Using ammonia for cabbage

Aqueous ammonia solution is popularly known as ammonia and has long been used in everyday life for various purposes. With the help of ammonia, you can revive a person who has lost consciousness, as well as clean some types of stains on clothes and shoes, or wash glass surfaces to a shine.

The characteristic smell is remembered for its harshness, and you can buy the product at any pharmacy, where it is sold in small tinted glass bottles.

The work of a gardener is associated with many concerns, including protecting plants from a huge number of pests. Only on one cabbage there are several varieties that want to feast on delicate and tasty leaves. Many household lovers prefer to use sparing agents for spraying that are not associated with potent toxic substances. These include ammonia. Even diluted with water, ammonia repels numerous pests with a pungent odor, and the nitrogen contained in it is easily absorbed by plant leaves.

The unpleasant smell of ammonia disappears over time, but it brings a lot of benefits. Lack of nitrogen fertilizers leads to poor growth of white cabbage varieties, drying out and yellowing of leaves on heads of cabbage. Traditionally, in large-scale farms, aqueous solutions of ammonium nitrate, urea or ammonium sulfate were used to grow cabbage on an industrial scale, but ammonia largely outperforms all of these products in terms of its high nitrogen content. For the safe use of an active and potent substance, it is necessary to dilute it with water, since the excess content of the chemical is just as dangerous as its lack.

Any home medicine cabinet can contain an ammonia solution, which is used for medical purposes to restore the condition of a person who has suffered from sun or heat stroke. An alcoholic solution of ammonia is useful if traces of eaten holes, slugs or gray aphids are found on the cabbage leaves. At the same time, we must not forget that any folk remedy needs the correct dosage and careful handling. Ammonia is a toxic drug in high concentration, so its use requires attention and compliance with chemical safety rules.

To use a home remedy like ammonia, simple conditions are required.

• When preparing a solution for watering or spraying, it is important to observe the proportions, in order to avoid troubles due to too high or low concentration of the active substance.
• Any spraying of plants on a hot day can cause leaf burns, therefore, you can water and process cabbage in the morning or evening.
• Ammonium should be diluted in water according to the proposed recipe and spray the leaves from the back, in the root zone. The frequency of treatments should be once every 2 weeks.
• For personal safety, it is necessary to dilute the solution in a ventilated room or outdoors, and when watering, use a respirator, since the rapid evaporation of alcoholic substances of ammonia fertilizer can cause poisoning of a person with toxins.

Periodic feeding of cabbage with ammonia gives this type of garden crops the necessary substances for normal growth and development. In cases where the heads of cabbage look dull and grow poorly, the ammonia deficiency can be replenished with an aqueous solution of ammonia. In the first half of the season, when the plant is especially actively increasing the green mass, ammonia fertilizer can be applied once every 7-10 days during a month. To prepare a working solution of the desired concentration, it is necessary to use 3 tablespoons of medical ammonia per 10 liters of clean water. Fertilizer is usually applied on a previously watered soil.

To grow a good harvest of cabbage in garden beds, it is necessary to properly process it with solutions prepared according to well-known and proven recipes. Nitrogen substances are necessary for plant growth in the initial phase of leaf growth, and then they can be sprayed with them as methods of combating numerous pests, among which cabbage butterflies or whiteworms, slugs, aphids, scoops, cabbage moths and cruciferous fleas are found on cabbage. All these pests, gaining unhindered access to a rich food base, begin to multiply very quickly and bring very tangible damage to the economy. In addition, some of them, attracted by the tasty cabbage leaves, easily transfer to other related crops growing in garden plots.

Periodic spraying of cabbage in order to protect and feed is carried out even at the stage of seedling emergence in a greenhouse. Such a treatment with diluted water with ammonia can be alternated with other compositions, and also combined with various additives, for example, vinegar, iodine, laundry soap and wood ash.

Snails and slugs appear in garden beds in high humidity conditions. They are especially active at night, after rains or during periods of heavy dew. Cool and humid air encourages snails to hunt for the tender green leaves of young cabbage. In addition, they are attracted by the low growth of spreading lower leaves, under which moisture remains for a long time, and they can hide from the sun, while feeding on cabbage. They cause serious damage to plants, which become not only unfit for human consumption, but can even completely die.

With such invasions of slugs, the presence of ammonia on the farm may be especially useful. For spraying, you should prepare a spray, a 40 ml jar of ammonia and 6 liters of clean water. It is necessary to spray the root areas and the lower part of the leaves, under which the pests take refuge. It is necessary to repeat the treatment after 30-40 minutes, and the snails will immediately begin to crawl out from under the cabbage bushes. During this time, they can be easily collected and removed outside the garden. Such a simple method, harmless to soil and plants, helps to scare away snails and similar creatures from cabbage for a long time.

Aphids can be found on many garden and vegetable garden plants. It feeds on ants that infect the most succulent crops and then harvest. Ornamental, fruit and vegetable plants, as a result of aphid infestation, first lose their presentable appearance, and then dry out completely, having lost a large amount of vital juices.After being infected with aphids, the cabbage is first covered with gluttonous insects, then its leaves dry out, and the formation of the head of cabbage is disturbed.

Gardeners have long been using many folk methods to combat cabbage aphids. Among them, spraying with vinegar and soap solutions, but the most effective, in comparison with others, is ammonia diluted in water. For better retention of the solution on the leaves, laundry soap is added to it. The composition for spraying is prepared as follows:

• a piece of soap is rubbed on a coarse grater and diluted in warm water;
• the soap solution is brought to a volume of 10 liters;
• 3 tablespoons of ammonia are added to a bucket of warm soapy water.

Immediately after the preparation of the composition for spraying, the appropriate work is carried out in the garden. Soap has an additional disinfecting effect, and also creates a protective film on the surface of the leaves, prolonging the effect of other drugs. As a result, plants for a long time are inaccessible for infection by aphids, which are repelled by ammonia.

Adult butterflies are not dangerous to plants, but they fly over cabbage beds that attract them in order to lay eggs in heads of cabbage. The offspring of white butterflies, which appeared on cabbage, are hordes of green voracious caterpillars that leave holes in the plants, the leaves become openwork and dry out. It is important to get rid of such pests, since 3 generations of cabbage butterflies per season can attack one planting.

In the fight against butterflies, a solution of ammonia will also help, which repels insects with a sharp and unpleasant odor for them. To prepare the composition, the following recipe is used:

• ammonia - 50 ml;
• concentrated table vinegar - 3 tablespoons;
• clean water - 10 liters.

One of the most unpleasant pests in the garden is the cabbage bear. It feeds not only on the roots and stem of cabbage, but also on the larvae of insects that live on plants.... It can be quite difficult to get rid of this pest, since the bear lives in the upper layer of the soil and is difficult to detect. The presence of an insect is detected when the seedlings and adult plants, intact and intact, suddenly dry out.

You can also get rid of the bear with the help of a solution of ammonia in water, but in this case, only 10 ml of ammonia concentrate is required for 10 liters of water... This mixture can be poured half a liter under each cabbage bush. You can repeat watering with ammonia in a week. It can be difficult to free the vegetable garden from the cabbage bear, since its larvae can live in the soil for about 2 years and bring a lot of losses during their growth.

Leafy fleas settle on cabbage leaves and feed on cabbage juices. Twisted leaves of seedlings and adult heads of cabbage become characteristic signs of plant infection with a cruciferous flea... In addition to spraying the crop, many gardeners successfully use ropes or ribbons from old cloth soaked in ammonia to protect against cabbage flea beetles. The strong smell of ammonia repels many types of harmful insects.

If the plants are already infected with a flea, then they can be sprayed with an aqueous solution, which is prepared from 50 ml of ammonia per 10 liters of water. Such a powerful preparation reliably protects cabbage from pests, while fertilizing plants with nitrogen. This recipe can be used for different varieties of cabbage: Peking cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and others.

An inexpensive and effective drug is a completely safe substance, but in high concentrations it can cause not only burns of mucous membranes in humans, but also infect delicate cabbage leaves. That's why it is necessary to work with him in gloves and a respirator, diluting with water to the desired proportions.

In case of contact with eyes, rinse immediately with plenty of water. The use of ammonia for the cultivation of cabbage gives a positive result within 5-6 days, when the plants begin to grow in front of our eyes and change their faded color to a healthy one.