We plant juicy greens – dill, parsley and other popular crops

Recommendation points

• Dill
• Parsley
• Garlic
• Onion
• Sorrel
• Salad

Imagine your summer cottage – even rows of beds on which vegetables, raspberry and strawberry bushes grow in a corner, neat paths, fruit trees near the fence … But garden trees, berry bushes and rows of tomatoes are not all that can please your land plot. But what about the zest of the table – seasonings, without which any dishes will seem uninteresting and even tasteless?

It is impossible to imagine a dacha where a minimal set of useful and tasty plants would not grow, which we habitually call a generalizing and very precise word – “greenery”. Even those summer residents who decided to abandon planting potatoes and peppers, believing that the result of laborious care of these crops is not worth the effort – “oh well, I’ll buy it on the market, why bother”, will not refuse to plant dill, parsley, onion and garlic.

But our traditional dill and parsley are far from all the cultivated plants that the culinary industry calls very tasty – “spices”. And don’t think that sage, fennel, basil and caraway cannot be grown in central Russia! At the same time, spices are able not only to diversify our table, but also to decorate the vegetable garden, becoming its highlight and a source of pride for the owners.

How to grow spicy and aromatic crops in your summer cottage? What plants are the most popular and common?

Can you imagine your table without fragrant and so healthy greenery? But it is extremely easy to grow it on your site.!

Dill

The most common “grass” in our country, so unpretentious that even the laziest summer residents can easily grow it on their site. You don’t need to take care of dill – it is enough in late March or early April (depending on the weather and climate of your region), sow the seeds and in a month you can walk through the beds, collecting the first harvest of fragrant, easily recognizable, heavily dissected leaves for salad or soup.

At the same time, in order to get greens, dill must be sown with a continuous method, and to obtain seeds – in rows with wide, at least 20-25 centimeters, row spacing to a depth of 1.5-2 centimeters.

Moreover, if there is not enough space on your site for a separate bed of dill, it will grow perfectly between rows of tomatoes, peppers or potatoes.

Dill seeds can be harvested already in July, the plant is an annual, so you will have to sow seeds annually. But you can rarely water dill – he does not like excess moisture, he does not suffer from pests. An amazingly unpretentious plant – this seed and harvest, a pleasure.

Of course, experts advise feeding dill with humus, but will you, in any case, fertilize your garden? It is not necessary to do it just for the sake of a bed with this fragrant herb..

If you want to get fresh herbs as early as possible, it is worth sowing dill in late autumn so that it does not have time to rise before frost, to a depth of about three centimeters, and cover the garden bed with a thin layer of straw and humus. Already in early spring, the sprouts will hatch and delight with their vigorous appearance.

Dill is indispensable for preserving and pickling vegetables, stocking up for the winter, very tasty in fresh salads, as a table decoration. And the amount of vitamins, micro- and macroelements in this unpretentious and modest herb is simply amazing!

Parsley

Another very common and, what is especially pleasant, unpretentious plant. Unlike dill, parsley is a two-year culture, so you won’t have to plant it every year. Plants cut almost to the base (the stalks remain no more than 4-5 centimeters high) will successfully overwinter and will allow to harvest the first harvest in May.

If you are planting parsley seeds for the first time or in order to update the garden, in a new plot, then this should also be done in late March or early April..

Parsley seeds are planted shallowly – no more than one centimeter, observing the distance between rows 20 centimeters long. Parsley should be watered regularly in dry summer, however, with insufficient watering, the plant does not disappear, the leaves become coarser, but more aromatic, accumulating essential oils.

It is advised to feed parsley once a season with nitrogen fertilizers (about 50-60 grams of saltpeter per 10 square meters). However, it is better to prepare a site for planting in the fall, simply by scattering humus, peat or compost before digging up the garden.

Cut parsley leaves grow back quickly, allowing for two to three harvests per season. Remember not to allow parsley to overgrow when it releases arrows with flowers.

By the way, parsley roots, which in their shape resemble pale carrots, are also considered an excellent seasoning and are found in a huge number of culinary recipes.

Garlic

Garlic also belongs to perennial herbaceous plants – an unusually interesting plant with a very strong aroma, which, according to doctors, literally “scares away” viruses and microbes.

In general, garlic is considered the most ancient spice on the planet, and we adore it in various countries, on all continents. Remember that garlic is winter, that is, it is planted in autumn, before the onset of frost, and spring – planting is carried out in spring.

For more than two years in a row, it is impossible to plant garlic in the same garden, and the best predecessors for it are cucumbers, beans and cabbage..

The site chosen for planting garlic is recommended to be fertilized in autumn with humus or compost.

Only absolutely healthy chives are selected for planting, located in the outer row; they do not need to be cleaned from the upper scales. Winter garlic is planted deep enough – about 10 centimeters, and the distance between the rows should reach 30–40 centimeters, in the row itself the distance between the cloves is 10 centimeters. This method of planting will allow you to get large heads, although this, of course, also depends on the type of garlic..

Winter garlic is planted from late September to mid-October, depending on the region. Spring varieties are planted in early spring, already in March, the planting depth should not exceed five centimeters – in this case, garlic will not have to overwinter, but you need to ascend as quickly as possible.

Yes, and an important nuance – you need to remove the garlic on time, as soon as the upper leaves have dried up and the lower ones have turned yellow. Otherwise, the head will disintegrate into separate cloves, and the harvest will be much worse stored..

The aroma of garlic not only induces appetite, but also has antiseptic properties. This plant is great for colds and immunity.

Onion

A herbaceous bulbous plant that is well known to every housewife. When planting onions, remember that this culture does not like the same place, so every year you will have to look for new sites for planting. You can plant onions again in the same place only after four years, and the best predecessors for it are potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and cabbage..

If onions are planted in order to obtain green arrows, then it is worth choosing healthy medium-sized bulbs, and in order to get a good harvest of golden heads, experts advise choosing small bulbs specially left for seeds, the so-called sevok.

Onions love sunny areas; before planting, the garden must be dug up and fertilized with humus or saltpeter. The distance between the rows of onions should not be less than 20 centimeters, and between the bulbs – about five centimeters. The onions are planted to a depth of no more than five centimeters, focusing on the size of the bulb itself – in order for the plant to sprout faster, the crown should be located directly at the surface. It is interesting that if the onion is planted deeper, then elongated heads will form, and if under the surface itself – flattened.

The best time to plant onions is early May, when the danger of frost has passed. And they usually harvest in August, after the upper feathers are completely dry. Onions are watered only in the most intense heat, he does not like excess moisture. It is necessary to loosen the soil between the rows of onions regularly – after each watering or rain.

Already at the beginning of summer, the bulbous beds will delight you with green arrows that will decorate any salad. And almost everyone knows that onions are a storehouse of vitamins, useful elements and have antibacterial properties. And by the way, the tears that housewives shed when peeling onions are good for the eye ducts, and phytoncides, spreading with a strong onion smell, kill pathogenic bacteria and microbes

Sorrel

The sour taste of sorrel will perfectly emphasize any vitamin vegetable salad, and green borscht and cabbage soup from this herb are considered classic dishes of Russian cuisine..

In addition, sorrel is one of those rare plants that do not need special care. Sorrel is a perennial culture and grows well on the same garden bed for several seasons, freezing only in extremely cold and snowless winters.

You can plant sorrel in early spring – the seeds germinate well at a temperature of about two to three degrees Celsius. In the southern regions, sorrel seeds are sown in August-September, so that it can take root before frost.

The distance between the rows of sorrel should be about 20-25 centimeters, with a hoe we make grooves no more than four to five centimeters deep and sow the seeds quite densely. It is not worthwhile to heavily cover sorrel seeds with earth – it rises for a rather long time, so it may not even break through from under a too thick layer of earth.

After planting, the seeds must be watered, since they germinate poorly and rarely in dry soil. In the future, it is often not necessary to water the sorrel, it grows well in the sun, transferring the summer heat up to 40 degrees, and in the shade, doing with a minimum of moisture.

It’s time to harvest sorrel, you will understand by the appearance of the plant – when the leaves have risen to a height of about 10 centimeters, they can already be cut off at the root and used in the preparation of tasty and healthy dishes. Young leaves, no higher than 20 centimeters, are considered the most delicate, tasty and healthy, so you should not allow excessive growth – you need to cut the sorrel on time.

In the first year after planting, the sorrel gives only a harvest of leaves, but the next year, if you do not cut the shoots on time, it will actively grow, the trunk will become coarse and “panicles” with flowers will appear on it. If you do not intend to collect seeds, then you should not wait for this moment – during the summer it is better to regularly cut off the grown leaves, getting two or three harvests of sorrel. By the way, experienced housewives freeze the leaves, roll them into jars with salt or preserve them in order to pamper households with green sour borscht or cabbage soup in winter..

Sorrel is not just ordinary grass, as it seems at first glance. It contains a lot of oxalic, citric, malic and ascorbic acids, as well as carotene, cobalt, iron, copper and vitamins B1, B2, PP

Salad

The very name of this healthy plant makes you appetite – salad, green, with fragrant oil or mayonnaise, with a variety of vegetables. In addition, lettuce leaves are used as a table decoration, and in terms of the amount of B, PP vitamins and minerals, this plant surpasses many other crops..

The harvest of lettuce can be removed several times over the summer – it rises and grows very quickly, if you sow the seeds in spring, then after 30-40 days you can get the first tender leaves.

When choosing lettuce seeds, remember that there are about 200 types of them. The most popular are Arugula, Radicchio, Korn, Kado, Tethys, Dubachek, Lollo-rossa, Iceberg, Batavia and Robin.

Lettuce seeds are very small and are planted at a shallow depth (no more than one or two centimeters), so the beds must be prepared carefully, thoroughly fluffing the ground and getting rid of lumps. Fertilize the soil in the area where you plan to plant the salad, you need to still in the fall if organic fertilizers are used, and mineral fertilizers can be added to the soil in the spring, during the preparation of the garden.

The technology of planting lettuce seeds depends on which variety you have chosen. The distance between the beds of lettuce is about 15 centimeters, and between the heads of lettuce – about 40 centimeters. In the first case, the distance between the seeds reaches 1.5–2 centimeters, in the second – more than four centimeters.

You can pre-grow lettuce seedlings at home. However, this plant is very painful to tolerate damage to the root system, so the seedlings should be grown in peat cubes or pots to plant in a garden with the soil without digging out the roots..

The salad loves moisture, so you will have to water it literally every other day, in addition, you must regularly loosen the ground between the beds. Experts call drip irrigation the best type of watering for salad.

And most importantly, the salad must be harvested on time, trying not to miss the moment when the plant goes into the arrow. Some summer residents cut only lettuce leaves so that the plant again gives a new crop. However, many believe that such “second” leaves are no longer so tasty and juicy and pull out the salad by the root, sowing new seeds in its place.

Juicy lettuce leaves are used extremely widely in Europe, but in Russia, not all gardeners are yet ready to master this relatively new culture. By the way, growing lettuce for sale is considered a very profitable business.

It is very easy to grow greens, and how many benefits it brings! Even on a tiny piece of land, you can grow crops, for example, dill and parsley, which is enough for the whole family. Green leaves can always be frozen to add healthy and aromatic herbs to soups and stews in winter..

In this article, we talked only about the most common aromatic vegetables and spices in our country, and there is still a huge number of plants that are still unusual for us, but from this no less tasty and useful plants, such as basil, oregano, rosemary and others. But this is already a topic for a separate conversation..