Salad Chicory Is Green Both In Winter And In Summer

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

For those who sowed chicory in the spring, it is necessary to track how quickly the plant grew in August. If development is weak, this indicates a lack of beneficial nutrients in the soil and the need for feeding. In addition, poor growth can be a signal of care errors

Features of growing salad chicory

Salad chicory, tsikorny salad, witloof - all these are the names of the same vegetable plant, with the only proviso that Vitloof is the name of one of the varieties. But since it is the main and most common, it has already become a common noun in colloquial speech and is used for the general designation of tsikor salad.

Vitluf is a biennial plant. Salad chicory is grown in the open field, and is also used for forcing greens in winter. In the first year after sowing, a root crop is formed, and in the second year it blooms and forms seeds.

They eat shoots that break off at the root. They have a delicate taste that combines sweet notes with a pleasant spicy pungency. His chopped heads of cabbage go well in fresh salads with apples, oranges, radishes. Its leaves can be stewed and grilled, and these greens work well in sauté recipes with other vegetables.

Requirements of cykoric lettuce to soils

Chicory salad is a cold-resistant plant. However, it is a stretch to call it unpretentious. To get a rich harvest, it is necessary to allocate highly fertile lands for planting. The optimal soil types are loam and sandy loam. The soil must be kept loose and watered regularly - witluf is very moisture-loving.

Nutrient-poor soil is fertilized in the fall or spring just before planting. For this, compost or rotted manure, as well as mineral additives, are suitable. For autumn digging, use the following combination:

• compost or humus - 5-6 kg per 1 square meter;

• potash fertilizers - 10 g for the same area.

For spring digging, you will need such a combination of mineral fertilizers:

• nitrogen - 6 g per 1 square meter;

• phosphoric - 6 g for the same area.

Sowing chicory salad and caring for the beds

Before forming the beds, the soil surface must be loosened qualitatively. On a bed 1 meter wide, seeds are sown in three rows. With this sowing, the aisles as the plants develop will be approximately 25-30 cm. To ensure the optimal feeding area, in a row between individual chicory specimens, the distance should be at least 5 cm. To achieve this, after the emergence of dense shoots, they will need to be thinned out. Thus, for 1 sq. M. the beds can be grown up to 80 pcs. vegetables.

For the future, it should be remembered that it is not advisable to do too early sowing of salad chicory. If you do not know this and make such a mistake, then the vegetables will bloom in the first year of sowing, and this will negatively affect the yield of root crops. Therefore, it is necessary to plan sowing no earlier than in the second decade of May.

Plant care consists in regular loosening of the soil and watering the beds. As needed, during the growing season, chicory salad is fed. In August, the beds are fertilized with ammonium nitrate.

Procurement and storage of cyclic salad

Harvesting of root crops for the winter is carried out in late autumn. Dig up witloof root crops with a pitchfork. Before being sent for storage, it must be inspected for suitability and the selected copies must be processed. Root crops should not be too thin and forked - they are discarded. A good root crop will be about 3-4 cm in diameter, the standard length of the underground part of the plant is about 25 cm. The tops and thin lower root processes are cut off from them. It can be stored in containers and plastic bags at a constant temperature of about + 1 … + 2 ° С. Optimal storage conditions are in boxes filled with dry sand. During the winter months, these roots are also used for forcing greens indoors.