Dill: we plant and take care
Dill is one of the most delicious and popular spices in Russia. It contains vitamins of group B, P, A, essential oils, trace elements and much more.
Dill blooms from June to July, and when and how to plant dill, read below.
Dill are non-capricious plants. The seeds can begin to revive at a temperature of plus three. It is frost resistant. Still, there are some recommendations for dill to grow better.
The first thing to pay attention to is that dill is very fond of bright sunlight. At the same time, it is very good to plant dill in open areas. The ideal option would be to sunbathe for this plant for about twelve hours a day at a temperature of 18-25 degrees.
The second thing to pay attention to is the soil in which the seeds are sown. It should be noted that dill needs a neutral, breathable soil with good hygroscopicity. For this plant, the soil where vegetables were previously planted, such as cucumbers or cabbage, may be suitable.
It is recommended to prepare dill beds in the fall. U get the earth with manure, urea, superphosphate or potassium salt in a ratio of 20-30 grams per square meter and dig it up.
If the color of the dill turns yellow-green and growth slows down, this indicates that the plant lacks nitrogen. To remedy the situation, you need to apply nitrogen fertilizer at the rate of 20 grams per square meter.
Next, you need to choose a variety of dill. WITHthere are early, middle and late varieties.
Early varieties ripen quickly, within a month. Umbrellas also appear quickly, but have a small amount of greenery. The seeds of these varieties are more cold-resistant. They can easily handle frosts down to minus four degrees. These include such varieties as: distant, mushroom, redoubt, grenadier.
In medium varieties, ripening occurs ten to fifteen days later. There will be about ten leaves on the stem. These varieties include: Amazon, kibray, cutwork, alligator, ambralla.
In late varieties, ripening takes seventy days. These varieties have more than ten leaves per stem. The seeds of these varieties are more thermophilic. These varieties include: mischievous, frost, kutuzovsky.
In order to speed up the germination process, you need to reduce the concentration of essential oils in the seeds, as they interfere with the concentration on growth. How to do it? The bag must be filled with seeds.
Immerse the bag in hot water at 60 degrees for two minutes. Submerge the seeds in water on the third day, changing the water and rinse the seeds three to five times a day. Then put the seeds in the air for half an hour. The seeds are now ready to plant.
The soil is ready, the seeds too. Now you can start planting. On a flat surface, we make grooves two centimeters deep. The distance between the grooves is twenty centimeters.
It moisturizes the soil well. After that, we sow the prepared seeds. One gram of seeds is usually sown per square meter. Next, sprinkle with earth and compact the soil a little. It is not necessary to water for two days after planting, in order to avoid washing off the seeds.
Dill is planted in early spring and late autumn. In spring, it is recommended to plant after April 20. After the dill has grown, it should be thinned out so that there is a distance of five to ten centimeters between the shoots.
In the summer you can sow it every ten to fifteen days and get a harvest. In the fall, dill is sown in order to get the earliest harvest. In this case, the seeds are planted 1-1.5 centimeters deeper than in spring. In this case, more seeds are consumed, by about 25 percent.
After sowing, the soil is covered with mulch.All this must be done before frost. Dill is also planted in winter. The ground is cleared of snow (if any), dill seeds are scattered, covered with humus with soil and covered with snow. In severe frosts, it can be covered with foil.
Another feature of dill is self-seeding. To avoid this event, you can close the maturing baskets with gauze. Planting dill with other vegetables is also permissible.
Thanks to essential oils, it repels pests, and dill gets nutrients in return. The soil needs to be moistened. If there is not enough moisture, dill will develop more in the stem and flowers than in the leaves.
To use dill right away, it is best to use it when it is young, where the stems are no more than 25 centimeters tall. It must be said that the taste deteriorates during flowering.
Dill can be uprooted or leaves from the stem. To preserve the dill for future use, it can be frozen, salted, vacuum used, pickled, dried.
The best option for harvesting dill, where useful properties and taste are preserved, is natural drying.
Choose the varieties of dill suitable for you, sow at a convenient time of the year for you and get a good harvest.