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Home-grown tomatoes and cucumbers are the pride of every gardener, but they are often threatened by various diseases or pests. Use chemicals? None of the growers really wants to use them on their own produce, but how else to deal with these problems when gardening? The solution is an effective and, above all, ecological mixture that will prevent vegetables from being spoiled by disease or pests. The reward will be excellent chemically untreated tomatoes and cucumbers in the prepared vegetable salad.
Ingredients for the treatment mixture
What will you need to prepare the plant treatment mixture? Prepare:
- 4 l of water,
- 15 tablespoons of sugar,
- 15 g of dried yeast.
Preparation of the mixture to protect vegetables
Heat the water to about 38 °C and put it into a container with a capacity of at least 10 liters. Add all the sugar and the prepared yeast to the water and stir well. The container must be large enough, because during fermentation a smaller container may overflow. Let it ferment for 5 hours, ideally overnight, and stir again. Then add another 6 liters of clean water and mix with the mixture. Then pour into a watering can or sprayer and you can start treating the cucumber and tomato plants.
Dosage
How to use the spray? Cucumbers should be treated with this spray every 10-12 days, tomatoes every 15 days. The solution can also be used on other vegetables. Allow one liter of the mixture per plant, and don’t forget to spray the leaves as well. For those, choose the evening hours so the sun and sun rays don’t burn them. After proper treatment, the plants should not be damaged by diseases or pests.
Mechanical protection of plants
Plants, especially seedlings, should also be protected from being eaten by slugs and snails by creating paths of coffee grounds, sawdust or crushed eggshells between the seedlings. Terrestrial gastropods also dislike sand with coarse particles. It is also suitable to plant thyme, marjoram or garlic between tomatoes and cucumbers. Prepare for inchworms already in the autumn by wrapping adhesive tape around the trunk of a tree and leave it at the base of the tree from September until March, when you can safely remove it. The garden will be perfectly cleaned of pests.
