Leek: planting and care in the open ground, growing from seeds and preserving for the winter - this is the topic of today's garden showdown. If you have a piece of land, be sure to plant this healthy greens on them, save for the winter, and until next summer will have a storehouse of vitamins and a delicious addition to dishes.
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Growing Leeks from Seeds
Soak the seeds in warm water for half an hour, drain the water and leave in a damp cloth for a couple of days. If your climate is temperate, you can immediately plant seeds in the ground, in the northern regions it is recommended to plant seedlings, so you need to do this in advance. The growing season is long in leeks, so you need to deal with seeds and seedlings very early, around mid-March. While the seeds will settle in moisture, you will prepare boxes with peat (you can turf land with the addition of humus).
Prepared seeds are planted in grooves that were laid every 5 cm in advance, 1 cm deep. They put the seeds, compacted the soil, slightly spilled it with warm water, and covered it with polyethylene. This creates a greenhouse effect for better similarity. But, so that your seeds do not evaporate, periodically ventilate them, allowing them to inhale a breath of fresh air.
Until shoots appear, keep the temperature up to 25 degrees, as the sprouts come out - reduce to 10 gr. While the seedlings will rise, you need to feed it 2 times, for this they are suitable: potassium chloride, urea and superphosphate are perfect. If the seedlings are thickened, thin out so that one sprout is separated from the other by at least 2 cm. Water without keeping the earth dry.
When the time for transplanting into the soil begins, in a week you need to start hardening seedlings. Reduce watering and lower temperatures. You can take it out a little on warm days, otherwise it will be difficult for delicate sprouts to land when it lands in the ground and immediately take on the outside temperature, and they may die. Plant in a well-lit place, in rows 30 cm apart from each other, keep 10 cm between the shoots.
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How to care after planting onions
First, the sprouts will require more attention, and then everything will go much easier. In order for a good bulb to grow, beautiful and juicy, be sure to carefully remove weeds, water the leek, so that moderate moisture all the time stands on the earth surrounding it, but without an overabundance.
To get a juicy white leg, a couple of times you need to spud plants and mulch dry grass. As 4-5 leaves appear, you need to start feeding. He likes leek such food: a bucket of water plus a liter of mullein. But do not water under the plant itself, but in the aisles, otherwise your beam will become inedible. If your land is rich, well-fertilized, then you can simply water with the infusion of cut grass, this will be enough.
Disease protection
Protect the onion from pests, protect from diseases such as onion fly, rust, black mold, fusarium, powdery mildew. Do not be alarmed, it is not necessary that all of the aforementioned sores attach to your onions, but they are warned - armed. Right?
You cannot cure plants from mosaic that aphids form, downy mildew and rust - just watch them and remove diseased plants in time so that they do not spread to other sores.And onion flies can be fought like this - dilute a glass of salt in a bucket of water and water the beds under the root, sprinkle carrot seeds, ash or pepper on top. And in order to prevent such a problem, plant carrots between rows in advance, do not like the smell of an onion fly.
Growing from seeds before winter
In the above way, you will get a crop of leek in the same year, and you can already use it with the appearance of 3-4 leaves. If you sow the seeds immediately in open ground in June, you will get a two-year crop that you can leave for the winter. By the end of summer, stop feeding plants, in the fall, carry out hilling, you can sprinkle humus and cover the plants. For this, fir branches, for example, need to be removed in the spring with the advent of warm days, for example.
It can be done differently - in November fertilize the beds, sow the seeds, sprinkle the beds with humus and peat, and cover in winter with snow. And in the spring you will already have green shoots of leek.
Leek Storage
Until spring, you can save the onion by placing it vertically in the basement in the sand. To do this, collect the leek to frost, cut the roots and leaves. You can also keep it in the refrigerator for several months, by hiding it in plastic bags, and not tightly closing it so that the air enters and the plants do not rot. You can store varieties: Columbus, Tango, Karantansky, Elephant. Good luck
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