Lingonberry Growing In The Garden

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

On the beneficial properties of berries and leaves of lingonberry, which can now be grown in the garden

In winter and early spring, the vitamin content in the diet usually decreases. To maintain health at this time, it would be very useful to drink vitamin teas. In this capacity, you can brew lingonberries. It is better to wish it with rosehip and mountain ash and use it as a vitamin tea.

Use of lingonberry

To increase appetite, as well as after severe illnesses and injuries, it is recommended to drink lingonberry juice, as it combines anti-inflammatory and diuretic effects, suppresses the development of microbes and removes toxins from the body. The sour drink quenches thirst, and the vitamins contained in it strengthen the strength. Lingonberry juice is also useful for cancer and all kinds of intoxication.

From valuable substances into its first berries may be mentioned vitamin C. Also in many lingonberries carotene (provitamin A) and vitamin B ₂. The berries also contain sugars, mineral salts, pectin and tannins, organic acids (malic, citric, acetic, formic and oxalic).

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To replenish the supply of vitamin C, it is best to eat fresh berries harvested directly from the bush, since some of the nutrients in dried fruits are destroyed, however, despite this, such berries are still useful for the body. They are recommended to be brewed together with rose hips and mountain ash and used as vitamin tea.

Lingonberry leaves and berries have a diuretic and disinfectant effect and are traditionally used for kidney stones, gout, rheumatism, pyelonephritis, cystitis. For these purposes, fresh, pickled and boiled berries are used.

As a rule, lingonberry shoots and berries are harvested in the forests. It grows best and bears fruit in lingonberry pine forests, especially well in illuminated places, for example, in clearings. In swampy forests, this berry is common on those soils where the pH is from 2.78 to 5.5.

Most of the berries and leaves of lingonberry are collected in the forest. This is due to the fact that plants of this species are adapted to strongly acidic soils, and most of the cultivated plants in our gardens are adapted to weakly acidic and neutral. However, lingonberries can also be grown in gardens if desired. Breeders have already created cultivars and developed special agricultural techniques.

The requirements of this culture to the growing conditions are as follows: it develops successfully in well-lit areas. The depth of the groundwater should be within 60-80 centimeters. At the same time, it is better to use high or transitional peat as a soil for growing this crop.

Lingonberry varieties

Kostromichka is an early ripe variety, berries with a diameter of 7-8 mm, dark red, sweet-sour, juicy. Productivity - up to 2.5 kg / m².

Kostroma pink - mid-season variety, berries with a diameter of 9-10 mm, pink, sweet and sour, juicy. Productivity up to 2.7 kg / m².

Ruby is a late-ripening variety, berries with a diameter of 7-8 mm, dark red, sweet and sour, juicy. Productivity up to 2.9 kg / m².

Lingonberry agrotechnics

Plantation laying

In one place, it can be grown for 15-20 years. The plot is freed from perennial weeds, especially rhizome. A trench is dug about 30 cm deep and about 1.2 m wide (for ease of maintenance), which is filled with peat and slightly compacted.

If the groundwater is high, the bed is raised, and drainage from gravel, crushed stone, bark, etc. is laid at its base.

Before planting, mineral fertilizers are applied to the soil: ammonium sulfate, double granular superphosphate and potassium sulfate (1/3 of a matchbox per 1 m²). Superphosphate can be replaced with AVA fertilizer.

Reproduction and planting

Lingonberry propagates well by seeds. To do this, they are stratified in the refrigerator for four months. The seeds are sown in boxes with a mixture of peat and sand with a pH of 3-4.5. Immediately after picking the berries, lingonberry seeds have a low germination rate. To increase germination, seeds or berries must be stratified within a month at a temperature of 4-5 ° C. The optimum temperature for seed germination is 20-25 ° C.

Vegetative method: lignified stems are harvested in the spring during the swelling of the buds, at the end of April, and green (non-lignified) - in July. Shoots are cut into cuttings 6-8 cm long (the lower leaves are removed) and planted in a garden bed or greenhouse in a mixture of peat and sand so that 2-3 buds are above the surface. It is better to keep young rooted plants in one place for at least two years. Lingonberry is formed most quickly when propagated by plants with a part of rhizomes. However, lingonberry enters fruiting earlier when propagated by bushes with a part of the rhizome.

Finished seedlings are planted both in spring (first half of May) and in autumn (late August - early September). Plants are placed in rows with a distance in a row of 20-30 cm. No more than 15 bushes are placed on one square meter. Plants are planted at the same depth at which they grew in the nursery, the earth around is compacted and watered abundantly. The soil is mulched with river coarse sand, sawdust, bark or other materials with a layer of about 3 cm.

Mulching has a positive effect on the development and fruiting of lingonberries, to some extent it reduces damage to plant inflorescences by spring frosts.

Care and protection

During the summer, the plantation is systematically watered, loosened and weeded. In the third year of life, they are fed with complex fertilizers in small doses (as when planting) in early spring. When many new bushes appear from underground shoots, the plantings will be thickened, and they will need to be thinned out. Excess bushes can be used both as planting material and as medicinal raw materials.

Lingonberry can be affected by fungal diseases, of which the most common are exobasidiosis, rust, and leaf spot. Exobasidiosis is easily recognized by the pink color of the leaves, shoots and inflorescences, swollen, ugly shapes and a pale white coating of fungal spores on their surface.

When infected with rust, small reddish-yellow spots are visible on the upper side of the leaves, or, conversely, on the lower side, first yellowish and then brown areas of sporulation of the fungus. From this, the leaves turn brown and fall off. Plant growth slows down and they may die. If signs of disease appear on the lingonberry, the infected shoots are cut out and destroyed. In autumn, planting is mulched to cover those leaves that have fallen off. If necessary, apply fungicides.

Usually, lingonberry withstands frosts down to -3 ° C during budding and flowering. Lower temperatures can lead to partial or complete crop failure. To protect against frost, use a covering material agryl, spunbond. During the budding period, while there is a danger of frost, the covering material can not be removed from the lingonberry plants, but as soon as the first flowers appear, it must be slightly opened during the day so that pollinating insects have free access.

The berries are usually picked when they are fully ripe. Lingonberry leaves can be harvested twice a year: in spring, shortly before flowering, and in autumn, after fruiting. Moreover, lingonberry leaves are harvested even from under the snow, since at this time they contain less moisture and dry easily. Since the lingonberry rhizome lies shallow in the ground (2-4 cm), it is best to cut off the shoots with scissors when harvesting leaves, and after drying, separate the leaves from the stems.

Leaves are dried in well-ventilated warm rooms, preferably in dark rooms. Raw materials must be mixed frequently during drying. The dried leaves should be green. They are stored in wooden boxes lined with paper from the inside.

For the timely collection of both berries and leaves, it is advisable to constantly see what phase of development they are in. That is, the lingonberry should be visible if possible. Since gardeners do not visit the forest every day, gardeners who want to prepare berries or lingonberry leaves in a timely manner can be offered to master its cultivation by allocating a small corner of the earth for it in a relatively low place. A significant area will not be required for this, since when cultivating lingonberries in the garden, its yield is 5-8 times higher than in natural lingonberries.