How To Grow Wild Garlic

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

Cultivation techniques and medicinal properties of wild garlic

Ramsons, or bear onions, or wild garlic, or kalba (Allium ursínum) are still rare in culture.

It appears in our markets in May, and many, yearning for fresh greens for the winter, willingly buy its tender, tasty leaves with a slight garlic aroma.

Fresh leaves and stems of wild garlic (harvested before flowering) are most often used raw and added to a wide variety of salads, vinaigrette, snacks and sauces. Very tasty early spring cabbage soup and soups are also cooked from wild garlic, add it to a variety of meat dishes during the cooking process. For example, dumplings or cutlets with wild garlic will acquire a more piquant taste, while wild game stewed with wild garlic will be more tender and soft. Stuffed with wild garlic and pies.

Gardener's Handbook

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

But dry leaves no longer have a very pleasant aroma, but they still taste good, and therefore they are also used in cooking, but in small quantities, grinding and using as a spice. Fresh leaves are perfectly stored frozen, you can also salt or ferment them. In addition, wild garlic is an excellent preservative: its crushed or finely chopped onions and leaves protect the meat from rapid deterioration.

About the benefits of wild garlic

Ramson quickly relieves spring fatigue, drowsiness, high blood pressure and intestinal disorders, and in its phytoncidal properties, it even surpasses garlic. And the vitamin C in wild garlic is 10-15 times more than in lemon or orange fruits and three times more than in green onions. By the way, according to scientific data, in wild garlic grown in the garden, the content of ascorbic acid doubles.

Ramson is used as a blood purifier for boils and skin rashes. It heals wounds, relieves itchy legs, weakened age spots on the skin, and delay baldness. In folk medicine, wild garlic is used to treat scurvy and atherosclerosis.

And its anti-scurvy and tonic properties have even gone down in history. For example, the participants of the first Kamchatka expedition used wild garlic from severe scurvy: “The Cossacks set off to eat it with great greed… two weeks later… they completely recovered”.

An aqueous infusion of leaves is drunk for colds, malaria, exhaustion, diseases of the stomach and intestines, and the absence of menstruation. Raw wild garlic is eaten for atherosclerosis, poor eyesight and worms. Alcohol tincture of bulbs and herbs is recommended for colds and as rubbing in for rheumatism. Purulent inflammation of the ears is treated with juice.

In the literature, there is also a healer's recipe with the addition of wild garlic for the prevention of aging. It is necessary to mix equally the tincture of wild garlic leaves, alfalfa herb and ginger rhizomes. To obtain tinctures, pour the crushed raw materials with alcohol so that the top is 2-3 cm, leave for 10-12 days in a dark place at room temperature. Drink the resulting mixture 50-70 drops three times a day 20-30 minutes before meals.

And it is especially highly valued as an early vitamin food plant. But you can not abuse it, the daily rate of wild garlic should not be more than 15-20 large leaves. It is believed that with high doses, an exacerbation of ulcers can occur, insomnia and headache appear.

Notice board

Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

Features of agricultural technology of wild garlic

Reproduction

Ramson reproduces both by seeds and vegetatively. Both methods have their drawbacks. Seeds do not germinate well and require mandatory stratification within 100 days, at least at a temperature of 0 ° C. All this time they are kept in wet sand, moss or peat at temperatures from 0 to + 3 ° C. And the seeds, stored at high room temperature and sown in the spring, sprout generally only after a year. And wild garlic seeds lose their germination very quickly.

In addition to everything, very few of them are formed on the plant. Seeds are sown to a depth of 2-3 cm. Without stratification, seedlings appear only in the second year after sowing, with stratification - in the first. In May, they give two leaves, in June, growth stops, and by the fall the awl leaves are formed. Only in the third year do the plants branch out and bloom in the fourth year. Considering that few seeds are formed, it is better to sow stratified seeds on seedlings so that not a single seed is lost.

Wild garlic blooms in late May, and the seeds ripen in July. You need to collect them in a timely manner, otherwise they crumble.

Therefore, vegetative propagation of wild garlic is easier - by planting bulbs, but the breeding rate of bulbs is small - every year only 1-2 new daughter bulbs grow from one. The bulbs are planted shallowly, so that the reticulum surrounding the bulb is visible from the ground. The distance between the bulbs of 35-40 cm will allow growing wild garlic in one place without transplanting for 4-5 years, until the plantings become thickened. The best time to transplant bulbs is during a dormant period. In wild garlic, it lasts from July to September, then roots begin to grow and the rudiments of new bulbs develop.

Plot for wild garlic

Since wild garlic is a beautiful perennial ornamental plant, it is quite possible to grow it in spring flower beds, although any semi-shady area is well suited for it, for example, somewhere in the shade of trees.

True, this does not mean at all that wild garlic does not like the sun. It's just that its growing season ends early, at about the same time as the intense leafing of the trees. In summer (i.e., during the dormant period), in the shade under the trees, its bulbs will be reliably protected from overheating and drying out. Moreover, the benefit here is mutual: due to the high phytoncidal activity of wild garlic, it has the ability to scare off garden pests, and its area will be used more rationally.

Ramson prefers …

1.

It is very winter-hardy, but it should be borne in mind that in natural conditions in winter wild garlic is covered with a thick layer of snow. With a small snow cover, apparently, a light cover of leaves, straw, spruce branches will not hurt, however, we always have more than enough snow, so there is no such problem.

2. Prefers

nutritious, humus-fertilized and very loose soil.

3.

Loves water very much- the soil should always be moist, but in no case should it be flooded with melt water. According to the literature, wild garlic can also grow on soils with a close standing of groundwater, but in this case, a good subsoil drainage of sand, fine gravel, pebbles should be made in the beds, while raising the soil to the highest possible height. During the entire active growing season (before shooting), wild garlic requires abundant watering, which must be stopped or shine to a minimum during the dormant period.

4. Requires

early spring, directly on the snow, nitrogen fertilization. The next top dressing (phosphorus-potassium) must be given in the shooting phase for better seed maturation and the formation of new bulbs.

Development calendar

The growing season for wild garlic is very short. Leaves grow back immediately after the snow melts. You can start cutting wild garlic after the snow melts and until the seeds reach milky-wax ripeness. By the way, wild garlic arrows are tastier than leaves and marinate perfectly. The continuous collection of wild garlic is not recommended, so as not to lose this wonderful plant.

The arrow appears in early June and blooms in the middle of this month. The growing season ends in early August - at this time the leaves of wild garlic begin to turn yellow and dry out. There is no secondary regrowth.

Read the next part. Recipes with wild garlic →

Svetlana Shlyakhtina, Yekaterinburg