The Five Powers Of Mustard

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

One of the natural green fertilizers (green manure) is an annual plant called mustard. For these purposes, two types of mustard are used: white and gray. The difference between them is palpable when it comes to its fruits (white mustard is more piquant, but it is not enough for table mustard alone. Therefore, table mustard is made from gray or black, and white mustard is added to them only to fix the smell.). Since, like green manure, mustard is used before the seeds appear on it, the piquancy does not matter

Yesterday, our acquaintance with mustard was limited to feasts, when a sharp yellow gruel was certainly served to the jellied meat of pork legs, sharply hitting the organs of smell and spreading pleasant warmth throughout the body. Or they remembered about it, wetting their feet in the autumn mudslide, and then warming them in warm water, flavored with mustard. Or they tortured children by putting mustard plasters on them, which bit a delicate child's body.

Mustard has come to our gardens today to help us fight for the harvest without resorting to chemicals and poisons. Mustard is an excellent green manure due to its five abilities:

1. Feed the insects

Mustard flowers attract insects useful for the garden, including bees. They are an excellent honey plant.

2. Suppress the growth of weeds

Mustard quickly rises and gains green mass, filling the territory and leaving no chance for weeds to survive. By releasing essential oils, it also inhibits the germination of their seeds. In addition, its roots perfectly loosen the ground, and the foliage shades, saving the soil from drying out.

3. Rid plants from pests

Essential oils contained in the roots, stem, leaves and flowers of mustard are ardent enemies for the "kids" of such pests of gardens and vegetable gardens, such as:

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Click beetles

… Their larvae, known to gardeners as"

wireworms , are polyphagous. They gnaw the roots of onions, corn, sunflowers; they pierce potato tubers, carrots with their countless moves. But they try to stay away from the roots of mustard.

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Butterfly leafworm … From a large family of leafworms, three species grow their "babies" in pea pods. Caterpillars appear from the eggs laid by the butterfly on the leaves of the peas, which penetrate into the pod and feed on the peas, nibbling them. That is why such butterflies and their children are called"

pea moth The smell of mustard is not to their taste, and therefore, planting mustard next to mustard peas will preserve the harvest.

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Slugs … These snails, which have lost their cozy house in the course of evolution, annoy many plants. They love to feast on the leaves and roots of many vegetable crops. They do not crawl past the flower beds. For example, if you saw holes on the leaves of the hosts, but there is no visible enemy, then slugs feasted here at night. Sow some mustard on the flowerbed, it will scare away slugs.

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Infectious fungus … It affects potato tubers with a disease called "rhizoctonia" or "black scab", reducing the yield by forty percent. Mustard will help fight the potato's troublemaker.

4. Treat the helpers

To have reliable helpers to get a decent harvest, one must not forget the rules of hospitality, one of the attributes of which is a treat. Soil microorganisms that specialize in creating nitrogen and earthworms are very fond of fertilizers, one of which is the mustard plant.

5. Improve soil structure

You can sow mustard from early spring to late autumn. The main thing is not to wait for the seeds to ripen if you are not going to start producing mustard oil or mustard powder.

The green mass of mustard, plowed into the garden, quickly turns into an effective fertilizer that is easily absorbed by the crops grown. If you add legumes to the mustard to increase the amount of nitrogen in the soil, then the need to buy manure will disappear, which will simplify the concerns of the gardener and save money.