For which plants is grain fertilizer suitable?
It can be used as a top dressing for most, but not all vegetable, berry or flower crops. Vegetables that love yeast include cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes. Among the berries, wild strawberries and strawberries are responsive to the bread delicacy. In the floral menu, it is valued among spray roses, gladioli, peonies, and chrysanthemums. Indoor flowers also do not refuse the “yeast delicacy”.
When applying grain fertilizer for plants, you should remember:
- excessive and frequent watering with infusion is harmful;
- should not be used on diseased or weakened cultures;
- plan rare applications when planting in the shade;
- Feed seedlings and young shoots moderately.
When planning plant nutrition during the season, you need to take into account the development phase of garden crops. At the initial stages of growth, nitrogen and grain nutrition are useful; during flowering, additional potassium and phosphorus will not harm; when fruits and seeds ripen, yeast is ideal.
This tincture will not harm plants when applied in high concentration, so it is not necessary to accurately measure the required amount of components. You can not only irrigate at the roots, but also spray vegetable or berry crops.
Other manufacturing options
No matter how good bread fertilizer is in itself, gardeners often use recipes that contain slightly more components, which allows them to enhance the effect of the resulting fertilizer on cucumbers.
Advice! Several handfuls of weeds are often added to the soaked bread. This allows you to increase the nitrogen content in the finished infusion.
The following recipe is very popular, which can be used to feed cucumbers every two weeks from the moment the first inflorescences appear until the end of fruiting.
A barrel with a volume of 50 to 100 liters is prepared, into which one bucket of green grass is tightly packed, about 1 kg of bread crusts is added on top and 0.5 kg of fresh yeast is added. Several glasses of wood ash are also placed there. All this is filled with water and covered with a lid. Instead of a lid, you can use a piece of polyethylene tied with a rope around the perimeter of the barrel.
Bread infusion against weeds
Another option for using infusion on breadcrumbs is against weeds that cause a lot of trouble for gardeners. It is prepared in the fall, after harvesting, so that it can be used in the garden beds immediately after fermentation.
The classic recipe for soaking crackers in warm water and leaving for 10-14 days will do. After the crackers have steeped, the mixture is poured onto the soil in the area where they plan to plant cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons for the next season.
Then the beds are covered with a thick film and reinforced with stones and boards. After watering, weeds begin to actively grow in the area under the film, and as soon as the first frosts begin, the plants freeze out. In spring their number will be noticeably smaller.
Inexpensive and effective fertilizer made from bread is available to all summer residents. Proper fertilizing will allow you to get a good harvest of tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, without using “chemicals” in the garden.
Fertilizer for strawberries
If rot begins to appear on fruits or greenery, you can revive the plantings with the help of yeast. It is best to take live ones, not fast-acting ones. For every 100 g of fungi there should be 10 liters of water (a smaller volume of liquid is allowed if the process is running). This solution is used to water the bushes and spray the leaves (not in sunny weather, so as not to burn), and is also used for seedlings, increasing their chances of successful transplantation.
To fertilize home and garden crops, you can apply homemade fertilizer. It’s easy to do: no special knowledge or skills are required.
Feeding tomatoes with bread
Grain fertilizer for tomatoes is interesting because it does not damage the fragile root system, unlike synthetic preparations. The cooking principle is as follows:
- The bucket is filled one third with grass, the rest of the container is filled with breadcrumbs.
- The mixture is filled with warm liquid to the brim and closed with a lid, infused for a week.
- The resulting concentrate is filtered and added to the water while watering the bushes (at least 2 liters of product should be used per 15 liters of liquid).
The use of this product helps to develop immunity in plants and increase the quantity and quality of fruits.
Grain fertilizer: revealing the secrets
Conventional bread contains many elements that have a beneficial effect on the growth and development of plants and the quality of fruits. Yeast, which is part of the group of unicellular fungi Saccharomycetes, is considered the most useful.
Liquid, dry active or compressed yeast is used for baking bread. When bread is infused in water, fermentation begins and microflora actively develops, processing organic residues. During the life of bacteria, useful elements are produced that promote the growth of the root system and increase plant immunity.
Yeast used for baking bread contains:
- biologically active microelements;
- acids: folic, para-aminobenzoic;
- B vitamins;
- vitamins D, H (biotin);
- phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc.
Thanks to the production of nitrogen and potassium by bacteria, the growth of the vegetative part of garden crops improves, and the aminocarboxylic acids and protein contained in bread improve the quality and taste of vegetables. Fertilizer from crackers helps to increase plant productivity, and this is achieved without the use of chemical compounds.
Watering seedlings
Fertilizers from bread crusts for seedlings are applied 20 days after the appearance of the first shoots from seeds. Place 2 kg of black fresh or stale bread in half a bucket of water at a temperature of about 30 °C, cover with a lid and place a weight so that pieces of bread do not float.
Leave the container in a warm place, then strain through cheesecloth or a sieve and add another 3 liters of warm water. Water seedlings planted in open ground or in a greenhouse right to the roots.
The benefits of grain feeding
This feeding is especially useful in the initial period of development, helping to saturate young shoots with carbohydrates and oxygen. The seedlings are actively developing, quickly forming a green above-ground part and a strong root system. Weak sprouts that are lagging behind in development are restored. Plants tolerate stress more easily after picking and transplanting into the ground.
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Feeding pickled tomatoes with bread promotes rapid recovery from stress
Fertilizing with bread also has a beneficial effect on adult plants:
- The vegetative process is reduced, which allows for an earlier harvest.
- The number of ovaries increases.
- The structure of cucumbers improves, there is no hollowness.
Cucumbers on grain fertilizer grow without hollowness - Dependence on unfavorable environmental factors is reduced.
- Increases resistance to diseases and pests.
- The taste of the fruit improves.
Tomatoes grown on bread fertilizer have excellent taste
You can use any bread - black, gray, white. Rye bread, especially those made from whole grain flour, ferments better and also contains more proteins, vitamins and minerals than wheat bread.
Both white and black bread are suitable for preparing fertilizer.
What and when to feed
The use of grain fertilizer requires compliance with a number of mandatory rules:
- use it only in the first half of summer, when the earth and air have warmed up enough, otherwise you won’t get any effect from it. This fertilizer works especially fruitfully in a greenhouse, where the temperature is always high;
- it acts as a bioactive growth simulator, so it is used to water young plants before fruiting begins;
- Before each feeding, preliminary irrigation is carried out, the roots absorb nutrients only in dissolved form;
- yeast infusions cannot replace complex fertilizers, they only act as growth catalysts;
- the soil is saturated with nitrogen, but loses calcium. It is recommended to combine grain feeding with the use of ash and eggshell powder;
- Do not fertilize sick plants;
- the resulting infusion is always very rich; before use, excess concentrate is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10;
- after preparing the stimulating solution, it must be used within 12 hours, as it is not suitable for long-term storage;
- The infusion should be used in the garden and beds no more than 2-3 times per season. Only cucumbers do not fit into this rule; they can be watered with the stimulant up to 6 times.
Important! Some plants have their own preferences. For example, those who love acidic soils respond better to an infusion of rye bread. These are peonies, hydrangeas, primroses, azaleas. It’s a good idea to fertilize strawberries with this solution. White bread is suitable for feeding carrots.
Almost all the most popular vegetables are fed this way:
- cucumbers;
- nightshade crops (tomato, pepper, eggplant, physalis);
- strawberries;
- cabbage;
- pumpkin plants (zucchini, squash, crookneck);
- beans;
- sunflower;
- perennial flowers (roses, hydrangeas, peonies, azaleas, heathers, poppies);
- berry bushes;
- fruit trees.
Grain fertilizers are especially good for plants with thin root systems, as they act by stimulating the roots.
Some vegetables do not like such fertilizers:
- onion;
- garlic;
- potato.
In order for grain feeding to bring maximum benefit, it is used twice:
- a week after planting the seedlings in a permanent place, after watering with nitrogen-containing fertilizer;
- before flowering, after applying phosphorus-containing preparations.
The consumption rate of the tincture is 0.5 liters for a bush of seedlings, 1 liter - before blooming, 2 liters - during fruiting. At least 1 bucket is poured under a berry garden, and 50 liters or more under an adult tree.
An exception to this rule are cucumbers, which can be fed with grain fertilizer every 7-10 days until they begin to wilt in September.
It stimulates new waves of fruiting and has a positive effect on the taste of greens. Moreover, it is believed that bread fertilizer acts better on this vegetable than yeast fertilizer. To prepare a nutritious infusion, you need to take rye bread with malt, which accelerates the fermentation of the sourdough.
The fertilizer is diluted three times, a matchbox of combined mineral fertilizers or half a bottle (10 g) of iodine is dissolved in 12 liters.
This type of feeding works very well for seedlings - they stop stretching, quickly grow powerful roots and green mass, and survive picking and transplanting into the ground well. Rooting of cuttings of berry and ornamental shrubs is also progressing at a rapid pace.
Just like yeast tincture, bread fertilizer can protect some plants from common diseases. It saves tomatoes from late blight, and strawberries from gray rot. To do this, you need to apply foliar feeding to the leaf a couple of times, diluting the infusion twice as much as usual.
It has long been known in gardening that cucumbers, tomatoes and peonies are very fond of yeast and grain fertilizers. They simply rage from the use of such fertilizers. In addition to these plants, infusions from bread showed excellent results on currant plantations.
Feeding with starch not only increases yield, currant berries grow larger and sweeter. Potato peelings are often used for enhanced nutrition. But you can use grain fertilizer, which is used to water the bushes three times:
- for the first time when the ovaries are still green;
- in the second - when the berries are already ripe;
- in the third - a week before harvesting.
Liquid organic fertilizers are applied into the furrows along the projection of the foliage, moving away from the stems, and incorporated into the soil.
Important! An excess of bread infusions should not be allowed, but there will not be much harm from them. After all, in fact, they are biostimulants of soil fertility. These are not chemicals, but live mushrooms. All they know is to eat organic food correctly.
In the fall, a month before the onset of cold weather, the contents of a barrel of grain fertilizer are poured onto the beds and covered with film. Weak vapors of alcohol from flour infusion, warmth, and moisture stimulate the friendly germination of weeds, which will die from the onset of frost.
All this can be repeated in the spring, as soon as the snow melts on the site. Then weeds will not appear in the beds for a long time.
Tomatoes
For tomatoes, this fertilizer is used in a slightly different way, since the root system of nightshades may not withstand a strong tincture. Use the following recipe:
- the bucket is filled 2/3 of the volume with bread and nettles,
- add warm water to the top and keep under pressure;
- prepare the infusion for a week and filter;
- diluted at the rate of 2 liters of starter per bucket of water.
You need to water with this infusion when the tomatoes are flowering, then 2 more times during the fruiting period. Thanks to fertilizing with yeast bread, tomatoes do not get sick so often, form few fatty shoots, and produce healthy fruits.
What is the best way to apply grain fertilizers?
You can feed tomatoes and cucumbers with bread infusion only if you simultaneously add substances containing calcium to the soil:
- Calcium nitrate. It is good to use it for soils with high acidity. Available in the form of white granules, it dissolves well in water and contains up to 22% calcium. Allows you to replenish its deficiency, as well as increase the degree of nitrogen digestibility, and increases productivity by up to 15%.
- Wood ash. In addition to calcium, it contains potassium, sulfur, magnesium, zinc and phosphorus. Can be used at any stage of cultivation. Ash can be added in pure form at the rate of 100 g per tomato or cucumber bush when watering with bread sourdough, and you can also prepare a solution - 150 g of ash per ten-liter bucket of water. Heavy soil is added during digging in the spring or autumn; light sandy loam soils can be enriched in the spring. Application frequency: 1 time every 2-3 years.
These are the most budget-friendly types of fertilizers containing calcium. You can also use ready-made mineral fertilizers Brexil Ca, Kalbit C and others.
Expert advice
Sourdough for feeding plants from black bread is used in different phases of the growing season. This fertilizer is especially important when they are growing, that is, after picking or immediately after transplanting to a permanent place. Adult tomato and cucumber bushes respond well to bread mixtures during the flowering and ovary period.
Secrets of using bread infusions on the site:
- A tincture containing only water and bread is not considered balanced; it does not contain calcium and many other components necessary for plants. It is recommended to enrich the bread infusion with nettles, dandelion, add ash, crushed egg shells, diluted mullein or bird droppings.
- On fertile lands, it is not recommended to apply infused fertilizing more than 3 times throughout the entire season. On depleted soil, you can use it 8–10 times with a break between feedings of 7–10 days.
- The bread grounds that remain after preparing the infusion will improve the quality of the compost, so do not throw it away, but put it in a common compost pit.
- It is not recommended to water sick, weakened or damaged plants with this fertilizer.
- The effect of the yeast that makes up bread practically disappears at high air temperatures in the heat (more than 35 ° C). Water the bushes late at night or early in the morning.
- You need to strain the tincture carefully. Bread crumbs can not only form a dense, airtight crust on the soil surface, but also attract pests, mainly rodents. Even if you strain the infusion, 1-2 days after watering, loosen the soil in the tree trunk area.
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You can store the prepared fertilizer for no more than 10 days. After this period of time, it loses its properties and does more harm to plants than good. Do not overheat the solution above 40 °C, otherwise the substances will lose their activity.
Grain fertilizers are considered one of the best types of organic fertilizers for various plants, including tomatoes and cucumbers. The advantage of this infusion is that you can use any type of bread to prepare it, both fresh and stale and even moldy.
Bread as fertilizer
Its main value is the presence of yeast. These are microscopic fungi that can work in the soil, improving its structure. In addition, the healthy product contains other nutrients and mineral components.
Bread fertilizer provides the following benefits:
- plant growth is enhanced;
- the volume of the root system increases;
- the number of flowers and ovaries increases;
- the fruits have better taste;
- survival rate in winter improves;
- plant immunity increases.
There are options for yeast fertilizers, but soft packaging with live fungi still needs to be looked for, and bread is always at hand. Use any variety: black, white or rye. You can use old or moldy pieces that are no longer suitable for eating.
A week after application, the result is noticeable: the vegetables become strong, meaty, gain mass and rich color. It is best to feed them in the spring when seedlings are planted in open ground. Yeasts begin their beneficial activity only in warm soil.
The disadvantages of bread nutrition include the active absorption of calcium during the fermentation process. Due to this, the soil becomes acidic; additional addition of wood ash or eggshells is necessary.
Flowers
Fertilizer for flower vegetation is prepared according to a general recipe. The resulting composition is diluted in a ratio of 1:10. For flowers, bread is used infrequently as a fertilizer: first in the spring for growth and leaf mass gain, and then during the flowering period. Flowers with a large vegetative mass respond well to it.
The composition can be enriched with various components, adding grass, tree leaves, hops, potato tops, and nettles during preparation. This will supplement the infusion with useful nutritional elements.
Bread infusion not only nourishes, it is able to protect berry crops from rot. If a similar problem occurs on strawberries, water it at the root with a solution, diluting the concentrated composition in 5 liters of water.
Reviews
In open sources - for example, on various thematic forums on the Internet - you can always read reviews from summer residents and gardeners who have already used such fertilizer.
Larisa Rybina, Samara: “When I was feeding my tomatoes with bread for the first time, the question arose of what to do with the soggy bread crusts left over from straining. A neighbor suggested adding them to the compost pile. I still do this, I haven’t found any other use.”
Darina, Tver: “For tomatoes, I add a little ash to the bread and herbal infusion. I water it at the root. They thank you with good harvests. Those bushes that I fertilized were pleased with larger fruits.”
Vasily Petrovich, Moscow region: “Last year I fed tomatoes with bread and yeast tincture five times during the season. The tomatoes started to get fat. I came to the conclusion that there is no need to overdo it. Everything needs moderation."