How can you feed peppers during flowering and fruiting?

Sweet peppers are grown in a wide variety of regions across our country. Although they are heat-loving crops, gardeners in Siberia, the Urals, and northwestern Russia, not to mention further south, achieve good yields when grown in greenhouses.

By applying fertilizer, gardeners harvest large, juicy, colorful fruits, as if proving to nature that anything can be grown even in harsh conditions. This is what proper fertilizers are all about.

How to fertilize peppers after planting them in the ground

Plants from the extensive nightshade family, which includes peppers, require special care. Full-fledged fruits will only form and ripen if the plants receive sufficient nutrition, essential micronutrients, and vitamins.

Therefore, when growing crops, attention is paid to the soil's nutritional value, applying all necessary fertilizers in advance. Each gardener uses the options available to them, as some use mineral fertilizers, while others strive to grow crops without chemicals.

There are various schemes for applying fertilizer to the soil before planting peppers:

• approximately 20 grams of potassium salt and 40 grams of superphosphate;
• 30 grams of superphosphate and the same amount of ash.

The components are mixed and added during tillage; the quantities indicated are per square meter of soil. It is also recommended to enrich the beds with cow manure or well-rotted compost in the fall.

When planting peppers, you can add approximately 100-150 grams of humus to the holes. Well-fertilized soil will provide comfort for the plants and prevent them from experiencing nutritional deficiencies during the initial growing season.

Fertilizing is not recommended immediately after planting seedlings in beds or a greenhouse. The optimal time for the first "lunch" is 15-18 days after transplanting. Organic fertilizer can be used during this time, but during the period of mass flowering and fruiting, peppers require potassium and phosphorus.

Signs of nutrient deficiency

Expert recommendations are always general, but gardeners should primarily observe the plants. The appearance of the peppers, the color of the leaves, and the stems can indicate which nutrients the seedlings are lacking.

1. Poor growth, pale and yellow leaves from the main vein to the edges, and leaf drop—all these signs indicate a nitrogen deficiency. This nutrient is vital for plants, but avoiding excess nitrogen should prevent peppers from rapidly growing foliage.
2. Excess nitrogen can prevent peppers from properly absorbing other essential micronutrients, such as calcium. A deficiency can cause gray or yellowish spots to appear on the leaf blades, growth points to die off, and root growth to be poor. Leaves can become awl-shaped and curl, and peppers experience stunted growth.
3. The appearance of bluish spots on the leaves, followed by a color change from green to purple-red, is a sign that the peppers are deficient in phosphorus. The leaves begin to curl, the stems become thinner, and flowering slows. Phosphorus deficiency typically manifests itself mid-season, after the first fruits have been harvested, and the next flowering (pepper fruiting occurs in waves) is significantly delayed.
4. Leaf curling and the appearance of a light-colored border around the edges indicate that the peppers require urgent potassium supplementation. This can occur both during the first flush of flowering and later. The yellow border on the leaves dries up and falls off, and spots appear on the pepper fruit.

5. Peppers often suffer from iron deficiency in clay soils and those with high lime content. This manifests itself as discoloration of the leaf blades, with light spots appearing between the veins. After some time, the veins themselves turn yellow, and the leaves begin to dry out and die.

Having noticed any negative changes in the condition of plants, it is necessary to determine their cause as quickly as possible (most often it is a deficiency or excess of some components) and eliminate it.

Thus, if there's an excess of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers are needed, and if there's an excess of potassium, ammophos is used. However, nutrient deficiencies are more common, and in these cases, plant nutrition must be supplemented:

• in case of nitrogen starvation, give diluted mullein (1:10),
• The lack of phosphorus is replenished by adding superphosphate;
• potassium sulfate will help with the deficiency of this important substance for peppers;
• If there is a lack of iron or zinc, the best option would be to use Kemira Lux or Kemira Combi as a fertilizer (spraying).

It's important to strictly adhere to the fertilizer dosage and follow the instructions. Fertilizer should be applied immediately after watering the plants, followed by careful loosening of the soil (if there's no mulch).

It is advisable to alternate organic and mineral components, and also alternate root feeding and spraying.

When is fertilizing needed?

The fertilization schedule is largely determined by the soil type, its fertility, and the condition of the plants themselves. Peppers planted in small greenhouses can be fertilized less frequently—once every three weeks; for greenhouse plants, the standard schedule is once every 14 days.

There is no need to rush with the first feeding if the peppers are growing well after planting and if the soil was well fertilized with all the nutrients in the fall and spring.

After two weeks, you can feed the peppers with diluted mullein or poultry manure (1:10 and 1:20). The next feeding will most likely be during the fruiting period (in two weeks), and for this, it's best to use superphosphate and potassium sulfate (a tablespoon of the former and a teaspoon of the latter, diluted in a bucket of warm water).

Foliar feeding—spraying the peach tree leaves—provides good results. Options:

• To stimulate the growth of peppers, you will need to dilute a teaspoon of urea (the amount is given per bucket of water);
• to improve flowering and stimulate ovaries, boric acid is used (take a teaspoon per 10-liter container);
• During the fruiting period, it is suitable to spray the bushes with a superphosphate solution (for half a bucket of water you will need a teaspoon of fertilizer).

Wood ash is often used as a component of spraying compositions.

Feeding peppers during fruiting

The first pepper fruits reach technical maturity approximately 90-100 days after germination. However, the timing depends on the variety, with further ripening taking up to 15-20 days.

During this time, peppers require additional feeding, as they are about to bloom again and form ovaries and fruits. Fertilizers used include:

• wood ash (scattered over the soil surface);
• potassium salt and superphosphate (for 10 liters of water you need to take two teaspoons of each component);
• sodium humate solution (1 gram per bucket of water).

A very useful addition is "green" fertilizer, which provides the peppers with all the necessary nutrients. To prepare it, fill a barrel halfway with herbs (nettle, clover, or dandelion are all suitable), add water, seal, and let it steep for up to 10 days. Ash can be added (up to 5-6 liters). Stir the infusion regularly.

After the specified time, the mixture is diluted in water (a liter of infusion per bucket) and the peppers are watered.

Use of folk remedies

Using homemade, chemical-free fertilizers allows gardeners to not only save on expensive fertilizers but also grow environmentally friendly crops.

The difficulty is that mixtures are often prepared by eye, so it's better to use smaller doses than to overdo it. Among the most popular remedies are:

• ash (this component breaks all records, as it is used not only for fertilizing, but also for protecting garden crops from pests and diseases);
• yeast;
• iodine;
• boric acid (compositions using it have already been given above);
• honey;
• banana peels;
• ammonia;
• potassium permanganate.

Gardeners also use coffee grounds, eggshells, fermented milk products, and onion peels.

Ash is used in a variety of ways:

• scattered over the surface of the beds;
• added to the holes when planting pepper seedlings;
• Infuse it in water and water the plants, and also use the solution for foliar spraying.

To water plants, use an aqueous solution of iodine (10 grams per 10 liters of water), an infusion of eggshells, and also potassium permanganate diluted in water.

Recently, many gardeners have begun actively using fertilizers based on regular baker's yeast. They use live yeast, as well as dry yeast powder. All recipes require proper dosage and proper infusion.

1. For a bucket of warm water, take about 100 grams of yeast (“live”), then let the mixture sit for about a day and a half and water the peppers.
2. Pour 5 liters of water into a container, add a small amount—up to 2 grams—of ascorbic acid, sugar (two tablespoons is enough), and a spoonful of dry yeast powder. Mix everything together, let it sit for 24 hours, then dilute with water in a 1:10 ratio and water the flowering peppers.

Banana lovers should know that banana peels contain a large amount of potassium, a nutrient essential for peppers during flowering. Therefore, don't throw away the peels; it's best to dry them, then grind them into a powder and sprinkle it on the peppers when planting.

Experienced gardeners also don't throw away eggshells; they collect them and dig them into the soil in the spring. An infusion of the shells is applied to plants to improve the soil structure and enrich it with nutrients.

Whey diluted in water also helps against infections. Furthermore, this mixture contains a very high amount of beneficial microelements for peppers, making it an excellent fertilizer for plants during the fruiting period.

Reviews

Alena, Izhevsk

My mother, and I after her, always feed our peppers and tomatoes a nettle brew. We make it for a bucket of water, but it's better to use a small container. We chop up the leaves, fill them with water, then sprinkle a little ash. Mix everything together, cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit for a week. The brew then needs to be diluted for watering, about a liter per bucket of clean water. There's no need to make the mixture in advance, as it's too aromatic. This type of feeding always works well.

Alexander, Novosibirsk

I feed my peppers with ash infusion (after flowering), and before flowering, I make a nettle infusion and add EM products to it. I don't use any other fertilizers; the peppers always grow strong and healthy. I sow only early-ripening varieties and begin harvesting in late June (I grow them in a polycarbonate greenhouse).

Nina, Nyandoma

I sow the peppers in mid-February and grow them in two-liter juice boxes. I use two-liter boxes. Then I water the seedlings twice with Kemira (once the true leaves have appeared).

They're growing under hoops in the beds, with lutrasil on top. I haven't seen any diseases or pests (I've been growing them for a long time; previously, we only covered them with plastic wrap). For fertilizer, I use this mixture: I soak crackers in warm water, let it steep, and then water the peppers with this kvass. They love it. I also make fermented nettles and dandelions. I also apply Uniflor to the foliage, which is also effective.