Growing pepper

Pepper contains many useful vitamins and minerals. Almost all gardeners grow it. It is often added to salads and consumed fresh. Many summer residents close canned peppers for the winter, which are eaten with pleasure by both adults and children. Caring for this vegetable crop is not a big deal. Sweet peppers are unpretentious. Therefore, growing pepper on your site does not cause difficulties. However, this event also has its own secrets, which we will talk about further.

Growing pepper: choosing the right variety

growing pepper

Before going to the store, you need to decide on the type of crop. This also applies to the selection of sweet peppers. It's easy to get lost in such a variety of varieties.

Sweet peppers are of several types: cuboid, spherical, curved, etc. If we talk about the weight of the fruit, the peppers are quite large. Some varieties of this vegetable crop weigh up to 200 g.

Peppers are yellow, green, red, orange and brown, etc. Sometimes fruits with different colors are formed on the same plant. These peppers usually look very appetizing.

Gardeners are very fond of choosing the following varieties of peppers: Alyonushka, Buratino, Tenderness, Orange miracle and others. Especially large fruits of these varieties reach 200 g. Therefore, with proper care, you can achieve good results.

Pepper cultivation usually takes place through seedlings, sowing seeds even in winter. Peppers take a very long time to germinate and grow, so you will need to take care of the seedlings in advance. Each variety is interesting and unique in its own way, so you won't go wrong.

It is believed that peppers are unpretentious. Therefore, you can always grow wonderful fruits in your garden. If you want to get an early harvest, then choose the Orange Miracle variety. These peppers grow in a cube shape with a characteristic yellow color.

In the Alyonushka variety, the fruits have a cone-shaped appearance, as well as a characteristic red color. Buratino is also considered an early ripening variety.

There are many other varieties nowadays. Therefore, in a specialized agricultural store, you can always choose what is right for you.

Growing pepper in a greenhouse

growing pepper

Often, peppers are grown in greenhouses, as this vegetable culture is very fond of heat. In order to grow sweet peppers in your greenhouse, it must be made of glass, film or polycarbonate.

In addition, the greenhouse must have the following conditions: air temperature from 23 to 25 degrees, humidity 70-75%, normal illumination and fertile soil.

Remember that peppers love light, so you need to install artificial lighting in your greenhouse if there is a lack of sunlight in your area. Pepper loves fertile soils rich in organic matter.

If we talk about acidity, then peppers prefer neutral soils. It should also be mentioned that this vegetable crop needs light soils that are well structured and drained.

Before planting peppers in the greenhouse, you will need to think beforehand about the garter of the plants. The fact is that peppers, like tomatoes, must be tied up in the future.

Plants must have their own supports. To do this, either pegs are dug in near each plant, or the wire is pulled along the rows. After the wire is stretched, they proceed to the garter of the plants. This must be done in such a way as not to damage the fragile stems of the pepper.

Watering the pepper and mulching

Peppers, like all plants, love water. Therefore, they need to be watered often enough. Young plants usually require up to 1 liter of water. Adults up to 2 liters. Usually, the pepper is watered once every 5 days, but you still need to monitor the soil moisture.

Sometimes the peppers need to be watered more often. Before watering the ground, you should loosen it, it is better to water it either early in the morning or late in the evening. This must be done so that an earth crust does not form on the surface of the earth.

After watering has been carried out and the earth has dried up, the topsoil must also be loosened. This must be done so that in the future air and moisture will come to the roots of the plants.

Peppers have a fairly firm, dense stem, so you may think that the peppers do not really need watering. However, it is not. They need a lot of water to form fruits. So don't forget to water your garden beds.

If we talk about mulching the soil, then this must be done in order to avoid evaporation of moisture, as well as to save the soil from overheating and the multiplication of many pests on it. Mulch helps in weed control.

Straw, sawdust, black film are used as mulching material. However, you will need to ensure that no fumes form under the film. Since excessively moist soil is considered a favorable breeding ground for many microbes and microorganisms that harm plants.

You also need to remember that weeds are still able to break through to the light through a loose mulch. And that means you have to weed them. The propagation of weeds on the site has an adverse effect on the plants. They take nutrients from the earth, as well as precious moisture.

If growing pepper is in a greenhouse, then do not forget to ventilate the room, but do not allow drafts that negatively affect the growth of plants.

Pepper feed

Peppers are fed with organic, mineral and complex fertilizers. Mineral fertilizers are usually applied once or twice a month. Usually superphosphate, ammonium nitrate and potassium chloride are used for this.

All this is diluted in water and introduced into the soil. After the pepper seedlings are planted, the first feeding should be carried out no earlier than 2 weeks later.

Organic fertilizers are usually applied either in spring or in the first half of summer. However, remember that organic matter must necessarily be rotted, since "fresh" organic fertilizers often contain a lot of weed seeds.

Organics are also diluted in water and watered with this composition of the plant.

Growing pepper in the open field

If you want to grow peppers in your garden, then you need to properly prepare the soil first. Choose a location that is well lit, sheltered from the wind, and has a mild climate. In order to protect plants from weeds, you can build artificial fences.

It is best to plant bell peppers where cucumbers, legumes, or cabbage grow. But if earlier on this site grew nightshade, then it is better to plant the pepper in another place. This must be done in order to protect plants from diseases that often spread through the soil.

You need to start preparing a place for planting peppers in the fall. To do this, you will need to carefully dig up the ground, remove weeds and apply fertilizer. For this, organics are most often used. Since it will decompose during the winter, which means that it will bring great benefits to the plants in the spring.

Before winter, it is necessary to dig deep into the soil, but in the spring only to loosen the top layer of soil. It should be said that it is in the spring that it is recommended to apply mineral fertilizers.

Seedlings can be planted in open ground only at the end of spring, when the frost has finally receded.After that, the culture must be thoroughly watered and monitored for its growth and development.

We grow seedlings

They begin to grow seedlings even in winter. Peppers grow and develop very slowly, which is why they need such a long period.

First you need to prepare the seed, for this visually inspect the seeds, remove empty and damaged seeds, and then disinfect them. Gardeners recommend doing this with a solution of one percent manganese diluted in warm water.

Usually they put seeds there and leave for 30 minutes. Then they are washed in water and dried. In order to speed up the germination process, the seeds are often heated. To do this, they are placed in water at the appropriate temperature. The seeds can then be planted.

In order to prepare the soil, you should mix sand, earth and humus in approximately equal parts. If you do not want to mess with the soil, you can buy a ready-made mixture at any specialized agricultural store.

Often the ground is calcined before the seeds are planted. Seedlings are planted in plastic or wooden pots, as well as in peat tablets. Before the first shoots appear, the boxes must be covered and placed in a warm place.

After all the seeds have hatched, the boxes will need to be transferred to the windowsill.

Pepper: growing and care

Peppers, like any vegetable crops, love water, light and warmth. After the first leaves appear on your seedlings, it will need to be watered at least once a week. Moreover, the amount of water spent on irrigation increases over time.

You can also spray the plants periodically. When the seedlings get stronger and the outdoor climatic conditions stabilize, they can be planted in open ground. For peppers, make holes with a shallow depth.

Maintain distance between rows and plants. After that, the land is thoroughly watered, and the seedlings are buried in earth. The top layer will then need to be lightly tamped.

Remember that there should be a distance of at least 2 cm to the first leaves from the ground. At the first stages of the development of peppers, they will need more water, then they will need to be watered less often.

Timely remove weeds from the site, and also loosen the soil so that air and moisture can come to the root system of the peppers. Read our recommendations and grow your peppers the right way.

Growing pepper: photo