How to choose green manures for growing cucumbers
Green manures for cucumbers will help you quickly improve the soil, replenish stocks of useful elements and perform crop rotation in small areas.
Siderata for growing cucumbers
Why do you need sideration
During the period of intensive growth, cucumbers extract elements from the ground that are necessary for this particular vegetable, producing colins. This excretion builds up in the soil and can stunt growth and reduce the yield of cucumbers in subsequent years. The cultivation of the same crops in a permanent place leads to the accumulation and reproduction of pathogens and pests. Siderata can solve this problem. They can be planted in the fall, immediately after harvest, or in the spring, as soon as the snow melts.
Autumn sideration
Immediately after harvesting the cucumbers, it is necessary to remove plant residues, loosen the soil and sow with seeds. For this, cultures are suitable that:
- actively build up green mass,
- decompose quickly
- they loosen the soil well,
- heal the soil and nourish it.
Plants planted in the fall will not take up the moisture accumulated during the winter period, and all the nutrients will go to the laying of a new crop.
What siderates are suitable:
- mustard white,
- oil radish,
- phacelia,
- peas,
- beans,
- lupine.
All these plants sprout and develop quickly. They heal the soil, replenish it with microelements. Delicate stems do not require mowing, crumpled, leaving under the snow, and easily decompose in spring.
Mustard scares away the moth, slugs and serves as a prophylaxis against diseases. She herself is not affected by the cruciferous flea in the fall, and therefore does not contribute to its distribution.
Oil radish increases fertility and serves as a prevention against the development of viral and fungal diseases.
Phacelia grows quickly enough at temperatures up to 10 ° C and until the first frost it grows well.
Beans and peas actively sprout for about 5-6 days. They, as well as lupine, provide a large and easily degradable biomass and are a good source of nitrogen.
Autumn plantings of useful grass grow more slowly due to the decrease in sunny day, but if the phacelia or mustard were planted a little earlier and began to bloom, they can be mowed.
Siderata heals the soil
If you did not have time to sow green manures in time, you can plant them like winter crops, just before the very cold weather. The main thing is that they do not have time to ascend, but hatch when the snow melts and the soil warms up.
Spring sideration
It is necessary to sow siderates in early spring, so that they have time to grow before the time when the planting material for cucumbers will need to be transferred to the ground. For this, as soon as the weather permits, seeds of oil radish, rapeseed, mustard, phacelia are sown and covered with foil. When seedlings appear, the film is removed.
Open field cucumbers can be sown directly on overgrown green manure, you just need to clean the place and cover with half a plastic bottle. When the cotyledons or the first leaves appear, the greenhouses can be removed. The grown green manure around the hole protects young cucumbers from the wind or too hot sun rays.Later, the greens need to be cut: it will serve as a mulching material.
You can mow the grown siderates, sown in the spring under cucumbers, or knock them down with a flat cutter a week before the expected date of planting of the main crop. Green biomass is left on the ground as mulch. It will gradually dry out, begin to decompose and, accordingly, will be beneficial for the future harvest. For greater effect, you can treat the mulch with an EO preparation.
Greenhouse sideration
It is difficult to maintain crop rotation in a greenhouse. And if fertility can be increased by applying fertilizers and humus, then it is more difficult to get rid of the accumulated pathogenic flora and wintering insects. Siderata under cucumbers will help to cope with this.
From legumes, you can use vetch, beans, peas, lupine, clover, sweet clover.
From cereals you can use oats, barley. Rye should be used only if there is a desire to suppress the growth of weeds, but then it must be mowed 3 weeks before planting the main crop. After mowing, it is necessary to apply preparations that accelerate the decomposition process.
Consider which siderat is the best for cucumbers in a greenhouse. Phacelia, rapeseed and mustard have the most optimal and versatile properties. Planting watercress will be of double benefit. It will not only disinfect the soil, but also fill the soil with vitamins.
All auxiliary plants are sown densely, embedded in the soil with a rake or mulched from above with compost, humus. You need to cut them off before the trunk becomes stiff and seeds begin to form. In this case, green manure will bring maximum benefit:
- restore fertility,
- will structure the soil,
- destroy pathogenic microflora,
- accelerate the microbiological cycle,
- protect the earth from drying out and weathering,
- will improve the taste of vegetables.