What is the best way to water tomato seedlings for healthy growth?

Lovers of vegetable growers who want to get the fruits of exactly the variety they like have to take care of the plants from sowing to planting seedlings in the ground and harvesting. Operations such as bubbling seeds, hardening them, picking seedlings, feeding tomato seedlings, are familiar to them in practice. However, by the time of planting in the ground, not all vegetable growers are satisfied with the quality of the planting material: tomato seedlings are not strong enough or too small. What to do and how to feed young plants so that they fully realize their potential and please with a rich harvest?

Is feeding enough?

Care for tomato seedlings should be comprehensive. If you just fertilize the plants and do nothing else for their well-being, they will not grow faster. Conditions for the favorable growth of tomatoes include other factors.

• Quality seeds. Remember the proverb: oranges will not be born from aspen? So, this is just the case - do not buy tomato seeds of dubious quality, do not plant non-zoned varieties, do not harvest hybrid seeds.

Advice

Do not sow seeds of one or two varieties, try to grow tomatoes of several ripening periods, spray them with copper preparations, and you will see that late blight has ceased to be a global problem.

• Optimal living space. It is very bad if tomato seedlings grew in cramped conditions, in cramped conditions. For plants to be strong, they do not need to be sown thickly.
• Fertile soil. The best soil composition for seedlings: garden soil, sand, humus, peat in a ratio of 2: 1: 1: 1. Additionally introduced ash and 100 g of complete mineral fertilizer per bucket of soil mixture.
• Correct watering. It is better to water tomatoes rarely, but abundantly than often, but in small portions. It is advisable to do this as the earthen coma dries up, using warm, settled water.
• Adequate lighting. For the growth of strong tomato seedlings at home, fluorescent lamps are used, reflecting screens, and the pots are turned around their axis. Tomato seedlings that do not receive enough light will grow frail and elongated, despite proper feeding.

Optimal feeding times

The first time feeding tomatoes is carried out 2 weeks after the pick, when young plants recover from the shock of transplantation and begin to form the root system. The second time you need to feed tomato seedlings in 10-12 days, then as needed. You can determine the need for feeding by specific features.

How do you know if the seedlings are starving?
An experienced grower easily determines when it is time to fertilize your plants. Here are some signs of this type of fasting:

• pale leaves with bright green streaks - lack of iron;
• lethargic and yellow leaves, they fall off, and the seedling stopped growing - an acute shortage of nitrogen.
• purple shade of tomato leaves - lack of phosphorus.

When such signs appear, care must be taken to ensure that the seedlings receive a full diet of useful trace elements and nutrients.

Root and foliar feeding

After picking, you need top dressing for the growth of seedlings. It is carried out with a solution of urea - an excellent source of nitrogen. Watering rate - 1 tbsp. l. urea in a bucket of water.

It is recommended to fertilize tomatoes next time nitrophobic (1 tbsp. L. Mineral fertilizer per liter of clean water). You can replace it with organic matter, it is better if it is mullein solution or bird droppings... Manure or poultry droppings are poured with water (1 kg per 10 l of water), left for 10-12 days for fermentation. The resulting slurry is filtered and diluted in water in a ratio of 1:10 or 1: 20 (bird droppings are more concentrated than manure). Watering with such a solution is not recommended too often, otherwise the seedlings will fatten without giving fruit.

For rapid growth and strong seedlings, foliar feeding can be done. The classic version for spraying is a superphosphate solution. One Art. l. mineral fertilizer is dissolved in a liter of very hot water. A day later, the upper light part of the solution is drained from the sediment and diluted in a ratio of 1:10. You can fertilize seedlings by spraying them with a fine sprayer.

Advice

Such a solution for foliar feeding is compatible with stimulants produced from natural ingredients: "Epin", "Zircon" and their analogues.

Rules for a well-done feeding

This important operation is carried out in accordance with certain rules:

• You cannot apply fertilizer to dry soil; irrigation is required, combined with top dressing.

Advice

Wash off the root dressing solution that gets on the tomato leaves with clean water.

• Foliar dressing is not carried out under the scorching rays of the sun: every drop that remains on the leaves is a place for future sunburn.
• In order not to harm the plants, you need to carefully observe the proportions of fertilizers indicated in the annotation to the preparation.

Top dressing of seedlings, carried out at the optimum time, is the key to a full-fledged vegetation of plants and a significant increase in yield.