2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Slime onion (lat. Allium nutans) Is a perennial plant of the Onion family. Another name is the drooping onion. Under natural conditions, it grows in meadows, stony soils and in the steppes of Western and Eastern Siberia, as well as in the north of Kazakhstan. The plant got its name due to the mucus released when the leaves are broken.
Characteristics of culture
Slime onion is a herbaceous plant with a thick stem 25-70 cm high, equipped in the upper part with two winged ribs, drooping before flowering and straight during flowering. Leaves are flat, brittle, braid or linear with rounded ends, smooth, with a bluish bloom, up to 30 cm long. The leaf blade has a slight helical bend around the longitudinal axis.
The bulb is weakly expressed, cylindrical or conical, covered with a thin film shell, attached to an obliquely growing or horizontal rhizome. Arrow without a cavity, drooping in the upper part at the initial stage of the growing season, and erect at the beginning of flowering. Inflorescence is a spherical umbel, many-flowered, capitate, dense. The perianth is pink-violet or pink, has an inconspicuous vein. Tepals are obtuse, oblong-ovate, up to 4-6 cm long.
Growing condition
For growing slime onions, well-moistened and fertile soils are preferable, otherwise the leaves acquire an unpleasant pungent taste and become very coarse. You should not cultivate a crop on acidic soils. Loamy and sandy loamy soils with a rich mineral composition are optimal. In the same place, a plant can grow up to 5-6 years or more. Onion-slime is photophilous, it develops best in intensely lit areas. The plant is neutral to spring frosts, adult plants can withstand frosts down to -6C.
Reproduction and planting
Propagate the slime by seeds and dividing the bush. The second method is simple and effective, healthy and tasty greens are obtained the next year after planting. Delenki are planted in May or early June in an ordinary way with an interval of 20-25 cm. Sowing seeds in open ground is carried out in early spring and during the summer, but no later than August 1. Narrow grooves with a depth of 1.5 cm are formed on the ridges and seeds are sown. About 15 g of seeds are used per 10 m. With the appearance of three true leaves on the plants, thinning is carried out. The distance between plants should be 20 cm, between rows - 40 cm.
Slime onions can also be grown on a windowsill for green feathers. Before the onset of stable frosts, 3-4-year-old bushes are dug up and planted in separate pots. After 25-30 days, the onion feathers are ready for cutting. In the future, "indoor" slime-onion requires watering and dressing. Subject to all the rules of care, the plants will be thanked with good and juicy leaves suitable for human consumption.
Care
Caring for a slime onion is standard. Plants are regularly watered, and the soil in the near-stem zone is loosened and rid of weeds. Onion-slime is resistant to pests and disease, therefore, it does not need preventive treatments. The first harvesting of the leaves is carried out in the second year after sowing, the subsequent ones when the leaves reach a length of 30 cm. The overgrowth of the leaves should not be allowed, otherwise they will be too rough and tasteless. The last cut is carried out in October, then the arrows that appear are also removed. The culture has a positive attitude to fertilizing with phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium fertilizers (10-15 g per 1 sq. M.). Organic matter is applied in early spring or late autumn, as well as after each cut.
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