Bell peppers are usually grown only from seedlings.
This process is painstaking and requires some knowledge and skills from gardeners. The most important of which are listed below.
Preparing fertile soil
Sweet pepper seedlings require disinfected soil. It is strictly forbidden to use ordinary garden soil!
The soil mixture for sowing pepper seeds can be purchased in a special store or prepared at home.
To do this, take the following materials in a ratio of 1:2:2: river sand, turf soil, animal or plant humus.
Add half a liter of wood ash, 1 tablespoon of phosphorus fertilizer and 2 tablespoons of potassium fertilizer to 10 kg of this mixture.
Disinfect the prepared soil mixture, freeze it in the freezer, steam it or heat it in the oven.
Selecting quality seeds of the desired variety
Choose pepper varieties that are zoned for your area. Take only fresh seeds. They can be easily identified.
To do this, prepare a salt solution of 1 tablespoon per 200 ml of water and place the seeds in it for 20 minutes.
Good, quality seeds will sink to the bottom of the glass, and empty ones will float to the surface.
Pre-sowing seed preparation
First, disinfect the seeds, soak them in a manganese solution for 20 minutes or soak them in the "Maxim" preparation.
To increase their germination, treat the seeds with the following growth stimulants: "Epin", "Zircon", "Silk", according to the instructions on the product packaging.
Compliance with the lighting regime
The main condition for growing peppers using seedlings is lighting.
To do this, place the containers with seedlings on the sunny side of the house.
If sunlight is not enough to obtain high-quality and healthy pepper seedlings, provide them with additional artificial lighting using a phytolamp. The daylight hours for seedlings should be 12-13 hours per day.
Carrying out proper watering
Water pepper seedlings frequently with warm, settled water, but not too much, so that a white bacterial-limescale coating does not appear on the surface of the soil.
