The main task of gardeners when growing tomatoes is to get a high yield of tasty vegetables. Watering with yeast is one of the original ways to achieve this goal. Let’s consider how to water tomatoes with yeast correctly in order to get a good harvest and not harm the plants.
Why yeast to tomatoes?
Yeast is a single-celled fungus with a high protein content. This is a natural product, which contains many useful micro- and macroelements, vitamins, amino acids and various minerals.
Yeast is used as a fertilizer for a large group of cultivated plants. In addition to tomatoes, such nutrition will be appreciated by carrots, potatoes, radishes, peppers and cucumbers. When watering tomatoes with yeast, beneficial microorganisms enter the soil. As a result of chemical reactions, the composition of the soil changes, it is saturated with oxygen and useful substances.
Tomato bushes respond positively to this type of fertilizer:
- the resistance of seedlings to diseases and adverse growing conditions, for example, to sharp temperature changes, increases;
- plant immunity improves;
- seedlings are pulled out less due to lack of sunlight;
- the root system increases its growth, becomes stronger and branched;
- tomatoes actively increase vegetative mass;
- more ovaries and fruits appear on strong bushes with a powerful stem.
Tomatoes are watered with yeast both in the open ground and in greenhouses. The difference in the appearance of tomatoes can be easily noticed if part of the seedlings is watered with ordinary water, and part – with yeast feeding. Already a couple of days after watering the plants with such fertilizer, the leaves become more shiny, vegetables increase the growth rate.
Such fertilizers were used as early as the seventies of the last century, but later they were replaced by synthetic means for complex fertilizers. Watering tomatoes with yeast is an opportunity to introduce organic farming into the farm. In such nutrition, there are no poisonous substances that get to our table during the use of chemical preparations. We get an ecologically clean and useful product.
Thanks to yeast, organic substances decompose faster in the soil, the microflora of the soil improves. This is a fairly economical and very effective way to improve the yield of tomatoes. It is easy to make a useful mixture for plants at home, and the result of such additional nutrition exceeds expectations.
How to make top dressing from yeast?
Both dry and live yeast are used to prepare healing fertilizer. There are several main types of such nutrition.
- Standard solution.
Dilute a 10-gram packet of dry yeast in 10 liters of water, add a spoonful of sugar, mix and insist. Before use, the mixture is diluted with water (5 parts of water are taken for 1 part of fertilizer).
- Fertilizer with nettle.
Some gardeners add chicken droppings, wood ash or grass to the solution. Yeast solution in combination with ash and nettle solution is considered to be a particularly effective remedy. 10 g of dry yeast and 100 g of sugar are mixed in 3 liters of warm settled water. Nettle infusion should be prepared separately. After a week of fermentation, combine the yeast mixture with nettle infusion in equal proportions, add about 150 g of wood ash. Water at the rate of half a liter of mixture per plant.
- Combination of fertilizers.
A 10-gram bag of dry yeast, 5 tablespoons of sugar and 0.5 liters of chicken droppings and wood ash are added to 10 liters of water. The mixture is infused, diluted with water 1:10 before use. Such a solution will help replenish potassium reserves that are lost during yeast fermentation.
- Mixture based on “live” yeast.
5 liters of water are taken to make the solution. The liquid must be warm to start the process of activation of living microorganisms. It is diluted with a kilogram of pressed yeast. The mixture, infused for a day, is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10 and irrigation is carried out.
- A solution for activating fermentation in compost heaps.
To do this, 1 kg of “live” yeast is diluted in a bucket of warm water together with “Fitosporin”. After a few days, organic waste is watered with a solution with signs of fermentation. Such a mixture is prepared several times per season, and tomato bushes are fertilized with the resulting humus.
Advice ! The amount of mixture for watering one tomato bush is changed depending on the age of the seedlings. For young plants, 0.5 liters of ready-made fertilizer is enough, adult specimens will need at least 2 liters of solution.
How to make natural leaven?
As raw materials for yeast supplements, summer residents use various products with yeast, for example, flour products or beer. Such a replacement is not always advisable, it is much cheaper to use ready-made recipes based on dry or pressed yeast. However, if you wish, you can prepare natural yeast yourself by making sourdough from wheat grains, bread or cones.
- Fertilizer from black rye bread.
Put the remains of rye bread in a bowl and fill it completely with water. The mixture is infused in the heat for about a week. Before watering, dilute with water in a ratio of 1:3.
- Wheat sourdough.
Soak a glass of wheat. After a day, the grains are ground. Pour two spoons of flour and sugar into the resulting porridge. The mixture is boiled for about 20 minutes on low heat. Before using the leaven, keep it warm for a day so that the mass ferments.
- Hop infusion.
Both dry and fresh cones are suitable for cooking. A glass of the product is boiled for an hour, allowed to cool and filtered. Add two spoons of sugar to 4 spoons of flour. Insist two days in the heat. Then it is mixed with two boiled potatoes, kept for a day before use.
- Mixed starter.
Combine a packet of yeast with a glass of ash in a bucket of warm water. Bread crusts, sour milk, remnants of old, unnecessary jam are added to the mixture so that the warm liquid covers the products completely. The mass is left to ferment in a warm place for a week. The mixture is stirred several times a day, after seven days the natural leaven is used to water the tomatoes.
When to carry out yeast feeding?
Spring and early summer are the most favorable periods for fertilizing tomatoes in this way. The first watering of tomatoes with yeast is carried out 1-2 weeks after the young seedlings have taken root. Fertilize a second time during flowering and ovary formation.
Advice ! It is not recommended to use yeast feeding more than three times per season. The protein base of such fertilizer can cause the appearance of a large number of parasites in the soil. Yeast absorbs a large amount of potassium and calcium from the soil, so it is recommended to combine such feeding with the introduction of wood ash into the soil.
For the effectiveness of watering tomatoes with yeast, simple rules should be followed.
- Before applying yeast fertilizer, the soil is irrigated with settled water and loosened. The soil should be moderately moist, not dry or wet.
- It is not possible to fertilize with a cold solution, it must be at room temperature.
- Moisturizing with yeast feeding is carried out from the end of May. The ground should be well warmed up during watering. At the beginning of spring, the soil is quite cold, active fermentation will not occur in such soil, the effectiveness of the procedure will decrease significantly.
- Fertilizer is applied under the root. It is necessary to avoid getting the mixture on the ground part of the tomato bushes.
- Yeast feeding can be used for weakened and diseased tomatoes.
- Watering is not carried out in the hot lunch time. The best time is the evening after sunset.
- Yeast fertilizers should not be overused, they should be watered with a freshly prepared solution.
Yeast is an excellent natural stimulator of tomato growth. With correct and timely application, tomatoes will definitely thank you for feeding with a good harvest.