Useful information

Growing wild garlic from seeds and bulbs

Winning or Bearish

Bear onion (Allium ursinum)

Let's start with the fact that wild garlic is different. In the bunches in the market, we most often see the Bear Onion (Alliumursinum). This is a predominantly European species that is found in shady forests on the mountain slopes of Western and Central Europe, in Scandinavia, the Mediterranean and in our Caucasus. It has oblong bulbs of about 1 cm. The triangular stem reaches 40 cm in height. Leaves, of which there are usually two, sheaths cover the base of the stem. The leaf blade is lanceolate, gradually turning into a petiole. The inflorescence is hemispherical with a few white flowers. The fruit is a triangular spherical capsule with black seeds.

Botanists distinguish several forms of bear onion: the typical form Alliumursinumssp. ursinum... It has a subspecies Alliumursinumssp. ucrainicum... Each peduncle carries an umbrella with 3-25 flowers. Does not form airy bulbs, only boxes with black seeds with a pronounced garlic odor. Given the vast area of ​​bear onion, a large number of forms are found in nature, differing in biological characteristics, phenotypic characteristics and chemical composition.

There are currently no ramson varieties registered in European countries. There are two varieties in Russia - Teddy bear and Bear delicacy... In some populations from Hungary, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, England, France, Eastern Poland, the Netherlands and Germany, a high content of active substances is noted, they tolerate the sun and can be suitable for field cultivation. Some populations are a mixture of types that can grow in the sun or without direct sunlight. But in most cases, plants have a negative attitude to direct sunlight.

Victory onion (Allium victorialis)

Another kind of wild garlic, Victory onion (Alliumvictorialis), occurs very widely in Siberia and the Far East, and less in the European part of the country. It is often called flask or Siberian wild garlic. It differs from the first in large dimensions. The bulbs are cylindrical-conical in shape. Their diameter is up to 1.5 cm and they are attached in several pieces to the oblique rhizome. The height of the stem can reach 80 cm, and almost to the middle it is covered with leaf sheaths. The inflorescence is spherical, with numerous white flowers. Unlike bear onions, victory onions form a dense bush that will look very impressive on a spicy garden. Its dense globular inflorescences appear very early, when most flower crops in the area are just waking up. But the bear onion, which also blooms very early, grows well in the shade under the trees, which is important in our six-hundredth plots, where every “piece of the sun” counts.

Which of these species to plant, you choose, but personally, Siberian wild garlic grows on my site.

Treasure under the fence

As mentioned above, wild garlic is a shade-tolerant and rather unpretentious plant. A poorly lit place near the wall of a shed or near a fence is quite suitable for her. But the soil should not be acidic, with a lot of organic matter. And it is better not to forget to water it in case of severe drought. In early spring, it does not tolerate stagnant moisture. Attempts to breed wild garlic have shown that it is suitable for both open ground and potting culture.

Of course, it will survive in "Spartan" conditions, but the leaves will be smaller, tougher, and this does not meet our gastronomic needs.

Plants grow in one place for many years, so the weeds of adult wild garlic are not scary.

In the first years of life, fertilizers for wild garlic are practically not needed, especially if, when planting for digging, you add 2-3 buckets of compost per 1 m2. Further, similarly to the culture of chives, nitrogen fertilizers are used in a dose of 20-30 g of ammonium nitrate per 1 m2.Please note that it is better to apply fertilizers as early as possible - this will allow you to feed the plants at the very first stage of growth, when it is still cold and the processes of nitrification in the soil have not begun after the winter cold.

The pests of wild garlic do not particularly annoy - it is not in vain that it is used as an anthelmintic agent, except that miner flies harm. But some diseases periodically appear. With a long stay in one place and with a large number of different related species, rust occurs in the adjacent areas (especially if a diseased chives grows nearby), from which plants can fall out. After rust, a secondary infection of botrytis - gray rot, may appear, especially on highly waterlogged and acidic soils.

Reproduction

It is better to propagate plants vegetatively, with bulbs. But if you cannot get the planting material, then you will have to sow with seeds. Here it is necessary to take into account the little subtleties. In nature, wild garlic seeds ripen very early, in July. They crumble and lie without sprouting until next spring. Therefore, our seeds can be sown in summer.

To obtain many germinating seeds, they should be harvested when they are ripe but not crumbled. For sowing, the freshest seeds should be used, in which the seed coat did not have time to harden, but it hardens very quickly. Unripe seeds from green capsules, when they turn into a yellow-brown color, have a high germination capacity, but this is such a short time that if you are late for a day, the seeds spill out on the ground. Actually, this is why a large amount of self-seeding is formed, and the purchased seeds do not want to germinate for a long time and stubbornly.

It is better to sow in a pot, which is then dug into the garden bed. This avoids tedious and lengthy weed control and the risk of losing crops. Seedlings will appear next spring. They will be small and dead. During dormancy and stratification, many seeds die from autolysis (self-digestion). Death increases in warm weather to 72% of the total. So you should not count on one hundred percent germination. The resulting seedlings must be cut into a well-fertilized and weed-free bed. After a year or two, the plants are planted in a permanent place. I usually do this in the spring, when the plants are clearly visible and there is no risk of chopping the bulbs with a shovel when digging.

When planting the plants, I water and slightly deepen. This will protect them from drying out in the first months of life in a new place. If peduncles are found on the transplanted plants, then they must be broken off so that they do not deplete the transplanted bulbs.

Victory onion (Allium victorialis)

The second opportunity to transplant wild garlic is the field of leaf dying off. Leafless bulbs are planted in the soil so that they are 2-3 cm buried.If the plants are on the surface, they may not take root. Studies to determine the optimal planting density have clearly shown that the optimal amount is 75 bulbs per 1 m2. This corresponds to a distance of 20 cm between rows and in a row - 15 cm between bulbs per running meter. That, perhaps, is all agricultural technology. In general, about 2-3 kg of greenery can be collected from 1 m 2 over the summer.

It is better to cut the crop not entirely, but selectively. This does not drain all the bulbs at once, and therefore the harvest is annual and plentiful. Each year, two daughter ones are formed from the mother bulb, according to the number of leaves. If you plan to dig up the bulbs, then it is better to break off the peduncles during budding, then the "roots" will be larger.

And yet, if the ripe seeds crumble, then in a couple of years you will have to fight a malicious weed ... wild garlic. She will crawl out again and again with enviable stubbornness.

That, perhaps, is all the wisdom when growing this valuable and unpretentious plant.

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