Growing tomatoes raises questions for many, and sometimes simply refuses to want to plant such a delicious vegetable. Let's figure it out together with the issues of planting and caring for our Senior.
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Soil preparation
To begin with, tomatoes are capricious vegetables. They need an open sunny area with minimal airflow. The bed should be located on a hill.
The ideal soil for tomatoes is sandy loam. The soil for plants is prepared in the fall. It is necessary to add garden compost, ash. In the spring, before planting seedlings, the garden must be dug up, watered and heated. In addition, the following fertilizers can be added per square meter:
- 20 g of saltpeter;
- 50 g superphosphate;
- 20 g of potassium chloride.
Both for open ground and for a greenhouse, if the seedlings were not grown in peat pots, either chicken droppings or urea are added to the holes. Otherwise, it is not necessary to add fertilizer.
It is necessary to plant tomatoes in the first half of June after the warm weather is fully established. The scheme for planting plants in the ground is as follows:
- bushes are placed in an amount of 4 pieces per square meter;
- the lower three pairs of leaves are cut off;
- the stem is buried up to the 3-4th pair of true leaves.
Tomato care
Timely weeding, watering and loosening of plants are the standard of basic care. A week after planting in the ground, it is necessary to feed the tomatoes with organic fertilizer. The first hilling of tomatoes should be carried out 9-11 days after planting. Before starting work, you need to water the soil: hilling with moist soil will strengthen the root system. The second hilling - 16-20 days after the first.
Tomatoes form one to two stems. The stepsons remove and leave a 1 cm stump. Excess leaves are also harvested for free air and disease prevention.
Diseases and pests
Late blight is the most common problem for many gardeners. The best advice for preventing disease is prevention:
- drugs are inexpensive;
- can be used for 2-3 seasons;
- protect against other diseases besides late blight;
- effective.
As an example, we will give "Fitosporin", "Fundazol" and their analogues.
There are also folk methods:
- iodine (20 drops per bucket of water) - water the soil;
- we process the bushes with milk and iodine (1 liter of milk and 25 drops of iodine per 10 liters of water);
- salt or soda solution (1 kg of salt or 0.5 kg of soda per bucket of water);
- toothpaste (dilute 1 tube in water at a temperature of 30 ° C).
Tricks for growing tomatoes
Let's talk about some more secrets of growing tomatoes:
- to increase the yield, you can spray the bushes (2-3 times) with a weak solution of boric acid (10 g of powder per 10 l of water);
- plants growing in a greenhouse need a “shake-up” for better pollination;
- when planting bushes, arrange them in latitude (from east to west) for uniform sunlight and increase daylight hours;
- mulching with hay, compost, sawdust, etc. increases productivity.
Grow with love and you will succeed!
Do you know how to properly care for tomatoes?
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