Feeding cucumbers with bread infusion: how to make and properly fertilize

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 additionally - it is enough not to throw bread leftovers into the trash during one cold season, but to dry them and put them away for 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 goes by the wayside, and the living microflora present in any yeast derivative.During the fermentation of bread, the bacteria in the top dressing multiply at a high speed and at the time the sourdough is introduced into the soil, a small volume of nutritious bread mixture already contains a huge voracious colony of microorganisms.

Mixed with the soil, all this endlessly consuming and rapidly growing fungal environment of sourdough begins to intensively process organic particles present in the ground, left over from past fertilizers - manure, grass chaff 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 growth and development of the root system.

By increasing the circulation of nutrients to the roots of cucumber seedlings, the vegetative period of cucumbers comes faster, and the harvest moves a few days earlier. Bread fertilizer promotes the formation of full-fledged fruit flowers, giving ovaries of cucumbers with dense pulp.

Thanks to the leaven for feeding cucumbers, it is possible to "revive" and pull up to the general level even weak, non-viable seedlings.

Preparation of sourdough

To prepare bread dressing for cucumbers, you will need pieces of dried bread crushed in your hands. Traditionally, black and bran crackers are used for sourdough, but the presence of white slices of bread will not spoil the top dressing. Also, spoiled bread crusts with traces of mold should not be thrown away - 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.

Bread is poured with slightly warm tap water from above, all the sourdough is thoroughly mixed and pressed down with oppression. A bucket of crusts should be taken away from the living quarters, as during the fermentation process, the sourdough will begin to emit a sharp aroma that most people do not like.Ideally, you would 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 a strong foam rearing 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 sourdough will ferment faster.

Bread top dressing, prepared according to the following recipe, can be applied to the soil every 15 days, starting from the day the first flowers open and up to the full harvest of cucumbers. For the infusion, you will need a 100-liter iron barrel, on the bottom of which at least 4 kilograms of cut weed grass (necessarily fresh) is poured out, then the cavity is replenished with 1-1.5 kilograms of black bread crusts, a half-kilogram briquette of fresh yeast, ground in hands to large crumbs and 300 g ash. The whole mass is well mixed and filled with water up to ¾ of the volume of the container.Now the starter 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 five times as much.

Feeding for cucumbers from black bread and iodine is an old proven method for greenhouse seedlings. The starter preparation must be purchased in the smallest, 30 ml bottle, otherwise there will be a risk of burning tender plants and nullifying all efforts. So, all you need is:

iodine vial;
1.5 buckets of water;
a loaf of brown bread cut into pieces and aged for about a week.

You need to soak all the bread overnight, and in the morning stir it intensively with iodine until a homogeneous slurry is formed. This filtered iodine solution is used not only for root dressing, but also for disinfecting cucumber leaves as a prophylaxis against insects.In this case, it is better to try the irrigation option. Store bread infusion should be poured into dark bottles in a cool place. There is one more secret using iodine - you can simply pour it into small bowls and place it 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. The “nose” of the watering can to the very root of the cucumber seedlings, water each seedling with at least half a liter of bread liquid.

You need to be careful not to overdo it with sourdough 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 cucumbers at least four times per season, distributing procedures according to the stages of plant development.

The 1st feeding of cucumbers with infusion should be done even before transplanting seedlings into the ground, at the stage of releasing the fifth real leaf of small seedlings;
2nd top dressing of cucumbers is necessary after planting in a permanent place, during the formation of fruit inflorescences;
3rd and 4th dressing of cucumbers with infusion of bread is done during fruiting.

If cucumbers are grown in greenhouse conditions, then the soil must be fertilized with any organic fertilizer before transplanting 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.

Preliminary organic top dressing of the soil is desirable to be carried out using bird droppings diluted in water at the rate of 1 part of organic matter per 15 parts of water. With this mixture, you can water the soil abundantly, and after a few days make a thorough loosening.

If, in this case, you want to apply fertilizer from bread, then it should not be too saturated with yeast sourdough from 1 part bread, 5 parts herbal gruel and 15 parts water.

If the hostess soaked the bread without the herbal component, instead of water, you can use weak herbal decoctions with the addition of ash, while the ash can also 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 - to form full-fledged cucumbers, helps to avoid curvature and yellowing of the fruit on the bush, which will already speak of a quality crop.