Vegetable Valerian: Sowing In Free Beds

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

Another representative of stubble crops, which has great nutritional value and benefits for the human body, is the vegetable valerian. It is also known as rapunzel, field salad, maunitsa and valerianella. The vegetable valerian is unpretentious in its care, for which it receives a ticket to the gardens of many summer residents, who rarely visit their country houses after harvesting the main crops from the beds. In cooking, it is more often used for preparing salads

Requirements for the soil for vegetable valerian

Valeriannitsa begins to be sown in the garden in July after harvesting crops, for which manure was used to fertilize. Sowing of this stubble crop can continue throughout August.

Sandy loam and loamy soils, rich in humus, have optimal conditions for growing field lettuce. On such soils, Rapunzel tolerates the winter months well under a cover of snow. Acid and heavy soils, cold soils are completely unsuitable for beds under valerian. There are unfavorable conditions for wintering, as a result of which valerianella freezes out in the cold season.

Presowing soil preparation

Vegetable valerian is quite unpretentious and is able to grow even without preliminary tillage. However, if you expect to reap a rich harvest, you still have to fertilize the site. To do this, 10 sq. M. area you will need:

• 0, 2 kg of calcium-ammonium nitrate;

• 0.2 kg of superphosphate;

• 0.2 kg of 40% potassium salt.

As often happens at the end of the planting season, fertilizers will gradually be used up imperceptibly, and the necessary proportions may not be immediately at hand. But this does not matter - half of the nitrogen fertilizers can be applied to the garden before sowing, and the rest can be applied later as top dressing.

Features of growing vegetable valerian

Rapunzel is demanding on soil moisture. If the soil is very dry before sowing, it should be well watered. At high humidity, the seeds will sprout quickly enough, and the first harvest of fresh herbs for salads and soups can be harvested after a month and a half.

Sowing in the beds is carried out by an ordinary method. The row spacing is left 15-20 cm. The seeds are sown thickly, embedded in the ground to a depth of about 1.5 cm. Two weeks after the emergence of the shoots, the rapunzel is thinned out. A distance of 10-15 cm should be maintained between individual plants.

Valeriannitsa is called a typical autumn vegetable, and they continue to sow even in September. However, when the thermometer drops below 8 ° C, the seeds will stop germinating, and the harvest can only be obtained in spring. When the summer warmth was suddenly replaced by autumn coolness, and the seedlings have already appeared on the surface of the earth, they should be covered with agrofibre.

Planting care consists in regularly loosening the earth, weeding the beds from weeds, and moistening the soil. If winter sowing was carried out, and frosts are expected to be strong, the beds are mulched with any suitable material. To do this, you can use both film and straw, humus, tops, which remained after harvesting vegetables. Only when you want to use such plant residues with benefit, you need to make sure that they do not show signs of disease. In early spring, the shelter is removed from the beds, and the soil is loosened.

Cooking applications

In its raw form, valerian is used to prepare salad. Its leaves go well with ingredients such as cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, feta cheese, eggs, ham. Valeriannitsa does not need to be finely chopped. She has small leaves of a beautiful shape, which serve as a bright decoration for any vegetable salad. In addition, valerian greens are added to mashed soups.