Among gardeners, growing eggplant is not as popular as, for example, growing squash, tomatoes or cucumbers.
Eggplants or blue ones, as they are also called, can be called an ungrateful culture. Should they not please them at least a little, and the long-awaited harvest will not be at all.
Colorado beetles adore eggplant leaves, their seedlings often do not grow well, and it is also necessary to plant small bushes in the ground much earlier than other vegetables.
But even if all of the above problems are successfully overcome, the appearance of adult plants is often not causes optimism: stunted bushes with crumbling leaves, poor development or lack of ovary.
How to figure out what is missing in this capricious and heat-loving culture?
If the growing conditions, including the temperature of the environment and soil, as well as the lack of nutrients in the soil, do not meet the required ones, it is immediately reflected in the leaves and fruits of the plant.
It is only necessary to plant seedlings in open ground on a sunny bed. In shaded bushes, leaves may fall off, buds and ovaries do not develop at all. Cold weather no higher than 20 degrees Celsius also results in a loss of future harvest - fruits do not set at this temperature.
Eggplants cannot stand drafts, but a total steam room, especially in a greenhouse, harms the development of plants. But the most destructive for them is often depleted land and lack of fertilizing.
How to understand what fertilizers eggplants need:
- Lack of potassium - yellowing of leaves at the edges and poor fruit development.
- Phosphorus deficiency - fruits do not develop, loss of flowers, leaves are unnaturally raised up and turned towards the stem.
- Plants need nitrogen feeding - the growth of the bush stops, the leaves turn yellow and fall off.
- There is little nitrogen in the soil - the planted seedlings grow very slowly, the leaves practically do not develop.
- Lack of potassium - the bushes do not have immunity and resistance to sudden changes in temperature, as a result, poor growth and development.
How to feed plants. Application of fertilizing to eggplant bushes should be carried out only by the root method. The roots will be able to better and faster absorb nutrients from the ground.
You can use ready-made mineral fertilizers or make organic fertilizing. But that's another story, and we will definitely tell you about it. Subscribe to the channel and stay tuned for new releases of publications.