Pepper: description, growing from seeds, planting in open ground and care (Photo & Video) + Reviews

Pepper

Capsicum is one of the popular vegetable crops. Despite its thermophilicity, it is grown almost everywhere; where there is not enough heat and light, it is grown in greenhouse or greenhouse methods.

The secret of the popularity of pepper is its excellent taste, a large number of useful substances contained in it and a variety of cooking methods. Like many other cultivated nightshades, it was brought to Europe after the discovery of America.

Since then, planting pepper and caring for it have become mandatory for any self-respecting gardener. The most popular at the present time are varieties of capsicum, referred to as "Bulgarian».

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plant description

Pepper bush in the garden. Hybrid F1 Admiral

A wide variety of varieties of pepper allows you to use it in a wide variety of qualities: from the ingredients of the main dishes to side dishes and pickles, as well as spices.

The appearance and taste of pepper are varied: pepper can be sweet and bitter, large and small; the shape of the fruit also varies significantly.

Variety of fruit colors

Another feature of pepper is its good predisposition to selection work, which can be done even at an amateur level. Moreover, not always gardeners are chasing the mass of the fruit or its taste.

The exterior of the plant also plays an important role. For example, capsicums with black fruits are the result of amateur selection.

black pepper

Capsicum belongs to the Solanaceae family. At home in the wild, it is a perennial shrub, however, its industrial use, regardless of climate, uses pepper as an annual plant.

The reason for this approach is that the maximum yield of the plant gives in the first year of life; in subsequent fruits are obtained with the same number of seeds, but the mass of pulp is several times less.

The growth of a pepper bush rarely exceeds 50-70 cm. Usually, about one and a half to two dozen fruits are removed from the bush per season. Fruit picking begins after 120-150 days from the moment planting seedlings, however, in this case, the harvesting process can be somewhat stretched in time.

For example, harvesting of still unripe peppers begins in July to allow new fruits to set. In fact, the harvest period for peppers can last until early October.

The mass of fruits can reach up to 200 g, the average yield per bush per season is 1-1.5 kg.

There are varieties that have record yields.

Buratino variety with fruits of varying degrees of ripeness

Pepper fruits contain a relatively high amount of sugar (up to 10%), vitamins A, B, C and P. The burning taste of pepper is due to the presence of capsaicin in it; if its concentration is more than 0.03%, capsicum becomes bitter.

However, due to the presence of this substance, pepper is recommended to be eaten for the prevention of cancer.: capsaicin acting on mitochondria, causes the death of malignant tumor cells.

Conditions for growing mature plants and its seedlings, in general, repeat similar activities for tomatoeshowever, peppers need a little more heat and light.

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Site preparation

If the climate of your region allows, you can grow peppers outdoors.

There should be three main requirements for the site:

An ideal option that meets these requirements is a site located near the south side of a house, barn or other building. If there is no protection as such, you can create some kind of hedges from trellises, improvised fences, or use it as protection. hedge - for example, to spend around the area with pepper planting corn.

Pepper is demanding of its predecessors. The best predecessors for it will be legumes (peas, beans, bean) or cruciferous (various types of cabbage). Precursors in the form of root crops are not excluded (beet, carrot, turnip) or pumpkin (cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins).

Moreover, it is believed that nightshade can be planted in the place of their counterparts no earlier than three years later.. This is due to the fact that, firstly, they have common diseases and the pathogens of some of them are able to live long enough in the soil in anticipation of the victim.

And, secondly, the solanaceous deplete the soil quite strongly and after their cultivation, (sometimes more than one) stage of crop rotation must go through.

Young plants on garden bed

The soil for pepper should be sufficiently fertile, loose, but at the same time, good drainage is required, and its high moisture capacity.

Site preparation begins in the autumn of the last season. It is necessary to completely remove all remnants of the predecessor crop and carefully dig the soil.

At this stage, it is mandatory to apply a mixture of mineral and organic fertilizers with the following norms per square meter:

In addition, an excessive concentration of active substances in such manure can even cause burns to the pepper root system. Fresh manure is best applied under the pepper precursor in the fall before growing it..

Again, the predecessor must be chosen for whom fresh manure will be useful; For example, cabbage or carrot. After fertilization, the area should be dug up well, water it is not needed.

Digging up a plot for pepper

In spring, the soil must be well loosened and applied at 30-50 g per square meter. m of phosphorus-potassium fertilizers and 15-30 nitrogenous. The soil a few days before planting seedlings in the ground should be dug up to a depth of 1 bayonet, its large clods must be crushed, and the site itself carefully leveled.

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Growing seedlings

General issues

This is one of the most critical stages of growing, and it has a lot of features.. If miscalculations are made in watering, if young plants are exposed to temperature changes during the day, if their roots are badly damaged during transplantation, a good harvest may not work.

Of all nightshades, it is pepper seedlings that are the most capricious and make the most serious demands on the gardener. Even potato seedlings, although it has a long growing time, is not as picky as pepper.

Seeds at the germination stage

At growing seedlings special attention should be paid to two important aspects. First, you should not let the stem become woody, because then its growth in thickness will slow down, and the plant will begin to stretch, as it would do if it did not have enough light..

This is very bad, because plants with thin stems will not be able to produce large yields. And the point here is not the ability of the stem to support the weight of the fruit - due to its small thickness, not only the fruits, but also, possibly, the leaves, will not have enough nutrition.

The second aspect is the increased vulnerability of pepper seedlings to diseases such as root rot.. Therefore, when picking a plant, which is carried out when two true leaves appear, it is not allowed to deepen it to the level of the cotyledon, as is done for almost all crops grown using seedlings.

As a result of such a procedure, a young plant can get sick, its growth rate will slow down, and it is highly likely that it will either not pass the rejection or die from a fungal infection.

This technique is also supported by the fact that of all nightshade peppers, the most vulnerable to root hair injuries during any of its transplants. Their regeneration takes a relatively long time and during this time the plants do not grow at all.

Therefore, the question - to make a pick or not, is purely individual.

Sprouting seeds on a sponge

When grown outdoors under relatively short summer conditions, seedlings should be sown early and kept under “home” or greenhouse conditions for the entire time they are kept in more or less constant conditions so as not to be stressed in any way.

Of the 120-150 days of pepper life before the first fruiting, seedlings account for 60 to 80 days, that is, half of his life.

Soil for seedlings

It is advisable to prepare the soil in advance. Taking into account the time of ripening of the first fruits of pepper, the optimal time for its planting will be the end of February - the beginning of March.

Thanks to this schedule, planting seedlings in the ground will take place in early or mid-May, and it will be possible to start harvesting as early as July.

You can use any purchased soil for seedlings, however, for pepper it needs to be slightly modified: add well-washed sifted sand in the proportion of 1 part of sand to 5-6 parts of soil.

Soil for pepper seedlings

However, it is best to prepare the soil mixture for pepper seedlings yourself.

For this you will need:

After mixing, the mixture must be subjected to heat treatment (for example, in a double boiler or oven). This will help get rid of weeds and fungal spores. After that, for 2-3 weeks, the mixture should be “aged” under gauze in a dry and warm place to restore the microflora.

Thus, if the planting of seedlings is scheduled for the end of February, then already in its first days it is necessary to make and thermally treat the soil, and put it on the restoration of the flora.

Seed preparation

Seeds must be inspected and pre-screened. All deformed, damaged, too dry and "frail" should be removed.After that, preventive treatment of seeds from infection with a fungus is carried out.

They must be soaked in a solution of some fungicide, such as phytosporin.

pepper seeds

In order to prevent the seeds from floating up, you can either immerse them in a fungicide in some kind of fabric bag, or use two rags soaked in it, between which the seeds are located.

The duration of such a procedure should not be more than half an hour. After that, the seeds are washed with clean water and disinfected in a solution of 0.1% potassium permanganate.

Next, the seeds are dried for an hour, and for the next 10-12 hours they are immersed in a solution of epin (the concentration of epin should not be too high, 2 drops per 100 ml are enough). This will help stimulate seed germination.

After treatment with epin, it is necessary to proceed directly to germination. The seeds are laid out between two rags or pieces of gauze soaked in warm water and the resulting structure is placed in a warm place.

Moreover, the following condition must be observed: temperature decrease below +25°C is not allowed; this is critical for pepper seeds.

seed germination

Seed spitting occurs after about one or two weeks. It is necessary to air the seeds daily, water them and inspect for the appearance of sprouts.

Planting seeds in the ground

After the seeds have germinated, they are planted in the ground in a shallow box or in individual small pots. Planting in boxes is done in 2 cm increments between plants and rows. Planting pepper more densely is not worth it, as it will stretch and interfere with the growth of neighbors.

The landing itself is as follows: about 3-4 cm of soil is brought in, leveled. On this surface, with the help of tweezers with a step of 2 by 2 cm, hatched seeds are laid out, after which they are all evenly sprinkled with a layer of soil from 1 to 1.5 cm.

Planting seeds

The soil is slightly compacted and careful watering is carried out with a sprayer. In this case, the entire area should be moderately moist, but the seeds should also not be washed out of the soil. After that, the box is covered with a film to provide it with "greenhouse" conditions.

The resulting structure is sent to the same place where the seeds hatched - with a temperature of at least + 25 ° C.

It usually takes about a week for seeds to germinate.. As soon as shoots appear, the conditions under which seedlings are kept should be changed. It should be a warm place with an air temperature in the region of + 15-17 ° C.

Seedlings should be watered regularly, but moderately, to ensure that water does not accumulate. In addition, for uniform growth of young peppers, it is necessary to regularly turn the seedlings in different directions to the light.

picking

If you still decide to dive pepper, you need to do this while the plant has two true leaves; this time comes about a month after germination.

It is important to bury the plant to a depth of no more than 5 mm.

Seedlings ready to pick

In some cases, an even more extreme at first glance method of picking is recommended: it is produced at the cotyledon stage.

In principle, it may even be better this way, since at this age the seedlings tolerate picking much more easily and they can be immersed in the ground to the very cotyledon leaves.

Pepper pick

However, this method is applicable only for professional cultivation, where it is possible to quickly and efficiently provide the necessary temperature reduction at this stage of seedling development.

After all, it is precisely this method of agricultural technology that makes it possible to form a short and dense subcotyledonous knee. At home, this will not work and the seedlings will still be somewhat elongated, so it is better to use the first method.

A pick with a clod of earth. Another alternative way

Immediately before picking, you need to abundantly moisten the soil with water and wait until all the water has drained into the pan. It is necessary to transplant pepper into pots with a volume of about 150 ml, a larger volume is not needed, since the growth rate of pepper seedlings is low.

When picking, it is advisable to take the plant by the leaves, and not by the stem, since it is more fragile.

The volume of the hole in the pot should be sufficient so that the spine fits completely in it, without bends and fractures.. After the required volume of soil is filled up, it is lightly compacted.

Seedling after picking

After picking, the seedlings are placed on the windowsill, and for the first week it should not fall under direct sunlight.. It is advisable to shade it with something, or use some kind of diffuser.

The temperature should be in the same range + 15-17 ° C. It is not advisable to lower it below, because already at + 13 ° C the pepper stops growing, and higher temperatures lead to yellowing of the leaves.

Seedling feeding

It is necessary to feed seedlings of pepper twice. The first fertilizer is applied approximately 10-15 days after the dive, the second - 15 days after the first. As top dressing, you can use liquid fertilizers for seedlings, for example, Krepysh or Mortar.

Sometimes it is recommended to carry out another top dressing - a month before the expected date of disembarkation. Let's dwell on it in more detail. Around this time, pepper seedlings should be transplanted into large pots, with a volume of about 1 liter.

Pepper normally tolerates this procedure, since transplantation is carried out by transshipment and the root system is practically not damaged.

A plant in a large pot a month before planting in open ground

At the same time, in the process of preparing the soil mixture for already adult seedlings according to the recipe given earlier, additional components are added to it.

They include:

All this is applied to 10 kg of soil mixture. Further care for peppers involves continued watering and turning the pots relative to lighting for their uniform growth.

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Landing in open ground

As soon as the average daily temperature is equal to the temperature of growing seedlings, it can be safely transplanted into open ground. Usually, this happens in the last days of May.

The hardening procedure for pepper is usually not performed, but if there is such a desire, you can do it according to the following scheme:

Before planting in the ground, the seedlings are watered abundantly so that the plants do not look wilted. Wilting can lead to poor adaptation of the plant in the early days, which can lead to a poor harvest. If the day is hot, it is better to plant seedlings in the late afternoon; in cloudy weather, the time of planting does not play a role.

In the garden, holes are made with a depth of about 10 cm in increments of 50-60 cm in a row and 30-40 between rows. Each hole is watered with water before planting, approximate amount: 1.5-2 liters. It is better to use warm water (for example, heated in the sun).

Planting a plant in the garden

Seedlings are placed in the hole entirely with a lump, so as not to damage the roots of the plant. At the same time, it is necessary to deepen the plant by 1-2 cm more than in a pot, adding additional earth on top of the coma. This will help the pepper develop additional roots, providing the plant with more nutrition.

Usually, some plants (up to 10 pieces) are left as a reserve to replace those that cannot adapt or die. If all the plants take root, the reserve is planted in different parts of the garden in sunny areas.

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Garden plant care

Watering

Watering pepper should be done at intervals of 2-3 days. Watering is done with a watering can without a sprayer, exclusively under the root of the plant; water consumption rate: 2 liters per bush. If the weather is dry and sunny, watering is done daily with the same volume of applied liquid.

On the other hand, watering even in hot weather should not be too plentiful. The following criterion is commonly used to assess the need for watering: if the plant has darkened completely, then it needs watering.

Withering of plants is also unacceptable, this leads to the loss of buds and, in fact, a significant reduction in crop volumes.

Beginning of fruit ripening

We can say that watering pepper is an activity that requires constant monitoring of the state of the plant. It is necessary to constantly evaluate the appearance of the plant, the condition of the topsoil, the weather forecast for the coming days, the degree of looseness of the soil, and so on.

Soil loosening

Pepper needs loose soil, in addition, the appearance of a crust on its upper layer is unacceptable. The latter can lead to difficulty in getting air to the roots, and this is a serious problem for the plant.

Loosening contributes to good soil air conductivity, the roots receive good nutrition and provide the plant in full with all the necessary substances.

In addition, air-rich soil provides additional stimulation for the development of beneficial microflora, which in turn increases its fertility. The role of loosening in the fight against weeds is also important.

Garden soil cultivator

In the first 10 days after planting in the open ground, the pepper has a relatively slow growth, since they are strengthening the root system. In order to avoid injury or temperature effects, it is recommended not to loosen the soil until the end of this period and not to produce excessively abundant watering.

After this time is over, the first loosening of the soil is carried out. Its depth should not be too great - usually 5-10 cm is enough, since the root system of the pepper is located relatively close to the surface.

If the soil is too “heavy”, the first loosening may be deeper: its task is not only to destroy the crust of the upper layer of the soil, but also to contribute to its heating and enrichment with oxygen.

Loosened earth around the plant

The following loosening of the soil is carried out after the introduction of moisture - whether it is rain or watering. The main thing is to do them between the moment the soil dries out and the crust forms. If this was not possible, that is, the moment was lost and a crust formed on the soil - it is necessary to loosen only after the next watering.

Usually, loosening is done more often for early-ripening varieties than for mid-ripening or late ones. Early ripening varieties need up to 4 loosenings. Everyone else - 2-3. In addition, it is necessary to make constant loosening of row spacings.

This procedure must be done very carefully to avoid brittle stems and accidental damage to the roots. The depth of loosening between rows should not exceed the depth when loosening the bushes.

top dressing

During active growth, peppers need to be fed several times.

The first top dressing is always combined with the first loosening of the soil and is carried out two weeks after planting in open ground. The best composition for the first top dressing is a mixture of organic and mineral fertilizers (for example, bird droppings with phosphorus-potassium), to which wood ash is added.

Bird droppings are diluted at a concentration of 1 to 10, after which about 50 g of phosphorus-potassium fertilizers and a glass of wood ash are added to it.

In this case, the composition of the feed mixture will be as follows:

This volume of the mixture is enough to feed 10 plants. The second, third and subsequent top dressings are made 2 weeks after the previous ones.

When the fruit is formed, the plant's need for nutrients increases sharply., therefore, from the third top dressing (well, or from the one that falls on flowering), it is very desirable to apply organic fertilizers. In addition, with the onset of fruiting by about a third, it is recommended to increase the dose of ammonium nitrate.

As organic fertilizers during flowering, you can use the same bird droppings (concentration 1 to 10-15), slurry (concentration 1 to 4-5) or mullein (concentration 1 to 10).

In addition, with the onset of flowering, it is necessary to minimize or completely abandon the use of fertilizers containing chlorine. In this regard, it is recommended to replace the potassium chloride from the earlier recipe with 50-60 g of wood ash.

Harvesting

In addition, it is recommended to make the last dressing (actually the fourth or already the fifth) at the end of summer.when the fruiting of the plant is still ongoing, however, the fruits become significantly smaller in size.

This is a clear sign that the plant is lacking in nutrients. In this case, it is not recommended to apply ammonium nitrate at all, so that instead of fruit growth, increased growth of the green part of the plant does not begin.

Pepper cultivation from A to Z

Pepper: description, growing from seeds, planting in open ground and care (Photo & Video) + Reviews