How to make and properly feed cucumbers with bread infusion
Feeding cucumbers with bread infusion is one of the most economical ways to increase yields without the use of chemicals. To prepare such a grain fertilizer, you do not need to purchase anything extra - it is enough not to throw grain residues into the trash during one cold season, but to dry them and put them in storage.
What is the principle of bread feeding
Best of all, feeding cucumbers with bread "works" on soil already fertilized with organic substances, and here's why: when bread crusts are soaked in water, the carbohydrate component of the flour product fades into the background, and the leading position is occupied by live microflora present in any yeast derivative. During the fermentation of bread, bacteria in the top dressing multiply at a high speed and at the time of adding the sourdough to the soil, a small volume of nutritious bread mash contains already a huge voracious colony of microorganisms.
Mixing with the soil, all this endlessly consuming and rapidly growing fungal yeast medium begins to intensively process the organic particles present in the ground, left over from past fertilizers - manure, grass cuttings or sunflower husks. At the same time, bacteria not only enrich the soil with decay products, they also synthesize substances that are a unique stimulator of the growth and development of the root system.
By increasing the circulation of nutrients to the roots of cucumber seedlings, the growing season of cucumbers begins faster, and harvesting moves a few days earlier. Bread fertilization promotes the formation of full-fledged fruit flowers, giving ovaries of cucumbers with dense pulp.
Thanks to the sourdough for feeding cucumbers, even weak, non-viable seedlings can be “revived” and brought up to the general level.
Sourdough preparation
To prepare a bread dressing for cucumbers, you will need pieces of dried bread slightly chopped in your hands. Traditionally, black and bran crumbs are used for sourdough, but the presence of white bread slices will not spoil the dressing. Also, you should not throw away spoiled bread crusts with traces of mold - all this will go into an empty tin container (for example, a 10 liter bucket), filling it with a little more than half of the bread mass.
On top, the bread is poured with slightly warm tap water, all the leaven is thoroughly stirred and pressed down by oppression. The bucket with the crusts should be taken away from the living quarters, as during the fermentation process, the leaven will begin to emit a pungent aroma that most people do not like. Ideally, it would be to install a container of bread in a greenhouse or shed.
Three days later, you can come and look at the bread infusion - an indicator of its readiness will be strong foam raised over the leaven, which is the main sign of the activation of fungal bacteria. If there is no foam, you can wait another 2-3 days or move the bucket of soaked bread to a warmer place, where the leavened bread will ferment faster.
Bread dressing, prepared according to the following recipe, can be applied to the soil every 15 days, starting from the day the first flowers open until the full harvest of the cucumbers. For the infusion, you will need a one-liter iron barrel, at the bottom of which at least 4 kilograms of mown weeds (always fresh) are poured, then the cavity is replenished with 1-1.5 kilograms of brown bread crusts, a half-kilogram briquette of fresh yeast, ground in the hands to large crumbs and 300 g ash. The whole mass is well mixed and filled with water to ¾ the volume of the container. Now the leaven for watering cucumbers should be infused in a closed barrel for at least 6 days and used according to the standard scheme, diluted with water in a fivefold volume.
Top dressing for black bread and iodine cucumbers is an old proven method for greenhouse seedlings. The preparation for the starter culture must be purchased in the smallest, 30 ml bottle, otherwise there will be a risk of burning delicate plants and nullifying all efforts. So, all you need is:
- a bottle of iodine;
- 1.5 buckets of water;
- a loaf of black bread, cut into slices and aged for about a week.
It is necessary to soak all the bread overnight, and in the morning stir it intensively together with iodine, until a homogeneous slurry is formed. This strained iodine solution is used not only for root feeding, but also for disinfecting cucumber leaves as a prophylaxis against insects. In this case, it is better to try the irrigation option. Store the infusion of bread, poured into dark bottles, in a cool place. There is one more secret with the use of iodine - it can be simply poured into small bowls and placed in the corners of the greenhouse - the air will instantly be saturated with volatile vapors of the medicine and harmful microorganisms that live in the frames of the greenhouse, this will scare away for a long time.
Before use, any sourdough from bread must be filtered and diluted with warm water, adding it to the top of the bucket with fermented liquid. Then the watering can is filled with the leaven with the scattering tip removed, and carefully bringing the “nose” of the watering can to the very root of the cucumber seedlings, each seedling is watered with at least half a liter of bread liquid.
You need to be careful not to overdo it with sourdough from bread, because this fertilizer for cucumbers changes the acidity of the soil, increasing it by several percent.
How to feed cucumbers with bread
You need to feed the cucumbers at least four times per season, distributing the procedures according to the stages of plant development.
- The 1st feeding of cucumbers with infusion must be done even before transplanting the seedlings into the ground, at the stage of releasing the fifth true leaf of small seedlings;
- 2nd feeding of cucumbers is necessary after planting in a permanent place, during the formation of fruit inflorescences;
- 3rd and 4th feeding of cucumbers with infusion of bread is done during fruiting.
If the cultivation of cucumbers takes place in greenhouse conditions, then the soil must be fertilized with any organic fertilizer before replanting the plants. The soil should be well-fed and rested, then the first direct feeding of cucumbers in the greenhouse with bread will not harm the plants and will not greatly affect the acid level of the soil.
It is advisable to carry out preliminary organic soil feeding using bird droppings diluted in water at the rate of 1 part organic matter to 15 parts of water. With this mixture, you can water the soil abundantly, and after a few days, thoroughly loosen it.
If, in this case, you want to apply fertilizer from bread, then it should be a leaven not too saturated with yeast from 1 part of bread, 5 parts of herbal gruel and 15 parts of water.
If the hostess soaked bread without an herbal component, instead of water, you can use weak herbal decoctions with the addition of ash, while ash can be added to the soaked bread.
Reviews of the owners of summer cottages confirm that root dressing with bread, carried out twice - first at the stage of the beginning of fruiting and later on the formation of full-fledged cucumbers, helps to avoid curvature and yellowing of the fruits on the bush, which will already speak of a high-quality harvest.
For some reason, bread often remains, and feeding them cucumbers means not letting it go to waste. It’s customary in our family - we don’t throw away bread. But just such a top dressing is not enough for a good harvest. We are still using the remedy in the garden BioGrow.