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No vegetable garden can do without smooth green beds with beets. After all, how to cook borscht or vinaigrette without it? To get delicious sweet vegetables, you need a little care for the planting of beets, as well as help it to grow and develop well. Very often, gardeners complain that the beet "tight" grows and grows. In fact, this means that it lacks nutrients. So, how to feed the beets, if it grows poorly?
Application of top dressings can be divided into three stages:
- fertilizer of the soil provided for the beds of beets, even before sowing;
- application of top dressing for young shoots of beet;
- summer dressing to stimulate growth.
Pre-plant fertilizer of the soil
Beetroot grows well in loose nutrient soil, so it is important to prepare the beds for spring plantings in the autumn. To do this, on the site where you plan to grow a vegetable, scatter the manure( approximately 5 cm layer) and dig it.
In the spring, also before sowing, the beds can be fertilized with wood ash. Such top dressing will be especially actual for acidic soil. Acid soils inhibit the growth of beets, and ash can lower acidity.
Top dressing of young shoots of beet
In order for beets to quickly form fruits and grow a green mass well, they are fed with phosphorus fertilizers. After the young shoots form 4 true leaves, superphosphate and potassium chloride are introduced between the rows. They are poured into the previously made grooves in turn: the first groove is superphosphate, the second is potassium, etc. Sprinkle with earth and water. The calculation of fertilizers is as follows:
- superphosphate - 5 g per 1 sq. M;
- potassium chloride - from 5 to 10 g per 1 sq. M.
Potash supplements for young plantings will reduce the amount of nitrates in the fruit, because, as you know, this vegetable has the property of accumulating them in large quantities. For this reason you should not overdo it with chemical fertilizers, especially with nitrogen.
Summer feeding beet to stimulate growth
Summer feeding is carried out in the month of June. A solution of mullein at the rate of 1 part of mullein per 10 parts of water has a good effect on the growth of beet. You can also re-feed with potassium and add it to the mullein infusion( 20 g per bucket).
If the beet leaves after long rains brightened and the petioles became thin, it means that the rains washed out the nitrogen. It is necessary to replenish its reserves in the soil so that the vegetable has the strength to develop. In this case, foliar top dressings should be made with urea( 1 tsp of the preparation for half a bucket of water).
Applying the last fertilizer to the beds with beets should be 20 days before harvesting.
At the end of summer, beds with beets are fertilized with superphosphate to form strong, tasty root crops. The proportions are the same as for autumn dressing.