Kohlrabi is a unique vegetable; it is cabbage.and turnip at the same time. However, this amazing properties do not end there, kohlrabi cabbage is the keeper of a wide variety of beneficial ingredients that a healthy lifestyle person needs.
Kohlrabi cabbage
Kohlrabi belongs to the cabbage family,is a biennial herb. For the first time it began to grow in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is known that it was cultivated with cabbage in ancient Rome.
This cabbage got its name thanks toboth German and Swiss at the same time. In literal translation it sounds like “cabbage turnips”. Indeed, kohlrabi has the same appearance as turnips, but it tastes like real cabbage. She is one of the leaders in precocity, for which she is loved by growers.
Kohlrabi cabbage has great popularity andit is used in dishes of various cuisines of the world, for example, Turkish, Central Asian, Western European and Chinese. It has a wide variety of vitamins, amino acids and minerals, often used in the preparation of dietary dishes. Nowadays kohlrabi are grown all over the world, despite the climatic difference on the continents.
Short description of kohlrabi
Kohlrabi has large leaves of dark green.colors. This vegetable is edible stebleplod, which is formed faster than the head. Growing up, the steblod in its aboveground part takes the form of a turnip. Kohlrabi cabbage to taste is similar to white cabbage, especially it resembles a stalk, but it has great juiciness and sweetness.
Kohlrabi is a close relative of such vegetables as:
- Brussels sprouts.
- Whitey.
- Colored.
- Red.
- Beijing
- Radish.
- Radish
- Broccoli.
- Turnip.
From the types of cabbage and turnips in the listKohlrabi is the richest in the content of active biological elements, various vitamins and minerals that are necessary for the human body to live a full life. In addition to its beneficial properties, this cabbage is also a very tasty vegetable.
Growing kohlrabi cabbage
Kohlrabi are grown and planted with variousin ways, one of them is the seedling method. In most cases, it is more convenient to use it than off-seed, you only need to know all the nuances of this method.
Kohlrabi seeds are planted in a greenhouse or at home inboxes 35 days before transplanting into open ground. To grow the crop early, seedlings are sown in the middle of the second decade of March. In this case, it is possible to get ripe vegetables at the beginning or in the middle of June.
If you sow seeds in early May, then at the end of Julyit will be possible to harvest a full Kohlrabi crop. Late vegetables, which ripen in early October, will get gardeners if they sow the seeds for seedlings in late June. Before planting kohlrabi cabbage seeds, they will need preliminary preparation so that most of them will produce good, healthy shoots.
Growing from seedlings
Growing kohlrabi seedlings begins withpreplant seed preparation. For this, kohlrabi seeds are kept in water with a high temperature (about 50 ° C) for 15 minutes. After that, for one minute they are placed in cold water, and then they are transferred to a solution containing trace elements for 12 hours. After this period, the seeds are washed with cool water and left in the refrigerator for one day.
Next they are wrapped in a damp cottoncloth and wait until they are full. Once this has happened, they are sown in different containers, which contain a mixture consisting of humus, peat and sod in a ratio of 1: 1: 1.
This is necessary in order not to furtherpick the seedlings, which damages their root system. Crops are kept under glass with temperature retained at a level not lower than 20 ° С. After the first shoots appear, the glass is removed and the temperature is maintained in the range of 7–8 ° C. After 10 days, it is increased to 16-18 ° C.
Care of seedlings
Growing and caring for kohlrabi when it is stillis a seedling, very important and requires a lot of attention. During this period, take care of the vegetable in the same way as the seedlings of white cabbage. The soil is moistened with water as it dries, the room maintains the necessary temperature. In order for the seedlings not to become infected with a black leg, for preventive purposes it is necessary to pour it once with a solution of potassium permanganate, necessarily weak.
During the development phase of leaflets requiredmake feeding. To this end, the leaves need to evenly distribute the solution of half of one tablet of trace elements and three milliliters of complex mineral fertilizers, previously diluted in one liter of water.
Kohlrabi suffers greatly from picks,that is why seedlings are grown in separate pots. However, if young plants are in the same container, they will definitely need a pick, which is produced in the development phase of the first leaf. Shoots are seated in separate pots that contain peat-humus mixture. The temperature regime is maintained in the range of 18 - 20 ° C.
Selection of soil for planting kohlrabi
Transplantation, cultivation and care of kohlrabi in the open field can be started after the seedlings are ready.
Kohlrabi is well transplanted into the soil in which such crops as:
- Potatoes.
- Carrot.
- Pumpkin.
- Tomatoes
- Courgettes.
- Perennial herbs.
A good place for planting kohlrabi cabbage isslopes in the southern or southeastern areas. It grows well in soils that have almost any composition, with the exception of depleted and acidic soils, since in this case the steeplodes will be hard and will have coarse fibers.
Наилучший показатель содержания водорода для cultivating kohlrabi in open ground is a pH of 6.7–7.4. To prepare the site for landing, it is necessary to dig it in advance to a depth of one bayonet shovel. This is done in the autumn period with the addition of about four kilograms of organic fertilizers, 250 mg of wood ash, 3 mg of urea and 5-7 mg of superphosphate per square meter of land.
Landing in open ground
For the landing of kohlrabi pick up cloudy weatheror carry out landing in the evening, after sunset. Varieties that are precocious are placed on the garden in a schematic manner. It looks like this: 60 to 40 or 70 to 30, for late varieties the following scheme is valid: 60 to 55, and also 70 to 30. In order to grow a healthy and rich crop when growing kohlrabi, add 10 mg to each well. superphosphate, 3 mg of urea and about 40 mg of wood ash.
Seedlings are planted, deepening it to the cotyledonsheets, as if planted deeper, this may entail a delay in the formation of the stebleplod or lead to flowering. Kohlrabi roots are located on the very surface of the earth and sprinkled with soil. After planting, the soil should be slightly trampled and then poured with plenty of water. After moisture is absorbed, this area must be covered with primer to prevent rapid and significant evaporation of moisture.
Care and watering kohlrabi cabbage
It’s not hard to care for kohlrabi,This process is fundamentally no different from the care of other varieties of cabbage. A kohlrabi stem bloomer begins to form at a time when seven to eight leaves have developed well enough, after which it gradually gains volume.
When growing kohlrabi in open groundit is necessary to periodically weed the beds, as well as loosen the aisles and the ground around the plants themselves in rows. This is necessary in order to grow juicy and tender stebleplody. Before they start to appear, kohlrabi need to spud.
Высаженную рассаду нужно обильно поливать через a day or two, and after it takes root and begins its active growth, weekly irrigation is sufficient. Kohlrabi has the greatest need for watering in June, especially if the weather is dry. Kohlrabi is watered often, but not as abundantly as other types of cabbage. It is important to ensure that the soil in your area was moderately wet.
Top dressing and processing of kohlrabi
During the growing season when growingKohlrabi cabbage dressing needs to be done three times. In the phase when the first two leaflets are developed, foliar feeding is carried out with complex fertilizers and microelements. Then, at the beginning of hardening, for 14 days before planting in the soil, the seedlings are sprayed with a solution containing 10 mg of potassium sulfate and the same amount of urea diluted in 10 liters of water. As well as the treatment is carried out immediately before the landing in the ground, putting in the wells of mineral and organic fertilizers.
In cases where kohlrabi is exposedthe disease or damage by parasites, the treatment of cabbage by special means is necessary. In most cases, insecticidal preparations are used to control pests.
With the defeat of cabbage kohlrabi diseases needapply fungicidal agents that will help to cope with most diseases. If kohlrabi is infected with a viral disease, it is necessary to remove the diseased plant from the garden bed and burn it, and disinfect the soil where it grew. As follows from the article, the care and cultivation of kohlrabi cabbage does not pose any difficulty, or rather, is very simple.
Turnip Cabbage Harvesting
Kohlrabi, which was sown in the spring, is necessaryclean from the beds as they mature, but it should not be stored in the refrigerator for more than two weeks. But the cabbage, which was sown in the period from the last decade of June to the end of July, can be harvested around the time that the cabbage is harvested, namely, when the daytime temperature on sunny days drops to three to five degrees Celsius, and the nighttime temperature reaches zero degrees.
By this time period, Kohlrabi strawlers are alreadyreach 8-10 cm in diameter and weigh an average of about 110 grams. In that case, if you do not harvest the crop in time and allow it to ripen, the stemmers will harden, contain many fibers and lose their taste.
Kohlrabi Cabbage Storage
After an effort to grow cabbageKohlrabi in the open field of the vegetable grower will be pleased with the fact that the stalkers are well preserved if you follow certain rules. The main factor is to maintain the optimum temperature. It is also important to know that purple stem cells are best preserved.
It must be remembered that the collection of kohlrabi needexercise in clear and dry weather. Stebleplods are removed from the soil along with the roots and then dried in a dark, dry room. After that, they are cleared of soil and produce leaf pruning. To increase the shelf life is recommended not to remove the root system.
Kohlrabi is laid in boxes filled with sand,so that the stemmers do not touch each other. In this form, maintaining a humidity of about 95% and a temperature of zero degrees, the crop can be stored for five to eight months.
Growing kohlrabi cabbage in open field andcaring for her does not involve significant time costs and physical strength. By making stocks of cabbage turnips, you can provide yourself with tasty and healthy kohlrabi stemmers, which are rich in phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and cobalt. Also, they have many different acids, carotene, fructose, glucose and a large amount of vitamin C, for which Kohlrabi got the nickname - “Northern Lemon”.
