Nasturtium: Agricultural Technology, Types And Varieties

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

How to grow a capuchin in your garden

What a pleasure it is to have in the garden a cheerful corner of unusually bright light green armfuls of round leaves, and at the same time a riot of greenery from sunrise to sunset is strewn with bright flowers of a sunny color of all shades.

It is blooming nasturtium. It is very easy to grow it, no special labor is required. Wherever you stick a seed, there it will grow. You just need to know some of her preferences and features.

Nasturtium arrived in Europe from the slopes of the Andes from South America. She still remembers her homeland and absolutely cannot stand even the weakest frost. It is a warm and light-loving plant, drought-resistant. It blooms profusely in full sun, forms many leaves and few flowers in partial shade. Prefers areas without stagnant water, moderately moist. The soils are loose, loamy or sandy loam. On highly fertilized or waterlogged soils, nasturtium fattens. It grows with us like an annual plant. It blooms from late summer until frost.

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Nasturtium can be sown with seeds directly into the ground when the soil warms up and the weather is warm. This is usually the end of May - beginning of June. Heat is essential for the growth of nasturtium.

Its seeds are large with a dense shell. Therefore, before sowing, they are soaked for a day in a small amount of water, while the water is poured hot, 50-60 ° C. It cools down quickly, without causing harm to the embryos, but quickly softens the shell. Seeds can be sown in nests, 3-4 seeds per nest.

The distance between the nests is from 25 to 40 cm, depending on the size of the future plant. You can sow them in pots of 2-3 seeds in May and grow them at home in a warm place, and at the end of the morning frosts, plant them in open ground, having previously hardened them. Flowering usually occurs 45-50 days after sowing.

Caring for nasturtium

Abundant watering, feeding and weeding, as well as loosening the soil. For climbing varieties, you need to install supports.

Watering is needed at the beginning of growth. At the beginning of flowering, watered only when the soil dries out strongly. Top dressing is given once a week and only before flowering, then they are stopped. When feeding, take into account that nasturtium does not like fresh organic fertilizers. It grows vigorously, but does not bloom.

Stems, leaves and flowers are juicy, and they ask from the flower bed to the table. There are bush forms, from 20 to 30 cm in height, and there are climbing ones - with a lash length of up to 4 m. Leaves are round with a slightly wavy edge, with beautifully diverging light veins, sometimes light green, sometimes gray, sometimes with white strokes or dark red. Flowers - often orange with a spur, there are yellow, crimson, red, cream and others, with a pleasant aroma. They can be simple, terry, even mesh. The pointed flowers resemble the hoods of Capuchin monks, for which the flower is sometimes called a Capuchin.

There are several different types of nasturtium. The most famous in our country is Nasturtium large. It is a climbing liana up to 2 m long with large rounded thyroid leaves. The flowers are large, of various shades from light yellow to orange-red, there are even pink-white flowers, fiery red colors are very beautiful. There are also undersized 25-40 cm bush varieties with variably colored leaves and flowers.

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The best varieties of climbing nasturtium

Aurora - light orange flowers with long legs; King Theodore - large beautiful bright red flowers; Golden Glim and Scarlet Glim are plants with semi-double yellow and red flowers, pleasantly corrugated.

From the undersized: Vesuvius is a spherical bush 40 cm high, flowers are salmon-pinkish, the petals are corrugated, located above the leaves, the leaves are gray-green on the inside, and burgundy outside; Queen of India - bush 25 cm high, velvety dark purple flowers; Othello - flowers are black and red; Black Prince - dark purple flowers. Both varieties are the smallest - 20-25 cm.

Alaska varieties with variegated leaves are popular. Alaska comes with yellow and red flowers. Both are very good. Peach Melba - large peach-colored flowers, very dense. Golden King - yellow flowers.

There are many other varieties of nasturtium, but they are extremely rare in our country, perhaps due to their greater demand for heat. Recently, foreign nasturtium (Tropaeolum peregrinum) has become famous. A delightful plant with original cut leaves and exotic flowers. When the breeze moves them, a complete illusion is created that flocks of bright yellow elegant moths are hovering over the plant. The length of the lash of this nasturtium reaches three meters.

Nasturtiums are capable of creating rugs, walls, they are beautiful in flowerpots, on supports of any configuration.

Tall nasturtiums can be grown in a regular barrel and allowed to crawl down the side of the barrel - it turns out very elegantly. It can be planted anywhere in the garden. Rugs around tree trunks look beautiful. Flowers are good in bouquets, they are especially beautiful in transparent glass containers.

Besides beauty, nasturtium is useful in the garden as a protector of other plants from diseases. It has been noticed that where it grew, there is less fungal infection in the soil, especially root rot. After her, asters grow well. It can scare off nematodes and even the Colorado potato beetle. However, this statement must be verified empirically, by planting, for example, nasturtium in potatoes. And cucumbers.

Read also: How to make capers from nasturtium seeds