How to grow pepper seedlings?

Sweet bell pepper is a culture that is tasty both fresh and cooked, and in the marinade it knows few competitors at all. Therefore, if it is possible to plant pepper on the site, then rarely anyone refuses this. But first, you have to grow seedlings at home.

Seed sowing

In late February or early March, you can already start seedlings. Truth, the time of disembarkation depends on the region, and the terms on the package are also worth looking at. The seeds themselves need to be bought from reputable stores, and if they are bought by hand, then these should not be random people. High-quality seed is a starting necessity. Next, you need to choose the soil: the right soil will become a home for the seeds, which means that it is dangerous to miscalculate here. Each specific crop requires soil with its own characteristics. So, pepper needs earth loose, with good air permeability, moisture capacity, neutral pH. And, of course, the substrate must be fertile. If it so happened that there is only soil with excess acidity, then dolomite flour or lime should be added to it (15 g per 1 kg of soil mixture).

If you do not want to buy land in a store, you can make a suitable substrate yourself. It is necessary to take garden soil from the place where eggplants, potatoes, the same pepper have not grown for several years. Soil will need 2 parts. And 1 part of peat, 1 part of sawdust (can be replaced with river sand), 1 part of humus and a handful of wood ash are added to it. Then everything cooked should be filtered through a sieve. And 2-3 days before the direct sowing of seeds, the land can be treated with Previkur or its equivalent. You can sow seeds in plastic cassettes (these are such connected cells) or in ordinary plastic cups. A convenient option would be peat tablets, which completely eliminate the need to prepare the soil. They just need to be moistened, and the seedlings will grow well in them.

They have only one minus – the high cost (relative to the same plastic cups).

Consider how to prepare the seeds correctly:

  • disinfect: immerse in a not the weakest solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes, and then rinse with clean water;
  • feed, for example, 1 teaspoon of Nitrophoska mixed with 1 liter of water;
  • germinate in a nutrient solution (“Ideal” or “Gumi”), wrap with a damp cloth, send in polyethylene;
  • harden: first send it to the refrigerator for a couple of days, then to a room where it will not be higher than +20 for a day, and then again to the refrigerator for 2 days.

And only after that the seeds can finally be sown.

Sowing bell pepper seeds step by step is as follows.

  • Lay a layer of drainage about 1 cm thick on the bottom of the container.
  • Fill the container with soil, pour abundantly with clean water (settled), the temperature is room temperature.
  • Make centimeter deepenings in the ground. If sowing is done in a container or box, that is, in a common container, grooves are made in the ground, also a centimeter. And the distance between them is 3 cm.
  • Then you can start planting: one seed per hole, if it is a peat tablet or a glass. If sowing goes to a common container, an interval of 2 cm is observed between the seeds.
  • Seed material should be sprinkled with soil.
  • Then the soil mixture is moistened with water from a spray bottle. The container is covered with a film (you can also use glass) to form a mini-greenhouse. And all this goes to a warm place.

And you can open seedlings only when shoots (sprouts) appear.

Home care

At home, you can create such conditions for pepper that the seedlings will grow strong, healthy, with good survival forecasts on the site. And care is a complex of not the most complex, but requiring a system of actions.

Lighting

In spring or late winter, natural light is certainly lacking. And seedlings need 12 hours of light every day, or even better – 14. And then fitolamps come to the rescue. Yes, you need to spend money, but after all, the purchase is not seasonal, they will last a long time. Most often, you have to highlight peppers growing on the windowsill.

Temperature

It can be slightly higher than room temperature, +25 degrees is best. Shoots rot from low temperatures, and if it is high, they will overheat. The temperature regime is very important, therefore it is necessary to adhere to the optimal values.

How to grow pepper seedlings?

Watering

Moderate watering is also important for peppers. As after sowing, the ground is sprayed with a spray bottle, so the first 3 days continue to do the same. Maintain moderate humidity. Then you will have to water from a watering can or use a syringe, irrigating along the edge of the container. It is necessary to check the condition of the top layer of soil.

Only clean water with room temperature indicators is used for irrigation.

Loosening

If a so-called soil crust forms (and this happens very often), the soil must be loosened. So it will be easier for oxygen to penetrate the soil, get close to the root system. But at the same time loosening should be superficial. You can’t do this very actively, because you can injure the roots.

How to grow pepper seedlings?

Feeding

Usually, it is customary to fertilize pepper with complex compounds. The first time – 2 weeks after picking, then again after 2 weeks and, finally, a week before landing in the ground. Regulators and growth stimulants are used: these are special fertilizers from the store, and something from the series “I found it around the house” (for example, eggshells). Hydrogen peroxide, potassium humate, calcium nitrate, and succinic acid are also used. Not all at once, but something from the list. Also, the earth can be fed with ashes.

Dive

If the seeds were planted in a box, picking is indispensable. And they usually do it by transshipment. This is necessary so as not to disturb the roots once again. Yes, there is an opinion that picking is an extra operation, and without it, peppers will grow quite normally. But the plants will be disturbed, which means they are vulnerable and capricious (such is the opinion of skeptics). But there really is no single one, you need to rely on your intuition and experience. Peppers from a large container are transferred to individual ones when the first 2-3 leaves appear on the shoots. But if this moment is delayed, the threat of interweaving the roots will be high.

Seedlings transferred from a common box to small containers should not be placed deeper than in the previous container. With excessive deepening, the stem may rot, because such a plant will not give additional lateral roots.

How to grow pepper seedlings?

How to care for seedlings in the ground?

Bulgarian pepper can grow in open ground or in a greenhouse. Further care of seedlings will depend on the place of cultivation.

In the open

Peppers should grow in a well-lit area that is protected from drafts. Tall crops will provide additional protection from the wind. You can put a wicker fence, if possible. A month before planting pepper, the soil must be dug up, rotted manure mixed with wood ash should be added to it. 2 weeks before planting pepper, the ground is disinfected with copper sulphate at the rate of 1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water.

It is time to transplant peppers in open ground if the difference between day and night temperatures is about 8 degrees. Seedlings tolerate such a jump normally, but if they are not stronger, there may be problems. Yes, you need to be careful with frostbite. Therefore, it is better to cover the beds: either with a film greenhouse, or something similar. The shelter works at night and lasts at least a week after planting. In principle, the shelter can not be removed until mid-June.

Care features:

  • seedlings should be watered a week after transplantation, and at first watering will be daily, with a norm of 150 ml per plant;
  • you can only water under the root;
  • after each watering, after 5 hours, the earth is loosened so that there is no crust;
  • peppers need to be fed during the flowering period, when fruits are set and ripened, fertilizers should be applied every 2 weeks all summer;
  • from organics, an infusion of wood ash, an infusion of bird droppings, diluted 1 to 10 humus, diluted 1 to 15 liquid manure are used;
  • if peppers are grown with irregular watering, they must be mulched;
  • hay, pine needles, chopped bark, sawdust will do as mulch;
  • the formation of a bush will occur as it grows: you can pinch only at a height of 20 cm so that the side shoots grow;
  • after formation, 15-20 ovaries should remain on each bush;
  • to stimulate maturation at the end of the season in the last weeks of summer, you need to cut off the entire top of the bush;
  • if the variety is tall, the plant must be tied up.

Planting outdoors is always some risk, especially if it is not in the southern region. In the middle lane, for example, much more often peppers are grown in a greenhouse.

In the greenhouse

Do not plant peppers in the same greenhouse where nightshades grew last year. But if there is no other place, then you need to prepare the beds in the greenhouse in the fall. The earth is fertilized and disinfected. Probably the best place for peppers is a polycarbonate greenhouse. There will not be significant temperature changes, and the plant will be as comfortable as possible.

Features of transplanting into a greenhouse and subsequent care:

  • deepening can be done only to the height of the container where the seedlings grew;
  • a handful of peat can be added to each hole;
  • 30 cm or a little less should remain between the bushes, and 80 cm between the beds;
  • the ground around the bushes must be covered with a layer of humus;
  • the first watering is carried out no earlier than 10 days later;
  • the greenhouse is ventilated daily, air humidity is controlled.

Otherwise, caring for pepper in a greenhouse is comparable to the same procedures in the open field.

Diseases and pests

Aphids, Maybug and Colorado potato beetle are the main pests for bell peppers. And insectoacaricides, the same Fitoverm, do a good job with them. Especially dangerous is the aphid, which very quickly increases its colony. It is better to be ready to meet her in advance: spread balls rolled from powdered sugar, boiled yolk and boric acid around the greenhouse (this rarely happens with seedlings at home).

Now consider the most common pepper diseases.

  • If dark spots appear on the leaves, the root neck is rotten, and the fruits are full of watery areas, this is probably late blight. Need processing “Barrier”, “Alirin” or “Barrier”. Bushes affected by the disease will have to be dug up and burned.
  • Brown and brown spots on the leaves are anthracnose. Young plants will wither from the top, then they turn yellow and die. Operational treatment with Antracol is needed (according to the instructions for use).
  • Root rot (black leg) is a disease with a disturbed irrigation system, when the plant and the earth are waterlogged. “Fitosporin” and watering the soil with potassium permanganate will help.
  • If the upper tier of foliage withers, it is probably a matter of fusarium. The plant may also turn yellow, and necrotic spots and pinkish spores will appear in some of its areas. Affected plants will have to be dug up. The bushes “Fundazol”, “Maxim” and their analogues will help.
  • Weeping dark spots appearing on the leaves and olive spots on the fruit are likely to be symptoms of gray rot. Treatment is possible only at the beginning of the disease, and Gamair and Topsin will help here.

These are not all pepper diseases, but quite frequent. Any drug, whether it be “Epin” or “Aktara”, should be diluted only according to the instructions, do not do anything by sight. And in order to prevent diseases, you should use only sterile garden tools, follow the basics of agricultural technology, crop rotation, regularly weed the beds, etc.

Growing problems

There can be many errors, and it is better to know about them in advance:

  • if the seedlings stretched out and became thin, it means that they do not have enough light, the seedlings need to be additionally highlighted;
  • if the seed material has not ascended or rises for a long time, it is necessary to adjust the temperature regime (before germination, +25 is the norm, after emergence – +20);
  • if the bush does not grow well in height, it is possible that the soil was chosen incorrectly, and the temperature is low, and there is little watering, and they hurried with the pick;
  • if the plant wilts and falls, then one of the reasons lies in the violation of the water regime: perhaps the peppers forget to water.

There is no need to be afraid to use growth stimulants, because without them, seedlings may not reach the desired development so that they can be transplanted into the ground. When growing seedlings of peppers, many actions, if not intuitive, simply require logical thinking.

Starting from the fact that you should not pour undisinfected garden soil into a good store soil mixture and ending with the choice of zoned varieties.

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Anna Evans

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