The Summer Resident Planted A Turnip

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

Until the time of Peter I, who forced the peasants to eat potatoes, all of Russia ate turnips. A bad year was a natural disaster for the peasants. Many different dishes were prepared from turnips and even fermented for the winter. Today, many children saw the turnip only in pictures, when, at a very young age, mothers read them fairy tales, showing bright drawings in which the chain of those trying to pull the turnip out of the ground with each page became longer and longer, until a mouse, also loving to crunch a turnip, came to the rescue. If you decide to plant a turnip in your country house, today you need to take care of preparing a bed for it

Vitamins all year round

The Russians so easily switched to lemons and oranges, betraying their vitamin turnip, which grew well on Russian lands, without requiring a long sunny summer and special conditions. Although the content of vitamin C in it is much higher than in exotic citruses, and remains in the root crop until spring.

In addition to vitamin C, the turnip contains B vitamins and carotene (a precursor of vitamin A), which gives it yellowness, as well as calcium.

Such a composition allows the turnip to help a person fight infections and colds, support the body's immune system, improve vision, and strengthen tooth enamel and bones.

Vitamin composition is possessed not only by root crops, but also by turnip tops. Therefore, young greens need to be added to vegetable and other salads, as well as stew for a side dish.

Growing turnips

We choose a site for turnips, where this season we have grown potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes or beans. All of these vegetables are good precursors to turnips. But after cabbage, horseradish, radish, daikon and radish, watercress and turnip itself, it is better not to allocate areas for it.

It is not worth treating the area with fire that we want to prepare in the fall for the spring planting of turnips. Experienced gardeners have long abandoned the fire in the garden, taking care of the preservation of beneficial insects and microorganisms that live in the soil and die from fire. To prepare the soil, you just need to dig it with the addition of organic, nitrogen, potash and phosphate fertilizers. The introduction of fresh manure, which provokes the hollowness of root crops, is contraindicated.

Turnips are sown in two passes, at the beginning of May - so that you can feast on it in the summer, at the beginning of July - to make supplies for the winter. Since turnip seeds are very small, our ancestors sowed it by sprinkling a mixture of water and seeds, taking it into the mouth. For such a procedure, one had to have the skill and dexterity, so not everyone was able to do the sowing with high quality, and therefore they invited craftsmen for this.

Turnip is a relatively unpretentious plant, but does not like acidic soil, on which it is less resistant to diseases and loses its keeping quality. Moisture-loving. It is affected by leaf-gnawing insects and keel (the causative agent of the disease is microscopic fungi, which are often introduced into the soil with cabbage seedlings).

Healing properties

• Fresh root vegetables are used as a medicine, the grated gruel of which helps to heal wounds on the skin and relieve inflammation of the gums.

• To strengthen the enamel of the teeth and prevent caries, an infusion of turnip leaves is used, for which a glass of boiling water is poured over one tablespoon of the tops, which have been finely chopped beforehand. After half an hour, the infusion is ready for rinsing the mouth.

• A broth prepared from two tablespoons of chopped root vegetables and a glass of boiling water, after 15 minutes of boiling, is ready for use. When it has cooled, drink it four times a day for a cough, cold, or sore throat.

• Steamed turnip soothes the nervous system, which is why our ancestors had stronger nerves than we do today. After mixing the juice of such a turnip with honey, drink the mixture overnight.

• There are weight loss diets based on turnip dishes.

Contraindicated turnips for those with stomach problems and weak kidneys.