Vegetables are grown in all corners of the planet, as these products contain a large amount of vitamins and other beneficial substances. To get a plentiful harvest, you need to properly care for the plants and make fertilizing and fertilizing the soil on time. It is very important to choose the appropriate composition, as well as correctly determine the timing of feeding.
Why feed?
Soils are different. If nutrients are contained in them in sufficient quantities, then crops can grow without additional fertilizing. However, as the experience of summer residents shows, this is very, very rare. You need to regularly feed to make up for the lack of micro and macro elements. To do this, you can use universal fertilizers for vegetables, created on the basis of organic substances, or minerals.
Timely dressing has a beneficial effect on plants. They increase seed germination, contribute to faster growth of the root system. With their help, immunity increases in vegetables, they become resistant to transplants, less susceptible to various diseases.
Kinds
Fertilizers for vegetables (reviews of them will be presented in this article) come in several forms:
- Organic fertilizing can accelerate crop growth. They are rich in various minerals, but at the same time they are not dangerous for parts of plants, for example, when they fall on leaves. This group includes fertilizers such as manure, household waste, bird droppings and compost.
- Mineral compounds also bring great benefits, but can also cause harm. The fact is that their overabundance contributes to the development of dangerous diseases. If it gets on some parts of plants, mineral fertilizing can destroy them.
Organic fertilizer
Many summer residents, choosing which fertilizer to use for vegetables, prefer organic top dressing. They have a beneficial effect on the condition of crops and help accelerate their growth.
- Compost suitable for all types of soil saturates plants with nutrients.
- Slurry is also an effective remedy, which contains a large amount of potassium and nitrogen. Feeding is very quickly absorbed by the roots. The best fertilizers for vegetables are dung.
- Bird droppings are a rich source of nitrogen. It must be insisted before applying to the soil and diluted with water.
- Egg shells are used as a lime supplement. It is used on acidic soils. The crushed shell is added to the soil. For 1 m 2 accounts for 500 g of fertilizer.
- Infusions of plants are the source of all micro and macro elements necessary for growing vegetables. The solutions saturate the soil, and they can also spray the foliage. In any case, infusions are quickly absorbed by cultures.
Mineral fertilizers for vegetables
Fertilizers belonging to this group can cause burns to foliage, therefore they must be applied very carefully. Experienced summer residents are advised to alternate such feeding with organic. By composition, mineral fertilizers are divided into nitrogen, phosphorus, potash and complex.
- Nitrogen fertilizers have a positive effect on the growth of vegetables, but an excess of the substance causes them harm. Immunity is reduced, as a result of which plants become more prone to the appearance of various diseases. Most often this occurs after the introduction of sodium and ammonium nitrate. To determine that vegetables suffer from nitrogen deficiency, you need to inspect the plants. If you find leaves with red veins, the stems become fibrous, and the buds turn yellow, then fertilizer must be applied. Summer residents respond positively to nitrogen fertilizers, because after their application, plants begin to develop faster.
- Phosphorus is most often used in the northern regions, as it increases the cold resistance of plants. Superphosphates are introduced into the soil before transplanting into the soil. With a deficiency of matter, the leaves turn purple.
- With the participation of potassium, metabolic processes take place. This element has a beneficial effect on crop quality. With a lack of potassium, the growth of vegetables slows down, the leaves turn gray in the middle and yellow at the edges. According to reviews, after applying potash fertilizers, the crop becomes more abundant.
There are complex fertilizers that are sprayed on the leaves. This procedure is carried out in the early morning and in cloudy weather. Top dressing should not be carried out with dry fertilizers, as the result is the formation of small roots and the growth of the ground part of vegetables is inhibited.
Manure
This organic fertilizer is absolutely safe for plants. There is no need to pre-treat the composition. You can use manure when growing crops in open ground and in greenhouses.
This fertilizer for vegetables contains nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Minerals are easily absorbed by plants. Manure helps maintain heat. It remains in the soil for 4-5 years after application to the soil. You can use horse, cow and pig manure, as well as bird droppings.
However, this fertilizer for vegetables is not customary to apply for beets and carrots, radishes and radishes, parsley and turnips. According to reviews, manure positively affects the growth rate of crops. Experienced gardeners use it on light soils. Most often, cabbage is grown with its help.
Compost
This organic fertilizer for vegetables is applied to the soil when planting seedlings, as well as during fruiting and at the end of the harvest. Compost improves crop growth. Gardeners advise composting as follows: the necessary components are placed in a container, put it on a sunny area and mix the contents thoroughly. Compost can be of several types:
- Dung-earth, for the preparation of which peat is not required.
- Peat moss, consisting of peat and manure mixed in equal proportions.
- Fertilizer from slurry and sawdust, which should be insisted for a month.
Gardeners advise: it is not necessary to purchase compost in stores, you can cook it at home. To do this, mix leftover food, egg shells and the skin of vegetables and fruits. The resulting "gruel" is insisted for several months. Do not add rotting products, such as meat and fish, to compost. According to reviews, the use of compost can significantly accelerate the growth of vegetables.
Liquid infusions
Liquid fertilizers for vegetables are most convenient to use, as they are intended for watering plants. The convenience of their use was repeatedly noted by gardeners. To prepare them, you need to dilute the manure, litter with water. The infusion should spend in the sun from 2 weeks to a month. This will increase the nutritional value of substances that summer residents note in their reviews.
There are other liquid fertilizers for vegetables. They are prepared from nettles or herbs. The plant is poured with water, placed in a container, sealed with a film of it and put in a warm place. The concentrate must be infused for a crescent, it must be stirred periodically. After this period, the solution is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:20. Now it is ready to use.
Siderata
This term refers to such plants that are planted in gardens, and after a while they dig and mix with soil. The process of decay begins, as a result of which the crops are well fed. Siderata is usually attributed to one of three groups:
- Independent. They are planted in separate beds.
- Sealed. These crops grow in the same place as vegetables.
- Backstage. Plants are placed between rows and beds.
Siderata can be planted in open ground not only in the summer, but also in the spring and autumn season. As such crops, annual cereals and legumes are widely used. They sprout quite quickly and build up a lot of greenery. Perennials are not suitable for these purposes.
Fertilization dates
Fertilizing vegetables with fertilizers must be done in a timely manner. In the spring, it is customary to introduce into the soil those substances that help prepare the soil for planting crops. This procedure should be carried out for both annual and perennial plants. As for organic fertilizers, they need to be used directly during seedling planting. Manure and compost are absorbed immediately; their excess will not harm crops. But the dosage of mineral fertilizers must first be calculated. At 10 m 2 should be 200 g of potassium, 50 g more phosphates and about 300-350 g of nitrogen compounds.
In the spring you need to prepare seedlings. It is planted in soil into which organic fertilizers were previously added. After the appearance of several leaves on plants, it is necessary to introduce a complex mineral fertilizer for vegetables into the soil. Urea can be used. In 2-3 grams of this substance contains enough nitrogen to grow vegetables quickly.
In summer
In the warm season, crops are in great need of dressing, since it is in the summer months that the fruiting period of many vegetables falls. Nitrogen fertilizers are applied only at the beginning of June. If you cultivate late-ripening varieties, then you need to stop feeding 2 weeks before harvesting. In the second half of summer, potash and phosphorus fertilizers and organic mixtures should be added. In summer, you can spray with solutions with the addition of useful substances, but this must be done in cloudy weather, otherwise the plants will get burns.
Fall
Fertilizer for vegetables is also necessary for crops in the autumn season. During this period, there is an active accumulation of nutrients that will be used next year. Therefore, in the autumn, the soil is dug up, having previously scattered powder or granules on its surface. They will completely dissolve before the beginning of spring. To understand what composition is suitable for autumn top dressing, you need to look at the packaging: if there is little nitrogen in the fertilizer (0.5-1%), then the product can be safely used.
The choice of top dressing depending on the stage of culture growth
You need to know exactly what fertilizers to feed vegetables in a certain period. When planting, all nutrients are added to the well. In order for the plants to quickly adapt to the soil, you can use horse manure, bone meal, stale straw and last year's leaves. When planting, it is better to give preference to organic fertilizers, since mineral fertilizers can cause rhizome burns.
When fruiting, you need to use such fertilizers for vegetables that contain phosphorus and potassium. Summer residents are advised to prepare the following solution: 1 kg of ash is diluted with 7 liters of boiling water, then add about 10 liters of water, a small jar of iodine, and also boric acid in an amount of 10 g. 1 liter of the resulting solution is poured under each bush. There is another good recipe. 20 drops of iodine are mixed with 1 liter of whey, all this is diluted in 20 liters of water. The resulting product is sprayed with green mass. You can dissolve the yeast in the nettle infusion and add the liquid mixture to the soil.
Dosage
Mineral fertilizers are necessary for vegetables at all stages of their growth. They are introduced into the ground in turn, at least 10 days pass between the procedures. Often, summer residents are faced with the following problem: they cannot correctly calculate the required dose. This helps the matchbox, whose capacity is 20 cm 3 . The box will fit:
- 10 to 12 g of lime and wood ash.
- About 15-17 g of urea, ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate.
- 18-20 g of kalimagnesia, potassium chloride or calcium nitrate.
- From 22 to 24 g of granular or powdery superphosphate and sodium nitrate.
- About 25 g of potassium nitrate.
- 34 g of phosphate rock.
Based on these data, you can measure the amount of substance used. To correctly determine the dose, you need to multiply the amount of the substance (for example, 7 g of ammonium nitrate) by 100 and divide by the percentage of active substance. In ammonium nitrate, this is nitrogen, the percentage of its content is 34. We find that per 100 g of finished fertilizer accounts for 34 g of pure nitrogen. After performing the simplest mathematical operations (7 x 100/34 = 20.58), it is possible to fertilize at the rate of 20.58 g of ammonium nitrate per 1 m 2 . You will need a little more substance than fits in a matchbox.