled , allow to cool to 40-45 ºC and place the seeds on it at intervals of 5 cm from each other with a depth of 1.5-2 cm. But it is better to place the seeds in peat pots, since pepper does not tolerate picking well. Crops must be watered and then cover the seedling containers with polyethylene or glass and place in a warm place - the temperature required for seed germination is 21-22 ºC.
Growing pepper seedlings
Growing pepper seedlings is not much different from growing seedlings of any other vegetable. As soon as the first shoots appear, the room temperature is increased to daytime up to 26-28 ºC, and at night seedlings need coolness - 10-15 ºC. Monitor the soil moisture in containers with seedlings - it should be moderate, since in too wet soil the plants can get blackleg. However, the soil should not be allowed to dry out. Water the seedlings with settled warm water - approximately 30 ºC; from cold water the seedlings get sick, wither and die.
Caring for seedlings involves creating high humidity indoor air, so seedlings should be sprayed from time to time. In addition, regular ventilation of the room is necessary, but do not expose the seedlings to a draft. You may have to organize seedlings additional lighting, since they must be exposed to light from 7 am to 9 pm.
Pepper picking
In the development phase of the seedlings' first pair of leaves, they are picked. If you sowed seeds in peat pots, then you do not need to pick, but if your seedlings grow in boxes, when picking, the seedlings are placed from the boxes into peat pots measuring 8x8 cm and buried in the ground up to the cotyledon leaves.
Once the picked peppers have taken root in the cups, they begin to develop intensively, and shortly before the solemn moment of planting the seedlings in open ground, they begin to accustom them to the environment in which they will find themselves: the seedlings are taken out to the ground every day. Fresh air at first for a short time, but gradually the time spent in the new conditions is increased, preventing the seedlings from being exposed to a draft or “frost” below 13 ºC.
Before planting seedlings in open ground, peppers are fertilized, at least twice: two weeks after picking or in the phase of formation of the first pair of leaves in the seedlings, and then another two weeks later, or when the seedlings develop the second pair of leaves. It is better to apply fertilizer in liquid form. The best fertilizers for seedlings - Agricola, Mortar, Krepysh, Fertika Lux.
Growing peppers on a windowsill
In order to grow sweet peppers at home, you will need self-pollinating seeds, a good substrate, a phytolamp and a place in the apartment where the sun shines for at least 3-4 hours a day. Once your potted peppers begin to bloom, shake them at least once a day to ensure successful pollination. Large fruits take a lot of energy from the bush, so leave 5-6 ovaries for ripening and remove the rest.
Fruit-bearing crops quickly deplete the soil in which they grow, so it is necessary to feed the pepper bush once every 2-3 weeks, adding a teaspoon of Agrolife to the top layer of soil or watering the soil with a solution of one capful of the drug Growth in two liters of water.
At home, sweet pepper is a perennial plant, and it wouldn’t hurt to add fresh vermicompost to the pot every two months while the container allows, or replant the bush into larger pots when the need arises. To extend the life of the plant, it is advisable to carry out a small annual spring rejuvenating pruning of the pepper, and then you are guaranteed a fruit harvest for several years.
Planting peppers in open ground
When to plant peppers in the ground
Grown, strengthened and hardened seedlings at the stage of formation of the first buds are planted in open ground when the air temperature reaches 15-17 ºС. Peppers are usually planted in the ground in late May - mid-June.
Pepper soil
Sweet peppers love light, non-acidic soils, but you need to prepare the area for peppers a year before planting. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that nothing grows in this place for a year, it’s just that the soil is prepared for the crops preceding pepper, the best of which are cucumber, zucchini, carrots, onions, pumpkin or green manure. But after crops such as eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, physalis - in short, after nightshades, peppers are not grown.
When preparing the soil for spring planting predecessors per year for digging, 5 kg of organic matter is added per 1 m², and in the fall, after harvesting, the site is dug up with the addition of 50 g of phosphorus and potash fertilizers. In the spring, in the year of planting pepper, 40 g of ammonium nitrate is added to the top layer of soil for each m², and five days before planting the seedlings, the area is spilled with a disinfecting solution, adding a tablespoon of copper sulfate to a bucket of water.
How to plant peppers in open ground
Holes are made in the garden bed at a distance of 40-50 cm from each other, and the distance between the rows is maintained at about 60 cm. The depth of the hole should be such that root collar The seedling after planting was flush with the surface of the site. Place one tablespoon of complete mineral fertilizer, which contains nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, into the holes and thoroughly mix the pepper fertilizer with the soil at the bottom of the hole.
If the seedlings grew in peat pots, then lower the seedling into the hole directly with it, and if you grew the seedlings in a common container, then carefully remove the pepper from it, trying not to destroy the earthen lump, and lower it into the hole. Fill the hole halfway with fertile soil, then water each plant generously, using one bucket of water for three seedlings, and when the water is absorbed, fill the holes to the top with soil. After planting, it is advisable to mulch the area with sweet peppers with peat. If the temperature drops below 13 ºC at night, the planted seedlings will need shelter.
Growing peppers in a greenhouse
There are pepper varieties for open ground, and there are those that can only be grown in greenhouses. Pepper varieties include Arnes, Accord, Alyonushka, Vesper, Bonus, Atlant, Pinocchio, Orange Miracle, Tenderness, Lastochka, Nochka and others. First, the seeds are sown for seedlings, and when they grow and undergo hardening procedures on the balcony or terrace, they are planted in greenhouse soil. We have just described sowing seeds and the stages of growing seedlings.
Planting peppers in a greenhouse carried out when the seedlings reach a height of 25 cm and are at least 55 days old, they form a thick green stem and 12-14 leaves, in the axils of which buds have already formed. The soil in an unheated greenhouse should be warmed up to 15 ºC by the time the seedlings are placed in it, so replanting is unlikely to take place before May 15.
Before planting, the soil for peppers in the greenhouse is fertilized with potassium and phosphorus fertilizers at the rate of 30 g of the former and 40 g of the latter per m² and watered abundantly. The planting density of seedlings depends on the variety: 35 cm must be left between seedlings of vigorous varieties, an interval of 25 cm between medium-sized seedlings is sufficient, and early-ripening low-growing varieties are planted at a distance of 15 cm from each other. The distance between the rows is from 35 to 60 cm. After planting the seedlings in the holes, the soil is compacted and mulched with peat.
Pepper care
How to grow peppers
Growing peppers in open ground requires timely watering, weeding and loosening of the area, gartering and fertilizing the plants. Professionals recommend removing the central flower from the first branch on each bush - this should increase the pepper yield. Also, to increase productivity, bushes are formed into 2-3 stems, for which it is necessary to promptly remove the resulting side shoots - stepsons. This is done in hot and necessarily humid weather. No more than 20-25 fruits can be left on one plant.
When planting seedlings of high varieties of peppers in the ground, immediately drive a peg next to each seedling, to which you can tie a bush, if necessary.
To successfully pollinate peppers, it is necessary to attract pollinating insects to the site, for which the bushes are sprayed with boron-sugar syrup, dissolving 2 g of boric acid and 100 g of sugar in a liter of hot water. And avoid treating your garden with pesticides from the moment the pepper blooms, otherwise the insects pollinating the pepper may die.
Watering the pepper
After planting in open ground, the seedling looks somewhat lethargic, but this is quite natural, so it is very important not to overdo it with soil moisture at this time. Before flowering, you need to water the pepper once a week, and during the period of fruit formation you will have to water it twice a week at the rate of 6 liters of water per m². After watering, you need to very carefully loosen the soil between the rows, trying not to damage the surface root system of the plants.
Watering the peppers is carried out with warm, settled water from a watering can by sprinkling. Due to lack of moisture, peppers slow down their growth and may drop flowers and ovaries. To keep the soil moist, experienced gardeners recommend mulching the area with pepper with a ten-centimeter layer of rotted straw.
Pepper feeding
After fertilizing at the seedling stage, peppers in open ground are fertilized twice with a solution of chicken manure in a concentration of 1:10, and foliar fertilizing with a solution of a tablespoon of nitrophoska in a bucket of water is also used. The curled leaves of pepper with a dry border around the edges will tell you that there is not enough potassium in the soil, but do not use potassium chloride as a fertilizer - pepper does not tolerate chlorine.
From nitrogen deficiency the leaves acquire a dull, gray tint and gradually become smaller, and from an excess of this element the plant sheds ovaries and flowers. When to pepper lack of phosphorus, the underside of the leaf blade becomes deep purple, the leaves rise up and cling to the trunk.
From magnesium deficiency sweet pepper leaves acquire a marbled color. Be attentive to the plant, and you will be able to help it in time by adding the necessary fertilizer.
Pepper processing
The fight against diseases of peppers during the period of fruit ripening with pesticides is undesirable, since all the beneficial properties of the plant are neutralized by nitrates and other harmful to humans absorbed after treatment. chemicals. With proper care and adherence to agricultural practices, peppers should not have any problems with diseases or pests, but if they do appear, let's look at what measures will help get rid of them and at the same time maintain the quality of the fruit at a high level.
Pests and diseases of pepper
Readers often ask questions about what ails peppers. Most often, sweet peppers are affected by diseases such as verticillium (wilt), bronzing (spotted wilt), phytoplasmosis, fusarium, late blight, apical and gray rot, and black leg.
Verticillium- a fungal disease that exists in three forms: brown, green and dwarf, each of which manifests itself in its own way. Since the destruction of pathogens by pesticides on vegetable plants is undesirable, only preventive measures remain: the destruction of all plant residues in the fall and the cultivation of varieties resistant to verticillium.
Phytoplasmosis, or stolbur, It manifests itself in the fact that the roots of the plant begin to rot, dwarfism develops, the fruits grow small, thin-walled and tasteless, the leaves curl, harden and turn yellow, and as a result the pepper dries out. They carry the disease of leafhoppers. The fight against phytoplasmosis is carried out by treating peppers with Acara at the time of planting and three weeks after it - spraying the vegetable at this stage of development will not cause harm. In addition, it is necessary to regularly loosen the soil on the site and remove weeds.
Fusarium– a fungal disease in which peppers turn yellow: the leaves acquire a poisonous yellow color. Diseased specimens are destroyed, and the remaining plants are carefully looked after: watered moderately in the morning, and weeds are not allowed to appear on the site. Keep in mind that next year it is better not to grow pepper in a site infected with fusarium.
Late blight– a common fungal disease that affects peppers and tomatoes. Symptoms of phytosporosis are the formation of hard spots on the fruits that trap the pulp. They destroy pathogens with the drugs Oksikhom, Zaslon, Barrier, but only before the pepper begins to bloom. By the way: hybrid varieties much less susceptible to disease.
Blackleg affects the root part of the stem of pepper seedlings as a result of too dense sowing and maintenance at high soil and air humidity. Over time, the stem softens and the seedling dies. To avoid the disease of seedlings with blackleg, you should sow the seeds spaciously, pick the seedlings in time and monitor the humidity level in the greenhouse. If you find diseased seedlings, immediately remove them, dry and loosen the soil in which the seedlings grow, and sprinkle it with wood ash. At this stage of plant development, it is permissible to spray seedlings with Zaslona solution in the ratio: 3 caps of the drug per 1 liter of water.
Apical rot Occurs on the plant, oddly enough, in case of lack of moisture and appears as shiny or black deep spots on the fruits. Sometimes the cause of the disease can be excess nitrogen and calcium in the soil. Infected plants are burned, and the rest are sprayed with calcium nitrate.
Gray rot can affect every plant at any stage of development with putrefactive spots and a gray coating of mold. Its appearance is usually provoked by rainy weather. Affected fruits and parts of the plant must be removed, and the bushes in the area must be sprayed with fungicides, if it is not too late.
Signs of bronzeness, or spotted wilt, appear as brown spots on leaves that turn bronze or purple shade. These necrotic spots are located mainly along the main vein of the leaves. As a result of the development of the disease, the top of the plant dies, the fruits in the stalk area become covered with green, brown or pale yellow ring spots. To save the harvest, ripe fruits are picked off and the soil is no longer watered. The fungus is destroyed by Fundazol, however, before treating the pepper with a fungicide, weigh again all the pros and cons of such spraying.
Pests that plague peppers include aphids, spider mites, wireworms and slugs. You can help protect the plant from slugs by scattering nut shells, ground hot pepper or mustard powder over the area. You can also place bowls of dark beer here and there, to which shellfish will crawl from all over the area. And do not forget to loosen the soil between rows to a depth of 4-5 cm in the heat.
Click beetle larvae or wireworms, remaining in the soil for five years, they gnaw on plant roots. To get rid of wireworms, in the fall the soil on the site is dug up, and in the spring, before planting peppers, several baits are placed on the site by burying pieces of sweet root vegetables in the ground and marking these places for yourself. Click beetle larvae will definitely crawl towards these baits. Every two to three days the baits are dug up, the larvae are collected and destroyed.
Spider mites They grow on dry plants, they settle on the underside of the leaves and suck out the cell sap from them. If you don’t know how to treat peppers against ticks without resorting to insecticides, we offer you a recipe for a solution that is non-toxic to the human body: a tablespoon liquid soap or dishwashing detergent along with a glass of finely chopped onion or garlic, as well as crushed dandelion leaves, mix in 10 liters of water, let it brew and spray the pepper with this mixture at any stage of its development.
From aphids get rid of wood ash or tobacco dust infused in 10 liters of hot water in the amount of one glass. You can also, if necessary, use a treatment of pepper with a solution of quickly decomposing insecticides such as Karbofos or Keltan at the rate of one tablespoon of the drug per 10 liters of water.
Collection and storage of pepper
Pepper has two types of ripeness - technical and biological (or physiological). At the stage of technical maturity, all peppers are usually green in color - from dark green to greenish-whitish. If the peppers on the bush are yellow, red, orange, purple or brown, then we can say that they are already at the stage of biological maturity, which means that the fruits removed from the bush must be used immediately - canned or eaten, since they are stored such peppers last a very short period of time.
Fruits collected in a state of technical maturity in suitable conditions can be stored for up to two months. The time difference between technical and biological ripeness is 20-30 days. The readiness of the pepper for harvesting is determined by the sound of the fruit cracking when you lightly press it. And one more guideline: peppers are harvested around the same time as eggplants and tomatoes.
Usually the first fruits are collected in early or mid-August, and peppers continue to be collected until frost. That is, ripe fruits are picked selectively every 5-7 days. To store the pepper better, it is cut off along with the stalk. During the growing season, three to five collections are carried out. Before the onset of frost, all the fruits are removed from the bushes, and their further ripening takes place indoors, after sorting by size and degree of ripeness.
Before storing the fruit, the stalk of the fruit is cut off, leaving a length of only 1-1.5 cm. Only healthy, thick-walled fruits that have no mechanical damage are suitable for storage. Thin-walled varieties are stored in the refrigerator. Varieties with juicy walls can be kept in plastic bags with a thickness of at least 120 microns; it is advisable that they have a membrane with perforations on the side wall. Peppers are stored better if each fruit is wrapped in paper. You can store peppers in baskets, shallow boxes on 1-2 rows or on shelves in the basement at a temperature of 8-10 ºC and an air humidity of 80-90%.
Since pepper quickly absorbs odors, make sure that nothing in your basement is molding or decomposing. Storing pepper in the right conditions allows it to remain fresh for one and a half to two months. You can store sweet peppers for a month in the refrigerator at a temperature of 9-10 ºC. Many housewives prefer, after washing the fruits and removing the seeds, stack the peppers one inside the other and store them in the freezer all winter, so that at any time they can prepare their favorite dishes from them or add a slice or two to borscht or salad.
Those fruits that are not suitable for storage can be processed. They make excellent marinades, aromatic winter salads, and borscht dressing.
Types and varieties of pepper
We have already mentioned that vegetable peppers can be sweet and bitter. We promised to tell you in detail about hot pepper in a separate article. Sweet peppers are divided into the following varieties:
- bell pepper;
- tomato-shaped vegetable pepper;
- cone-shaped vegetable pepper;
- cylindrical vegetable pepper;
- bell-shaped vegetable pepper.
Among the popular varieties there are peppers for open ground, peppers for growing in greenhouses, as well as varieties for containers that grow and bear fruit on a balcony or windowsill. Varieties also differ in terms of ripening: early varieties reach maturity in 80-100 days, mid-ripening ones need a little more time to ripen - from 115 to 130 days, and late ones will require 140 or more days.
- TO early peppers include varieties Zdorovye, Dobrynya Nikitich, Belosnezhka, Lastochka, as well as hybrids Atlantic, Orange Miracle, Montero, Cardinal, Denis.
- Of the mid-season varieties, the best are considered to be Prometheus, Ilya Muromets, Korenovsky, Belozerka, and hybrids Maxim and Vitamin.
- Of the later varieties, the Zolotaya Medal variety and the Nochka hybrid have proven themselves well.
By the way, What is the difference between the concept of “variety” and the concept of “hybrid”? Seeds of hybrids do not retain varietal characteristics, so collecting seeds from hybrid varieties is pointless; seed material of the hybrids you like will have to be purchased every year. But hybrid varieties are distinguished by high yields, large fruits with excellent taste, and, in addition, they are very resistant to diseases.
Pepper varieties also differ in the size and shape of the fruit, and this is very important, since for stuffing, for example, you need thick-walled, large oval or spherical peppers, and for salads you can use other varieties with thinner walls and smaller sizes. The shape of sweet pepper fruits is elongated, cuboid, cone-shaped, oval, spherical and cylindrical. They can be either smooth or lumpy.
And, of course, pepper varieties differ in the color of their fruits in the biological ripening phase. Varieties such as Alyosha Popovich, Red Elephant, Lastochka, Ilya Muromets, Winnie the Pooh and hybrids Zarya, Latino and Red Baron have red fruits. Yellow peppers are represented by varieties Katyusha, Yellow bouquet and hybrids Raisa, Isabella, Indalo. The Maxim hybrid has a purple color when technically matured and dark red when biologically matured. The Cardinal hybrid has purple fruits, the Bonus variety has ivory to dark red fruits, the Apricot Favorite variety and the Chanterelle hybrid have ripe fruits that are bright orange.
We offer you several popular varieties of peppers, among which you will surely find those that you want to grow at home.
- Fat Baron– an early-ripening variety with sweet red cube-shaped fruits weighing up to 300 g. 8-9 fruits ripen on a spherical bush 50-60 cm high.
- Red shovel- a bush up to 70 cm high, on which up to 15 red sweet fruits ripen, weighing up to 150 g and wall thickness up to 8 mm.
- California miracle- a well-deserved mid-early variety that has been tested for decades, which requires about 75 days from the moment the seedlings are planted in the ground to ripen. The height of the bush is up to 80 cm, the fruits are red, thick-walled, weighing up to 250 g.
- Yellow bell- one of the earliest disease-resistant varieties, which needs only 65-70 days to ripen. The height of the bushes is 70-80 cm, the fruits are golden-yellow, cube-shaped, up to 12 cm in height and diameter, wall thickness is 8-10 cm.
- Hybrid series Star of the East with thick-walled fruits weighing from 150 to 350 g, mostly early ripening with fruits of white, white with red, golden and chocolate color.
Sweet pepper is one of the most favorite crops grown by vegetable growers. True, this vegetable is very demanding; if it does not receive something, it can seriously punish its owners with a decrease or complete absence of the harvest. requires a lot of attention, knowledge and experience. Especially those who have only taken up this business for the first year should not be upset. Gradually, if there is a desire, you will be able to learn everything.
Growing pepper seedlings
In most areas, even in the southernmost regions, sweet pepper cultivation begins in (late February, early March). This can be done both in greenhouses and in room conditions. It is best to grow seedlings on a windowsill in special earthen cups, which can later be easily transferred to open ground. And all because, like any other species, it takes root very poorly. For normal growth, seedlings need moisture, warmth and light.
When the seedlings reach 60-65 days of growth, they can be transplanted either into open ground or into a greenhouse. The last option, of course, is the most suitable, but if this is not possible, then you can try to harvest from the pepper that will grow on the street.
in open ground
If you decide to save money on film using this method, then you will not succeed. In any case, growing peppers in open ground requires a temporary structure small greenhouse, which will warm the plants until about the end of June. In May and even June, the weather is not entirely stable, which can lead to poor growth of sweet peppers and a lack of harvest.
So, first you need to prepare the ground. It needs to be dug up in the fall and rotted manure added. Before planting, you need to dig up again, apply it in open ground, best done in the place where legumes, cucumbers, green crops and root crops previously grew. Sweet peppers love fertile soil, but if there is none on the site, then you need to add peat and rotted sawdust to the soil at the rate of 1 bucket per 1 sq.m. The beds should have a height of about 30 cm, while the width should be about 1 meter, but the length is at your personal discretion. It is also necessary to think in advance about how the greenhouse will be built. The easiest way is to stretch the film over plastic or metal arcs inserted into the ground.
When everything is ready, you can start planting seedlings. It is best to do this in the evening, when solar activity is reduced. To do this, you need to dig holes at a distance of 40-45 cm from each other, taking into account the row spacing - 55-60 cm. You need to pour water into each hole and wait until it is absorbed. The seedling or earthen cup with the plant is lowered into the hole and carefully covered with earth. When planting the seedlings is completed, you can stretch the film. If it is very warm during the day, then the film can be removed, remembering to put it on at night.
You should pay attention to the fact that growing pepper in open ground in the first two weeks is unfavorable: the plants begin to get sick and grow slowly. This suggests that it is beginning to take root. To help it, you can loosen the soil slightly and reduce watering. When the peppers are well established and begin to grow, watering should be increased to approximately 10-12 liters per 1 sq.m. For this purpose, only warm water is used, the temperature of which is about 25 0C. Cold and cool water significantly inhibits the growth and setting of fruits.
During flowering, it is necessary to fertilize sweet peppers with diluted dry fertilizer “Fertility” (1 kg per 100 liters) at the rate of 1 liter per 1 bush. Another fertilizing is carried out during the fruiting period (per 100 liters of water, one bucket of bird droppings and 2 cups of nitrophoska).
In order for pepper bushes to bear fruit well, it is necessary to remove the tops of the main stem and also carry out sonification, leaving only 4-5 upper stepsons.
Getting a decent harvest of peppers without a greenhouse is not difficult if you use the right agricultural technology and successfully select the appropriate varieties for growing sweet peppers in open ground.
Choosing the best variety of sweet pepper for open ground
First of all, you need to choose varieties for open ground that are optimal for a given region. There are simple varieties and hybrid varieties. Hybrids are good for their disease resistance, predictable high yield and attractive appearance of fruits, but seeds cannot be collected from a hybrid - anything can grow.
Eat salad varieties, which are used mainly for conservation and universal purposes. There are varieties with good keeping quality that can be stored for a long time.
In areas with unpredictable summers, it is preferable to choose either early or mid-early varieties for cultivation. It takes 100-120 days from planting to the first fruits.
The recognized favorite variety “Swallow” is a mid-early variety, reaches a height of up to 62 cm, fruiting begins 116-122 days after the appearance of the first shoots. The fruits have thick walls and gain weight up to 100 g.
“Orange Miracle” is a mid-early plant, grows up to 90 cm in height. The fruits are quite large, weighing up to 250 g. The variety is quite resistant to some types of wilting and tobacco mosaic.
“Bogatyr” is a good mid-season variety, up to 75 cm high. Like “Swallow,” the fruits have a fairly thick wall and gain weight up to 200 g. The ripeness period is 125-135 days.
“Cardinal” is early, up to 100 cm high. The fruits are purple in color and have thick walls, weighing up to 280 g. Maturity period is 95 days. It has good resistance to tobacco mosaic.
"Barguzin" - Refers to mid-early varieties. The ripening period is about 110-120 days, reaches a height of up to 80 cm. Fruits yellow color with a thick wall up to 5 mm, weighing up to 200 g.
“Merchant” - refers to early ripening with a ripening period of 95-110 days and a height of up to 90 cm. The fruits are red in color with a thick wall, weighing up to 110 g.
Also wonderful varieties: “Lumina”, “Ivanhoe”, “Health”, “Bugai”, “Tusk”.
Representatives of hybrid varieties:
"Latino F1" is a mid-early representative, reaching a height of 100 cm with large red fruits resembling the shape of a cube and reaching a weight of 200 g.
"Atlantic F1" - early, bush height up to 1 m, very large fleshy fruits weighing up to 400 g. Resistant to viral diseases.
“Star of the East F1” is a mid-early variety. Ripens on average 110-130 days. Reaches a height of 70 cm. The fruits ripen in a rich red color, weighing up to 320 g.
Preparing sweet pepper seeds for planting as seedlings
For successful cultivation To grow sweet peppers in open ground, you need to carefully prepare the seeds. From germination to flowering, pepper needs more than 100 days.
Therefore, it is better to sow seeds in the first ten days of February, especially if you want to grow sweet peppers in open ground. If you plant in early March, then you will need artificial lighting for the seedlings.
Preparing sweet pepper seeds for planting includes several stages:
- germination test;
- calibration;
- disinfection;
- soaking seeds in nutrients;
- hardening;
- germination.
Germination test
A month before sowing seeds, it is useful to check them for germination. Take 8-10 seeds from a bag and dip them in a cloth in warm water for a day.
Then they take it out of the water, put it on a saucer, place the saucer in a plastic bag and put it in a warm place, maybe under a radiator. The fabric should always be damp. If at least half of the seeds have sprouted, then the seeds are good.
Note! This applies to old or your own seeds.
Seed calibration
First, damaged and deformed seeds are selected, then they are dipped in a 5% salt solution, shaken, left for 5 minutes and the floating seeds are discarded, the rest are washed.
Attention! Seeds from the 3rd year of storage are not calibrated in salt water.
Disinfection
The seeds are kept in a strong solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes, then washed under running water.
This operation disinfects the outer shell; for deeper processing, bacterial agents are used, often with a specific action. Treatments with Trichophyte and Fitosporin give good results. The seeds are kept in solutions of drugs according to the instructions.
Attention! The Trichophyte solution must be kept in the dark.
Soaking in nutrient solution
For solutions, growth stimulants “Epin-Extra”, “Zircon”, wood ash, “Ideal”, sodium humate and others are used.
If disinfection was carried out with bacterial preparations, then they often already contain growth stimulants, as in “Fitosporin-paste” and this is enough.
Hardening and germination of sweet pepper seeds
The seeds are placed in an envelope made of damp cloth, then in a polyethylene bag (preferably with perforation) and placed in the refrigerator for 3 days at a temperature from 0 C° to + 2 C°. But the best results are obtained by alternating cold and heat: a day - cold, a day - room temperature and again the cold. The fabric should not dry out.
Then the bag is placed in a warm place (near the radiator) and as soon as a white root appears, it is immediately sown. Important! Pelleted, encrusted and precision seeds are immediately planted in seed boxes.
Growing sweet pepper seedlings and care
For sowing, use containers about 12 cm high; tetra packs of milk or juice, or a cake lid are suitable.
Preparing the soil for seedlings
The soil mixture should be loose, fertile, well-permeable to air, and not sour. Store-bought soil is suitable for tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. You can buy Violet soil and add humus there.
The container for sowing is filled with soil, leaving two centimeters short of the top. The ground is leveled, pressed a little, rows are drawn every 5 cm, and watered with warm water. The seeds are laid out in rows with an interval of 2 cm, sprinkled with earth (2-3 cm) and lightly pressed down with your fingers. Cover the boxes with film, then place them in a warm, dark place.
After 2 days, spray the soil with warm water from a spray bottle. Around the 5th day, seedlings appear, immediately move the container with seedlings to a bright windowsill.
Optimal temperature environment up to 16 C°, maintain it for about a week. Then the daytime temperature is desirable up to 25 C°, at night - up to 18 C°.
Water carefully with warm water as needed. It is advisable to fertilize with calcium nitrate one time (one tablespoon per 5 liters of water). When real leaves appear, picking can be done.
Important! Weak, deformed shoots must be removed.
Picking pepper seedlings
A couple of hours before picking, the seedlings need to be watered. Pots for seedlings can be cut juice bags, milk cups, etc. There must be holes in the bottom of the pot; it is good to put a layer of drainage.
The optimal dimensions are 9 x 9 cm. The cups are filled with soil, spilled with water with “Ideal” (1 teaspoon of “Ideal” per 3 liters of water), make a hole and plant the peppers, covering them with dry soil up to the cotyledon leaves.
Important! After picking, water on the 5th or 6th day.
The pots are placed on a lighted windowsill, turning them periodically so that the plant is illuminated evenly. Water only with warm water, as needed, usually once a week, without flooding the plant. The soil at the base of the stem should be loose and “breathable”.
How to feed the seedlings?
Fertilizing is usually combined with watering (first watering, then fertilizing), alternating root and leaf fertilizing. Fertilizing can be done with mixtures of mullein and mineral fertilizers, wood ash, but in urban conditions it is more convenient and safer to use ready-made liquid fertilizers “Ideal”, “Good Power”, “Zircon” (growth stimulant), “Russian Fields, Biohumus” and others. It is also good to treat with bacterial preparations. The best daytime temperature for seedlings is 25 C°, night temperature is 20 C°.
Pinching seedlings
Pinching is carried out above 5-7 true leaves so that the plant branches. Just at this time, the internodes of the plant begin to color. A day after pinching, spray the plants well with a growth stimulator. Pinching stimulates the growth of new shoots - stepsons; no more than 5 upper stepsons are left on the bush.
Hardening of sweet pepper seedlings
Hardening off seedlings is a necessary condition for successfully growing sweet peppers in open ground. When warm weather starts from + 15 C°, you can take the seedlings out onto the balcony, first for a few hours, then for the whole day, and then do not remove them at night at + 15 C°.
Important! When hardening, the nitrogen content in fertilizing must be reduced.
Hardening is useful not only for “accustoming” the plant to harsher conditions, it stimulates the growth of a powerful root system and prevents the seedlings from stretching out.
Preparing the site for planting
Pepper is a heat-loving, wind-pollinated plant, prefers well-lit places and normal humidity. Therefore, the site for planting must be chosen open, sunny and preferably protected from the wind.
To protect from the wind, it is suggested to place tall crops nearby, but the illumination of the plants suffers. It is safer to install tunnel film shelters - they will save you from strong winds, hail, overheating, and cold. You can also install a wattle fence woven from twigs, but a tunnel greenhouse is more functional.
It is not recommended to plant peppers after potatoes, physalis, tobacco, tomatoes and eggplants. The soil may be contaminated with common pests and diseases of this family. It is wise to plant after legumes, melons and green crops.
Preparing the soil for planting
Peppers have a strong root system and require deep digging, no less than a spade's length. The soil should be neutral, fertile, loose and finely lumpy, retaining moisture well.
Fresh manure cannot be applied, but compost, rotted manure and sawdust work well. If the soil is too light, you need to add peat; if it is too heavy, add coarse sand.
When planting, NPK complex fertilizers are added to the soil in a ratio of 1:2:3. You can use calcium nitrate. But then you will have to exclude phosphorus fertilizers when digging; phosphorus and sulfur are not compatible with calcium nitrate.
Planting seedlings in open ground
Peppers are planted on ridges after spring frosts. From the second ten days of May to mid-June, depending on the climate zone.
First, you need to dig holes, water them, then pour them with a solution of a bacterial preparation, fill them with water again, place the plant with a lump of earth in the hole and cover it with dry soil, squeeze it and sprinkle it with earth or mulch.
No need to water. For compact bushes, the intervals between plants are 35 cm, between rows - 50 cm. Tall varieties are planted in one row at 50-60 cm between bushes, and in several rows at 60-80 cm. When planting, you must immediately install a peg for gartering the stem .
Note! The use of black or colored mulch materials allows you to retain moisture, prevent weeds from growing, and eliminate the need for loosening.
Features of growing sweet peppers in central Russia and the Moscow region
The further south the region, the earlier the seedlings are planted in the ground, the earlier the seeds are sown. Sowing begins in the first ten days of February tall varieties, in the second ten days - mid-ripening, in the third ten days of February and early March - early-ripening, compact.
Seedlings are planted in the ground from mid-May to mid-June, always covering the beds with film. The sowing scheme is chosen depending on the size of the bush.
The best varieties of sweet peppers for the Moscow region and Middle zone Russia: Vesuvius, Emelya, Annushka, Montero, Selvia, Carlson, Golden Miracle and others.
Features of growing sweet peppers in Ukraine
In Ukraine on larger territory The climate is temperate continental, only in the south it is closer to subtropical. The soils of Ukraine are fertile and rich in black soil. For gardeners and gardeners this is a fertile region. The main problems of some regions of Ukraine are extremely hot summers (up to +35 C°), dry winds and rare rains.
Peppers are also grown in Ukraine seedling method, although tomatoes are often sown directly into the ground. In peppers, the growing season and fruit ripening period are much longer.
Features of agricultural technology techniques include protection from strong winds, sunburn, from pests (their number is higher than in the northern regions), from drying out of the soil.
Pepper plantings in Ukraine are significant and the use of drip irrigation and mulching protective coatings soil allows you to save energy and time.
However, the root system is located closer to the surface and without protection from the wind, the pepper bushes are torn out of the ground.
Mulching coverings should be two-color: black below, light above to reflect Sun rays and reduce soil drying out.
The planting pattern is usual, the gap between the bushes is 50 cm, between the rows - 60 cm. The bed is covered with film to speed up the adaptation period.
Late-ripening varieties are sown 75 days before planting on ridges (in mid-February), mid-ripening - 65 days, early-ripening - 60 days.
Features of growing sweet peppers in the Urals
Due to significant climatic and soil differences in the Southern, Northern and Middle Urals, gardeners use different agricultural techniques when growing garden crops, including pepper.
In the north of the Urals, summer is short, the average temperature is +8 C°, strong winds and fogs. The soil there is rocky, so you have to resort to certain techniques to grow crops.
Fences, buildings, tall plants, including shrubs, are used for protection from winds. Prepare for next year's plantings in the fall warm beds. In the northern Urals, peppers are grown exclusively in greenhouses.
In the southern Urals, the average summer temperature is +22 C°. A few days before planting, the bed is covered with black material to warm the ground. Plant according to the usual pattern, depending on the size of the bush.
They are planted in a permanent place at the end of May, mid-June with obligatory covering with film on the arches.
The best varieties of sweet peppers for the Urals: Kolobok, Firstborn of Siberia, Sibiryak, Barguzin, Topolin, Montero, Kupets, Red and Yellow Bulls, Bogatyr.
Growing and caring for sweet peppers
Caring for peppers involves timely weeding, loosening, watering, fertilizing and bush formation.
Important! The first flowers must be removed; subsequently, all deformed flowers and ovaries must be removed.
Pollination
Pepper is a wind-pollinated plant; to ensure pollination, you need to shake the bush a little. But cross-pollination is possible different varieties. If hot peppers grow in the garden plot, then if cross-pollinated, the fruits of the sweet peppers will become bitter.
High temperatures, especially at night, have a depressing effect on pollen activity. Ultrasil and spunbond covering materials will protect plants from overheating and neutralize the effects of temperature changes.
Growing sweet peppers
The plant must be shaped by pinching. The lower stepsons are usually cut off, the only exception being very hot weather. Then the lower shoots shade the soil. The bush should not be thickened, so excess shoots are plucked out. The plants are tied to stakes as the stems and shoots grow.
Weeding and loosening
Even when forming ridges, all weeds must be removed from the soil, so only seed weeds carried by the wind, birds or with compost can germinate.
Timely loosening will destroy them and destroy the soil crust. It is necessary to loosen so as not to damage the roots of plants, especially when using drip irrigation.
Watering sweet peppers
Watering can be carried out in the usual way - at the root, by sprinkling and by drip. You can water only with warm water. Before flowering, water by sprinkling once a week at the rate of one watering can (10 l) of water per 1 sq.m. During flowering and fruiting, water at the root 2 times a week. Of course, the weather makes its own adjustments.
Very convenient and promising drip irrigation. Water losses are reduced, no physical effort is required, and an earth crust through which soil moisture evaporates is not formed.
What to feed peppers with?
A week after planting, you can carry out the first fertilizing with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in a 1:1:1 ratio. Such fertilizing should be done every week after watering. You can use ready-made mineral mixtures and fertilizer solutions.
“Green fertilizer” is widely used when nettles, dandelion leaves, and wood lice are placed in a barrel, filled with water and left for a week. It is better to tightly cover the barrel with film and tie it up - it will smell very bad. After a week, add a glass of ash to the barrel and water the plants.
It is also necessary to add microelements and foliar feeding. During fruiting, “Ideal”, “Senior Tomato” and other fertilizers are perfect. After the first fruiting, fertilizing is carried out with an NPK complex in a ratio of 1:1:1.5.
Important! If signs of disease or pests are noticed on one bush, then it is necessary to treat all pepper plantings.
Treatment against diseases and pests of sweet pepper
It is necessary to treat the soil and leaves with bacterial preparations such as trichodermin, phytosporin and trichophyte. They are quite effective in preventing diseases such as fusarium, late blight, tracheomycosis, sclerotinia, gray mold, black leg and a number of other infections.
These drugs have hazard class 4, that is, low-hazard substances. Potassium permanganate, for example, has hazard class 2.
Apical rot is a very unpleasant disease. It develops due to a lack of calcium, excess nitrogen, changes in air humidity and uneven watering. It is recommended to treat during the growth period with 0.3-0.4% calcium chloride or milk of lime. Feeding with calcium nitrate is also necessary.
The main pests of this crop are cutworms, spider mites and aphids. Used against cutworms:
- bacterial preparations – lepidocide, bitoxibacillin, enterobacterin (0.2), dendrobacillin ;
- chemical - karbofos and chlorophos;
- folk remedies - infusions hot pepper, burdock, wormwood, potato tops;
- agrotechnical methods - careful digging of the soil, removal of plant residues in the fall;
- traps - containers with kvass.
Spider mites do not tolerate moisture, so sprinkling will be a good preventative measure, by the way, against aphids too. Infusions of plants - dandelion, garlic, onion peels - are also used.
To prevent the appearance of aphids, it is necessary to get rid of earth ants. Ants cannot tolerate table salt. Chemical and folk remedies work well against the first generation of aphids; the remaining generations are more tenacious.
Infusions of garlic, horseradish, celandine, tobacco with laundry soap with careful processing they can destroy aphid colonies.
Harvesting and proper storage of sweet peppers
Fruits for quick consumption are usually harvested at the stage of biological maturity, when the shape, size and color correspond to the variety. The exception is when the harvest is carried out to relieve the plants, and they continue to bear fruit effectively.
For storage, it is correct to collect peppers in the phase of technical or technical-biological maturity, when the size and color do not yet correspond to varietal ripeness.
Note! Fruit picking should be done in dry weather, preferably in the morning.
Peppers, with optimal agricultural technology, begin to be harvested already in mid-July, but mass harvesting is carried out in August and September before the onset of autumn frosts.
The fruits are cut with scissors, along with the stalk. The branches are very fragile and brittle, so proceed with caution.
Fruits without damage are selected for storage, sorted by ripeness, and the stalk is cut off, leaving only a small tip.
Fruits with thick pulp are placed in special plastic bags with a membrane for storing vegetables and tied tightly. Due to the carbon dioxide environment, vegetables are stored for a relatively long time, and the membrane will not allow moisture vapor to remain in the bag.
Peppers are stored in basements, cellars, refrigeration chambers in boxes, bags, baskets. It is advisable to wrap each fruit in paper. The optimal temperature for storage is 8-10 C° with a humidity of 80-90%. With this storage, the fruits retain their freshness for up to two months.
Peppers are beautiful vegetable crop. It is not difficult to grow it in open ground, although the weather factor is very important. If you carefully and methodically carry out the necessary actions, you can get a good harvest even in a cold and damp summer. And then we highly recommend viewing interesting video with tips from experts on growing sweet peppers:
