Secrets Of Growing White Giants

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

How to grow a twenty-kilogram head of cabbage

Record head of cabbage grown by A. G. Ladukhin

After gardeners and all guests of the festival were able to see almost a pound head of cabbage at the festival "Golden Harvest - 2006" in October such a giant, and suitable for salting?

The "author" of the record, Anatoly Georgievich Ladukhin, shares his secrets, who has been growing such giants at his summer cottage for several years now, surprising friends and acquaintances, and the head of cabbage presented at the holiday is not the largest of those grown by him. So, he has the floor.

Gardener's guide

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The popularity of cabbage among gardeners is very high, it is on a par with potatoes. A lot has been said and written about the benefits of this vegetable, its nutritional and healing properties. There is even more literature on the methods and technologies for growing cabbage. It is difficult to say something new here, but I will note a few requirements that must be followed.

You have decided to grow cabbage for specific purposes: early, late for storage, salad variety or pickling variety - based on these your desires, choose seeds. The choice, it must be admitted, is now huge.

I want to talk about how you can grow pood heads of cabbage with excellent taste, suitable for fermentation. For this purpose, I choose a hybrid of the Dutch breeding Megaton, tested over the years, whose heads grow up to 15-20 kilograms. But many other cabbage varieties and hybrids have similar potential.

The timing of sowing seedlings is very important, this cannot be neglected. This must be done before April 20 - this is a critical date, after which everything will work to reduce the result.

It is generally accepted that cabbage is a cold-loving plant and is not afraid of spring frosts. This is a deep misconception, cabbage loves warmth and, if present, actively develops. The optimum temperature for growth is 15 … 18 ° C. Cabbage can tolerate frosts only in autumn, when the head of cabbage is already formed.

I plant seedlings in prepared holes until May 15 under special mobile, tripod-based, film shelters for each plant (they look like triangular pyramids). These shelters are made of 20 x 20 mm wooden slats, connected at an angle and with a folding leg, are easy to install, and when they are no longer needed, they are stored folded and take up little space.

The future head of cabbage should be under cover for a month. In comfortable temperature conditions, the plant actively develops, it is not adversely affected by low night temperatures and, most importantly, it is inaccessible to pests under cover.

Removing shelters after three or four, or even five weeks later, you will not recognize those weak sprigs of seedlings that were planted in mid-May. They will develop into powerful rooted and developed plants with a great view of the harvest.

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Having removed the shelters, the soil under them must be loosened, and the plants slightly huddled. Watering until this time was carried out in the holes under the shelter. The first thing that will surprise and delight you after removing the shelter is not only the size, but also the purity of the plants: they were not touched by pests. Leave 2-3 plants nearby for control without cover and make sure of this.

We have set a goal - to grow large heads of cabbage, which means that when planting seedlings between plants, the distance should be 80x80 cm, even up to 1 meter, with a denser planting it is difficult for heads of cabbage to form, primarily due to lack of nutritional area. The amount of fertilization does not solve this problem. The feeding area is needed for the development of a powerful leaf apparatus; "solar cells" with a large, developed system of photosynthesis are needed. After all, this is a light-loving culture. The gardeners are well aware that cabbage is a moisture-loving plant that prefers loose, humus moisture-absorbing soils.

Loosening the soil until the leaves close can be 5-7 times. On acidic soils, cabbage cannot be harvested; neutral or slightly acidic soil is needed. This can be achieved by introducing lime, dolomite or ash, it is possible to locally introduce lime materials 10-15 days before planting the seedlings in place.

An important element of agricultural technology is the protection of cabbage from pests. I use only odorous plants to scare away insects, planting or scattering mint, dill, tobacco dust, etc. over the garden, I completely exclude the use of pesticides, I collect a few caterpillars by hand, To form a cabbage yield of 500-800 kg per hundred square meters, an intensive, comprehensive and balanced diet is needed. This culture, even on cultivated soils, responds well to the introduction of organic fertilizers. I use organic fertilizer "Bioton" or OMU "Universal", applying them when planting seedlings in the holes.

Cabbage is very demanding on nitrogen, potassium and calcium nutrition, therefore, for good growth and growing vegetative mass, it needs additional feeding. The first feeding I do after removing the film covers, using calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate, 10 g each per 10 liters of water.

In the future, for top dressing I use the complex fertilizer "Aquarin" for both root and foliar dressings. Their number depends on the condition of the plants, weather conditions. I usually do 2-3 root and several foliar dressings over the entire growing period.

I remove cabbage intended for pickling as late as possible, from such heads of cabbage I get especially tasty sauerkraut. And for fresh storage, I remove the heads of cabbage a little earlier, trying to keep the upper green leaves intact.

That's all the secrets, good luck to all gardeners!