Fragrant Lemongrass - Citronella

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

Growing and using citronella

Adult citronella plant

Citronella, lemongrass, lemongrass, cymbopogon, lemongrass, shuttlebeard - these are all names of the same tropical plant, which is considered to be its homeland in North Africa.

When I saw a bag with an unusual plant in the seed shop, I decided to try to grow it. The seeds were sown in early April (on the day of the leaf according to the lunar sowing calendar) in dead soil, consisting of a mixture of coconut substrate, vermiculite and river sand.

The seeds were spread out on the surface of the soil and lightly sprinkled with substrate. After sowing, I sprayed it with water from a spray bottle and placed the container with seeds in a plastic bag. I put the crops in a warm place - under the battery.

Seeds sprout pretty quickly - on the fourth day.

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Citronella has very interesting seedlings. She does not have the usual two cotyledonous leaves, like most plants, but one flat long leaf with a rounded end appears. And then leaves begin to appear, like sedge. After 10-14 days from dead soil, I planted young plants in a greenhouse made of cellular polycarbonate.

By this time, in such a loose soil in which I germinated the seeds, any plant will have a powerful root system, and there will be no diseases (such as a black leg), even if this soil is slightly poured. I do not recommend keeping seedlings in dead soil longer, otherwise any plant will stop growing, since it will not receive nutrients.

In the greenhouse, the plants grew rapidly. The soil is loose with a lot of organic matter (compost). Watered in sunny weather (the ground should always be wet). I fed them every 10-14 days with a solution consisting of a mixture of bird droppings, horse manure, sapropel and Extrasol. Such greenhouse conditions were ideal for citronella, and it grew not only upward, but also began to crawl in breadth.

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Lemongrass grows in bunches. Long underground shoots depart from the mother plant, on which first small bulbs (barely visible to the human eye) with roots form, and then leaves begin to grow. And if you do not follow citronella, then it will quickly fill all the free space in the greenhouse and interfere with other plants.

Lemongrass has narrow, long and very sharp leaves. You can cut yourself with them if you do not use gloves! There is no need to loosen the soil around the plants in order not to disturb the roots and underground shoots. I noticed that there are almost no weeds under this plant. Apparently, because its roots grow quickly, and weeds have no room for root growth.

By late autumn, a lot of young growth had grown around the mother plants. The question arose of wintering the plant. Many sources write that at temperatures below + 10 ° C, citronella leaves begin to die off, but this did not happen with my plants in late autumn! I decided to dig out part of the young growth and put it in flower pots, which I took home to the city, and leave part of the young growth in the greenhouse.

The old soil in the greenhouse was removed and replaced with a new one with a huge amount of compost. I planted young plants in new ridges, did not cover or mulch with anything.

I did not think that citronella could survive the winter of the Leningrad region, since it is a plant in the tropics. And what was my surprise when, having arrived at the dacha in mid-March, I saw live green plants! And this with a frosty and snowless winter! And only in the middle of March I was able to cover the ridges in the greenhouses with snow (when it finally fell). After the snow melted, citronella began to grow actively.

Citronella at home for the winter

I think that lemon sorghum can easily winter in our climate, provided that there is no winter soaking of plants during thaws. Therefore, when growing it as a perennial crop, it must be protected from rain from above. And since she liked the wintering in a polycarbonate greenhouse, then she needs to be there and attach it for the winter.

The young lemongrass rosettes taken home have hibernated under fluorescent lights since early November. Their leaves grew during this entire period, but slowly. After putting the pots on the windowsill in early February, citronella, having fallen under natural light and realizing that spring was coming, actively began to increase the green mass.

If we compare the plants in the greenhouse with the overwintered houses, then the length of the leaves, of course, led the houseplants, but the greenhouse plants looked much more powerful, even if they did not have such long leaves. In the spring I tried to make tea from the leaves of indoor plants, alas, they did not have a lemon scent.

I want to note that there is no particular decorative effect in citronella, but it, grown in a greenhouse under the sun and warmth, has excellent taste and, moreover, healing properties. I constantly brew its leaves in tea in summer, and in winter I use dried leaves and stems. It has an aroma reminiscent of a mixture of lemon and lime, even the usual infusion is not needed for such tea at all. For tea, you can brew the leaves, but the lowest part of the cereal has the greatest aroma - the root stems (by the way, they are used in the homeland of the plant in cooking).

All dried aerial parts of lemongrass, provided they are stored in a sealed glass container, do not lose their aroma, unlike other herbs, and do not smell like hay!

Citronela started growing after wintering

Citronella can be used as a seasoning for fish, poultry, meat, after grinding it into powder or dropping whole leaves or stems into a dish during cooking, and then removing them.

This cereal is used in the manufacture of soap, for the preparation of mosquito sprays and in ointments, believing that the smell of this herb scares off blood-sucking insects.

As a therapeutic agent, citronella is used to normalize metabolism, as a sedative against stress and nervous tension, as an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic for colds and sore throats.

This fall, for safety reasons, I will again take some of the young outlets to the city apartment, and leave some to spend the winter in the greenhouse.

I advise all gardeners to pay attention to this fragrant, tasty and healthy plant!

Olga Rubtsova, gardener, Candidate of Geographical Sciences, St. Petersburg

Photo by the author