Forcing Onions, Growing Celery And Parsnips

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

Small secrets of a large harvest from Luiza Nilovna Klimtseva

Forcing onions on a feather

Do you want to get vitamin greens in winter? There are many recommendations in various publications on how to do this, but they do not always take into account the peculiarities of the bow. For example, let's say you bought grocery onions at a store. It is beautiful, clean, not sprouted. However, it was stored in warehouses at a low temperature of -1 … -3 ° C. You brought him into the apartment, and he will begin to wake up warm without looking back at the moon.

This is the kind of bow that should be used for forcing on the feather.

Second option. You planted onion sets before winter and got a harvest of large bulbs in July. It must be remembered that such an onion cannot be stored for a long time in an apartment - by the New Year it will begin to sprout. And then the leftover onions that you did not use for culinary purposes can be planted to get green onions in winter.

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If the hostess does not want to tinker with the land in December-January, a feather can be obtained by planting the bulb in the water. True, in this case, the harvest will be more modest than in the soil. I do this: I select small glass jars for planting, pour water into them along the very edges, put an onion on the neck - its bottom slightly touches the water. And this is enough to wake up the roots of the bulb. The roots will begin to grow, a green feather will appear, and the bulb will not rot.

Houseplant pests

Do not bring peppers, geraniums and other plants from your summer cottage home with an earthen clod. Together with them, you can bring aphids, whiteflies, ticks into the room. And then in the spring, all these pests can appear on the seedlings.

In addition to the named pests, houseplants are greatly annoyed by scale insects, ticks, thrips. Therefore, in January and February, while you are not yet engaged in seedlings, inspect indoor plants: are there any pests on them?

I can tell you a proven recipe for fighting the scabbard: dissolve a little laundry soap in one liter of water, add two tablespoons of alcohol. Treat indoor plants affected by the pest with this solution four times at weekly intervals. Alas, this composition does not work on spider mites.

Rodent protection

Usually, experts recommend doing snow retention in the orchard in December-January. I believe that it will not be superfluous to do this in February as well. Snow should be trampled around the trunks - mice are reluctant to go into dense snow, there will be no damage to the bark, especially of young trees.

Sometimes it is recommended to trample the snow in March-April. By doing this, you, allegedly, will delay the flowering of fruit crops, and they will not fall under frost. This is not true, since when the warmth comes, the branches of trees, having food reserves since last year, will begin to grow, buds swell on them, and you “froze” the roots, as a result the tree weakens. Worse flowering, weaker leaves unfold. Such trees are overcome by pests, which then have to be dealt with.

But the higher up the tree trunk you throw snow in winter, the less sunburn you will have. And I will never shovel snow from the trunk circle, this will expose the roots, they can freeze slightly.

At the same time, carefully examine all the fruit plants. Nests of wintering pests and mummified fruits are clearly visible on bare branches in winter. All this must be plucked, cut off and burned.

What is the time to sow?

Each gardener can calculate the sowing time by himself. Even in the same gardening, soil can be ready at different times. For example, our plot and the plots of our nearest neighbors are in the lowest place, therefore, after the snow melts, water leaves us by May 1, and the upper gardening plots are already ready for planting for a long time. As they say, they already wear slippers there.

Let's see how to calculate the sowing time using leeks as an example. Now the growing season is written on the seed bags, and this is very convenient for us, since the same crop has many varieties, and they have different growing times.

For example, my favorite variety of leek, Elephant, has a growing season of 120-140 days from planting seedlings, and I plant it in the garden after June 10. This means that he will be ready for cleaning, i.e. will ripen by October 10 or even by the end of this month. Seedlings are prepared in 45-50 days. It turns out that the sowing time for this variety is about April 10. And most gardeners sow seeds in February or early March.

Leek varieties Karantansky. He has a growing season of 180-200 days from germination to harvesting. By the way, the Elephant variety has the same period from germination to harvesting (seedlings 50-60 days + 120-140 days from disembarkation).

Kilima leek. He has 126-146 days from germination to harvesting. This is a mid-early variety. If it is sown for seedlings at the end of February, then by the end of July it will be ready. This does not suit me, since in August it is not yet needed, it is not stored, but you cannot eat everything right away … If you overexpose it in the garden in August-September, then little will remain of it: green leaves will dry out, wilted, bleached some will also dry up, and if you try to water abundantly, it will turn into color. Therefore, I will sow this variety in April on a compost heap.

Gulliver leek. From germination to harvest 110-150 days. I still have the inscription on my seed bag: "Sowing in a plastic cup on March 24, 2013". In the apartment I sow leeks so that I can immediately plant them in the ground without picking. I take a glass higher, immediately to the window, temperature + 12 … + 13 ° С, sun. If the soil is "Living Earth", then without top dressing. I bring it to the site on April 18-20, a glass with seedlings is on the veranda, I don't bring it into the heat. On a bag of seeds it is written: "Plant height 40-50 cm", but in 2013 this leek was up to 150 cm high, thick as a forest, the cat loved to sleep in this garden bed during the day, because there was a shadow on the soil there.

In 2014, she sowed a leek of the Elephant MS variety - it turned out to be some kind of rickety. Twenty years ago there was the Elephant variety (elephant). So it was a real "elephant" - a giant bow. Either the seeds are now different, or in 2013 - in the year of the moon - the vegetables were all gigantic, and in 2014 - in the year of Saturn - some vegetables did not work out. Alas, we do not know everything yet.

Celery Secrets

It is often recommended to soak or wash small vegetable seeds (carrots, celery, parsnips, parsley, etc.) in water. You don't have to do this, extra work. Small seeds, for example, celery, should be sown in very damp ground, without sprinkling them with earth, covered with foil and put in a bright place. I put it on the windowsill near the glass itself, where the temperature at night is + 12oС, during the day + 20 ° С.

The sowing time must also be selected so that the seedlings are ready by the time they are planted in the ground. Root celery can be sown in early March, leaf celery in late March. There are varieties of leaf celery that are ready to be cut in 60 days, and there are varieties that are ready to be cut in 100 days.

Root celery is ready in 180 days, and there are earlier varieties in 150 days.

I sometimes sow leaf celery in mid-April on a compost heap. The leaves of the plant from this sowing grow well by August, and in September they become especially beautiful and powerful. I leave the site in mid-October, and then the neighbors come and chop my celery greens into armfuls. All that remains of such plants goes into winter, and greens still grow in spring. But from plants of early sowing, greens grow weak in spring.

Grow parsnips

Unfortunately, very little is being grown so far. In fact, it doesn't require a lot of care when leaving. Those who would like to use it in many dishes may well sow the parsnips in the open ground with seeds (not necessarily rinsed). This should be done as early as possible in damp earth. The emerging seedlings must be thinned out. When thinning, the removed plants should not be thrown away, they can be transplanted to another place - they easily take root.

When I harvest the grown parsnip crop, I definitely leave 1-2 plants in the garden. In the spring they form a good rosette of leaves, then drive out the peduncles. It turns out a huge plant with large caps of umbrella flowers. In summer, thousands of small insects (useful) that are needed on the site are circling over these umbrellas. Seeds ripen by September. I take umbrellas and shake them in different parts of the garden. The next spring, the sprinkled seeds sprout. It turns out ready-made seedlings. I place it where I need it, or give it to neighbors. And so it turns out from year to year.

Time-tested recipes

There is a proven way of fighting fungal diseases of seedlings for decades. Pour 1 glass of skim milk into a liter jar, top up the jar with warm water to the top and add 2-3 drops of iodine there. Stir everything thoroughly and sprinkle the seedlings with this solution. Treat the leaves above and below and the soil around the plants.

There is also a way proven over the years to help seedlings to cope with stress - the treatment of plants with homeopathic preparations. For a liter of water, take two peas of the "Healthy Garden" preparation and 2 peas of "Ecoberin". It is not necessary to stir this solution, but to shake the jar until the granules dissolve, and try to do this with good mood, since the water will convey this mood to the plants.

The first time I spray the seedlings on the eve of leaving for the country, and the second - before planting in the ground. You can do this more often, it all depends on the circumstances. After planting seedlings in the ground, after a while there are sharp cold snaps, up to frost. At this time we try to wrap up the plants, cover them with something. Then, it happens, the heat suddenly sets in. At this time, you can also spray the seedlings with these drugs, they help to transfer stress. This has been proven by scientists, and we have seen it in practice.

Both fruit trees and berry bushes can also be sprayed with the same homeopathic remedies. For a liter of water, two peas of each drug. Also shake the jar until these peas are completely dissolved.

Process for the first time when the leaves begin to unfold, the second time - immediately after flowering. Can be processed a third time. But there must be a system, i.e. do such spraying from year to year. I have treated my garden in this way for twenty years, and there were no big problems with diseases and pests in it. But for the last two years I have not been able to cultivate the garden, and this is the result: little scab appeared on the leaves of apple trees, powdery mildew, aphids, etc. on the berry fields. Scientists have tested the effect of these drugs on different types of plants, and I have been observing for two decades and I can say that the result was excellent.

Luiza Klimtseva, experienced gardener