What to put in the hole when planting cucumbers?
Cucumbers are very tasty, fragrant and useful for the human body vegetable culture.This vegetable is often added to salads and canned in order to enjoy it in the winter. Culture is quite capricious, requires regular care. To obtain a bountiful harvest from the gardener requires a lot of strength and patience. However, there are several rules of planting, compliance with which will greatly facilitate the cultivation of this vegetable. This is especially true of fertilizers.
Why do this?
For a short period of growing season, cucumbers need to achieve the formation of a powerful sheet apparatus and a large number of vegetables. This culture develops more actively when grown on fertile soil. For sod-podzolic soil, it is recommended to plant cucumbers only in the third year, after organic fertilizer has been abundantly applied to the soil.
Planting cucumbers into fresh manure just added to the soil is also not recommended, as strong vegetation will damage the germination of fruits. However, you can pour five to ten kilograms of fresh manure per square meter in the autumn digging the ground. The release of carbon dioxide in the process of decomposition of fresh manure has a positive effect on soil fertility.
Due to the fact that this vegetable crop does not like a glut of minerals, it is necessary to handle fertilizers with extreme care. As a rule, the first top dressing is carried out in the fall. This allows you to prepare the soil, saturating it with the main complex of useful and nutrients. The main feeding is carried out when planting plants in open ground. This is necessary so that the seedlings quickly adapt to the new earth. Therefore, fertilizer wells is an important step in the cultivation of such a capricious crop as cucumbers.
Also worth noting is the usefulness of root fertilizer for cucumbers. If warm weather is observed in your region during the summer period, the root system of cucumber bushes will develop rapidly and intensively. And the added top dressing in the hole when planting seedlings will contribute to the formation of juicy and ripe cucumbers of the correct form.
What fertilizer to make?
Fertilization in the soil before planting cucumbers - a prerequisite. This is the only way to grow healthy and healthy vegetables. It is necessary to treat this process carefully, engaging in the preparation of the soil for further planting. Gardeners and gardeners disagree about which method of soil preparation is most effective. In this case, you need to focus on your own experience and periodically experiment, noting positive results.
Most experienced gardeners agree that it is desirable to engage in soil fertilization in the autumn.
Mineral supplements, which are used to saturate the soil with useful microelements, give a positive effect only on the condition of abundant moisture and after several months.
For intensive growth and development of cucumbers need regular food with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It should be noted that the latter is not contained in organic dressings, for example, in manure or litter. Therefore, vegetable crops need the following fertilizers:
- saltpeter;
- sulfur feed;
- chlorine top dressing;
- molybdate fertilizer.
In addition to potassium, onion peel is a popular feed of cucumbers. Both elements are introduced directly into the well just before planting. For each of these dressings characterized by some features of the application. Consider them in more detail.
Onion Husk
Before the cucumber seedlings are on the garden, it is recommended to prepare the holes. One of the successful solutions is the use of onion peel. As a rule, they store it from the beginning of winter, pre-drying it and putting it in a box.After that, the stocks of onion peels are laid out in each hole, intended for cucumber bushes, adding a small amount of humus. The resulting mass is stirred. Only after this procedure, you can start planting cucumber seedlings. In this case, the plants need to be planted together with the land that was in the cups with seedlings.
The popularity of onion peel is largely due to its repeated use. In addition to the direct addition to the garden bed, an excellent decoction can be made from the husk. The resulting liquid is replaced by water during watering the plant. After receiving the broth, the onion peel is not discarded, but dried and, as necessary, added to the wells to the cucumbers. Onion dressing is often called fertility biostimulator. It is also a good antiseptic that helps in the fight against harmful bacteria and microorganisms.
Many gardeners say that the husk can be used as compost, as it repels some insect species that can kill the plant. Placing the husk next to the vegetable crop, you thereby create protection from pests that cannot stand the specific smell of onions.
When deciding to use onion peel without compost, it is recommended to pre-soak it for two hours. Only after that it can "fill" the beds.
The composition of onion peel contains a whole set of nutrients that are useful for vegetable crops (vitamin C, E, PP, B, A). You can also note the presence of a large amount of phytoncide, which gives the onions bactericidal properties, quercetin, which is a strong antioxidant, and useful organic acids (potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese and iron). If you notice any insect, savoring the leaves of the cucumber bush, it is likely that spraying a warm broth from onion peel will help get rid of the pest.
For the preparation of onion broth you need two glasses of onion peel and water. In a deep container, pour the onion peel, then pour it with the necessary amount of water so that the container is completely filled. Turn on the hob burner, setting the average power. Wait for the moment when the broth begins to boil. Remove the container from the stove, leaving the contents infused for two to three hours. After the decoction has cooled, they can process the plants. Pour fertilizer on the leaves and directly on the root system. The remaining decoction can be used for compost.
Potassium
To determine that cucumbers need mineral dressing is quite simple. For plants with a deficiency of minerals, darkening and folding of the leaves is characteristic, as well as slight “burns” at the edges. The presence of these signs is a signal for immediate feeding of cucumbers.
The presence of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium is extremely important for the successful growth and development of cucumbers. However, as mentioned earlier, potassium is not found in bird droppings or in manure. This element can be obtained from sulfurous and nitrate chloride, potassium molybdate. When using these fertilizers, the soil is saturated with other elements that are in their composition. It should be noted that potassium chloride should be placed in the ground only in the autumn. This will allow precipitation to wash away the chlorine in the composition, leaving the potassium necessary for cucumbers.
Cucumbers equally do not tolerate both deficiency and excess of potassium. In the latter case, the leaves of vegetable culture are randomly colored in a yellowish-greenish tint. This indicates a reduction in magnesium. The appearance on the leaves of the light green edge indicates that cucumbers badly need potassium fertilizer.
If the gardener ignores the signs and does not feed, the leaves turn bright yellow, starting to bend inward. Lack of potassium slightly affects the growth of vegetable culture.However, the number of fruits and their quality is significantly reduced. When the lower leaves die off, the ailment is transmitted to the upper ones. Hot weather can speed up this process. As a result, the plant may die.
Being a precocious type of vegetable culture, cucumbers bloom and bear fruit much more intensely than others. If you wish, you can grow them all year round. However, it will require regular and careful monitoring of the necessary complex of trace elements lacking the plant.
Do not rush to fertilize each cucumber bush. It is recommended to start to feed two or three plants. After two days, note the changes. Properly applied fertilizer activates the growth of cucumbers.
Preparing a potash supplement consists of mixing several ingredients. It:
- 10 liters of clean water (it is recommended to use rain water if available);
- 200 grams of manure or bird droppings;
- one teaspoon of superphosphate;
- one teaspoon of potassium.
The resulting solution is poured into a garden watering can and plentifully watered each hole prepared in advance for the cucumber bush. Adding this element to the soil effectively at high levels of humidity. Therefore, it is desirable to do this before planting seedlings in the wells. When the soil is not prepared for planting, it is recommended to fertilize it in the summer period from three to five times.
Tips
To date, there are a large number of recommendations for growing solanaceous culture. Consider the most useful and having a positive result in practice.
- The optimal conditions for planting cucumbers in open ground is air temperature from twenty-five to thirty degrees above zero. Indicators of relative humidity must be at least seventy to eighty percent. If you ignore these indicators, seedlings planted in open ground may not settle down and soon die.
- Do not forget that the nightshade vegetable crops, including cucumbers, love heat. Therefore, watering is carried out exclusively by water heated to the sun. By the way, in the preparation of fertilizers, the recipe of which requires the addition of water, it is also desirable to use warm water. Watering of plants on open ground is carried out in the evening, when grown in a greenhouse, only in the early morning. In case of insufficient moisture, fruits will get a bitter taste.
- Cucumbers have a negative attitude towards chlorine, which is often one of the ingredients of potash fertilizers. In order not to injure the plant with an element that is unpleasant for it, it is advisable to use such products as potassium salt and potassium magnesium in the preparation of mineral fertilizer. In their composition, as a rule, contains the minimum amount of chlorine, unable to harm the plant.
- Cucumber seedlings are extremely sensitive to any changes in the environment. One of them is transplanting to open ground or greenhouse. Experienced gardeners recommend using peat pots for growing seedlings. When planting a vegetable crop, seedlings are placed in the soil along with a pot and lightly powdered with earth. This helps to preserve the root system, avoids the possibility of any injury.
- Before planting, the well is not only fed by the above-mentioned fertilizers in the form of onion peels or potassium, but also is watered abundantly to moisten the soil. In order to provide the vegetable crop with the necessary supply of calcium, it is also recommended to put ground egg shells into the well. After that, the hole is lightly covered with earth. Then mineral fertilizers are introduced, and the landing of cucumber seedlings is carried out. Surface coating of soil with mulch will reduce the number of germinating weeds and improve the qualitative composition of the soil. As mulch, use fresh cut grass, hay or straw.
That it is necessary to put in the hole when planting cucumbers, see below.