Chilis fertilize
Paprika plants in overfertilized soil grow sparsely. If the fertilizer continues to be blunt, the roots will soon burn and the plant will die. A small hand with a green thumb is needed to optimally supply Capsicum plants. Here are a few tips for growers who want their edible vegetables to be fertilized naturally.
Fertilizing
Germ phase
Prefertilized growing substrate can worsen the germination rate of seeds. The chilli seed contains enough compounds for the first days after germination. After dicotyledonous Capsicum plants have formed further leaves, it is time for a first application of fertilizer. It is important to keep the dosage of seedlings low. Young plants in particular react sensitively to a high concentration of nutrient salts.
Growth period
After pricking or repotting, chili plants are fertilized for the first time. First take only a quarter of the dosage recommendation of the vegetable fertilizer. Keep to the intervals recommended by the manufacturer. Within two months you increase the fertilizer application to the manufacturer’s specifications.
In the first four months of cultivation you should use a fertilizer with a higher nitrogen content. The NPK value tells you how high the nitrogen content is. If an NPK value of 3-1-4 is indicated, this means that the fertilizer contains 3 % N (nitrogen), 1 % P (phosphorus) and 4 % K (potassium). Nitrogen ensures good plant growth. Phosphorus promotes root growth and potassium supports flowering and fruit formation. In the beginning you can also help the root formation with seaweed extract.
Before fertilizing, make sure that the soil is slightly moist. If the substrate is dry and watered with liquid fertilizer, the roots will inevitably be damaged. This applies especially to mineral fertilizer, blue grain and Epsom salt. The uneven salt concentration at the root ball causes symptoms such as burns.
Flowers and fruit formation
Depending on the type of chili, the first flowers form 4 - 6 months after sowing. In this phase you can switch to a flowering fertilizer with a higher potassium and phosphorus content. For example, tomato fertilizer with an NPK value of 7-3-10 would be promising. Trace elements not only have a direct effect on the plants, but also promote soil life. Microorganisms in turn help to make nutrients accessible to chili plants. The soil quality is sustainably improved by good fertilizers.
If all other growing conditions are right, your plants will develop more splendidly with the right nutrients than ever before. Nevertheless, you should always keep an eye out for deficiency symptoms or indications of over fertilization. At the end of the article you will find a section describing problems.
Chilli fertilizer
You should not cover the nutrient requirements of chillies with any flower fertilizer. After all, the fruits are something to eat. A special composition for nightshade plants would be good. There is still little selection of chilli fertilizers. There are considerably more varieties of tomato fertilizers, which you can all use well.
Compost and manure
Compost and horse manure are good organic fertilizers for chillies grown organically. Horse manure is spread on the vegetable bed and dug up. Mist bed compost has a good long-term effect as the components rot only slowly. During decomposition, the nutrient is first made accessible to the plants. However, its use is usually limited to the garden. On the balcony and for houseplants this variant is omitted because of the odour nuisance.
If you grow your chillies in the garden and have space, set up a compost heap. Better material for fertilizing can hardly be obtained more cheaply. It is important that you keep the so-called n/c value in mind when composting. Simply put, this is the proportion of woody and green components.
Long-term fertilizer
This type of fertilizer is ideal for indoor and balcony vegetable growing. Practical here is a clean granulate, which works up to half a year. This is often enough for the whole season. A good long-term fertilizer contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as well as a lot of trace elements. These are gradually released by an intelligent structure of granulate. In this way, the hot chilli obtains the organic compounds it needs at all times.
Tomato fertilizer
For chillies, tomato fertilizers are easy to use and are available in practically every DIY store. You have a nice choice of different varieties. In the house we like to use liquid fertilizer or drops or sticks to simply stick them into the soil. Both make little dirt, do not smell and are easy to use. Good experiences have been made with organic fertilizers which can be used for tomatoes, peppers and herbs alike.
If already own Chili cultivation, then please controlled.
Fertilizing with household fertilizer
Coffee grounds
Instead of disposing of coffee grounds only in the bin, you can do something useful with it. It is a universal fertilizer with benefits. Coffee grounds contains all important nutrients for chillies. You can sprinkle it in the soil or add it to the watering water. As a benefit it keeps ants and snails away.
Egg shells
Egg shells are placed in the water and left to stand for a few days. On the balcony, your nose decides whether you want to do it or not. Eggshells contain a lot of lime. For the soil an important component for soil improvement. It should be noted that chillies feel good at a pH value of around 6. If too many eggshells are combined with hard water, the substrate becomes alkaline. Then chili plants can no longer absorb food so well via the roots. The result is a sickly growth with yellowish leaves.
Use egg shells regularly when fertilizing acid soils. With a well-adjusted pH value, crushed and soaked egg shells cannot be damaged from time to time. If the pH value is above 7, it is better not to use the household remedy.
Milk
We haven’t tried it ourselves yet: Milk whose shelf life has expired, but is not yet bad, is diluted with water. Three cups of water are added to each cup of milk. A regular reader of this chili blog told us that he finds the taste of milked chillies much better. From flowering to harvest, he pours his Habaneros with diluted milk once a month. We are planning to make a direct comparison next season. After tasting the Habanero fruits, we give a message whether there is a difference in aroma.
Problems
Deficiency symptoms
Yellow leaves, known as chlorosis, are easy to recognize. The cause is too little nitrogen, sulfur or magnesium. If only young leaves are affected, iron deficiency is almost always the cause. So far we have helped with these problems with horsetail extract. So the problems were soon solved and the plants grew robustly.
If the chilli plant gets a reddish discoloration on the leaves or stalk, it is often associated with too little phosphorus.
Potassium deficiency is manifested by deformed leaves. A longer deficiency causes the leaf to turn brown at the edge. A small amount of potassium later becomes noticeable through cracks in the chilli peppers. Do not confuse this with the brown cork cracks of the Jalapeno conchos, where this is typical.
Yellow speckled leaves can be caused by calcium and boron deficiency. Another indication of this problem is when the leaves are yellow but the veins are still green.
Fertilizer surplus
If your chilli makes a burnt impression after fertilizing, it has probably gotten too much nitrogen. Symptoms are as if someone had lit a lighter on the edge of the leaves. If the nitrogen content is slowly increasing, you will notice an unhealthy, dark green of the plant.
Thin stalks and falling leaves are usually the reason for mineral fertilizers that are too highly concentrated. For these fertilizer types you have to follow the package instructions meticulously. Such a fertilizer is also used for high yields in agriculture. Effective, but with wrong use it comes to many nutrient salts in the plant soil.