For each person, it is obvious that it is not always possible, even with the maximum effort expended, to get a decent harvest. It is not a matter of the quantity and total weight of the fruit, although this is also an extremely important indicator. But you can collect a mountain of vegetables, the taste of which will not be up to par. Why does it depend? There are no trifles in growing vegetables, everything is important here: the timing of planting seedlings in the soil or greenhouse, an irrigation schedule, and proper pinching. But nothing affects the taste of the fruit like fertilizer. Therefore, in this article we will talk about how to feed tomatoes in a greenhouse and in the open ground.
The feeding pattern of tomatoes in greenhouse conditions and in open ground conditions is almost the same, the only difference is that there is no one-time fertilizer application immediately after transplanting.
general information
Some inexperienced gardeners ask themselves the question: "Why think out how to feed tomatoes for growth?" A certain part of people has a clearly formed opinion: fertilizer is bad. There are reasons for such a statement: if there are a lot of fertilizers, they not only badly affect the plants, but also are deposited in the fruits, making them tasteless, inedible or unsafe for human health. Therefore, it is extremely important to adhere to the recommended concentration.
However, you still have to think about how to feed the tomatoes. Indeed, in order for one centner of tomatoes to form, the plant must process about 0.25 kg of nitrogen, 0.15 kg of phosphorus and up to half a kilogram of potassium.
Non-root top dressing
When the question arises of how to feed tomatoes, most people choose only root dressings. However, there is a way to add all the beneficial substances, bypassing the root system. By analogy with humans, it looks like this: drugs introduced through the stomach (into the soil) act more slowly than those that enter the body through the blood (absorbed from the surface of the leaves).
Foliar top dressing is carried out with special preparations, for example, “Master” or “Plantafol”; the usual mineral or organic mixtures are not suitable for this. Such top dressing is very convenient to combine with spraying from various pests and diseases.
How to feed tomatoes: a classic fertilizer application
The fertilizer application schedule is compiled individually for each specific case, however you must follow a few general rules:
- tomatoes fertilize 4-5 times per season;
- timely watering is very important: useful substances should not lie dead weight in dry land, but should come to plants with water;
- the abundance of moisture leads to leaching of fertilizers, therefore, in rainy summers or on poor soils, the amount of fertilizing is doubled, but the amount of introduced substances decreases by about a third;
- root dressing can be carried out either with special mineral mixtures, or independently made from potassium permanganate, eggshell crumbs, wood ash, humus, chicken droppings , etc.
So, you have received full information on how to feed tomatoes. It remains only to put this knowledge into practice and grow a rich, tasty and healthy crop.