Dill is a perennial herb,familiar to absolutely everyone. He is loved for a delicious spicy flavor. Learn how dill is grown at the dacha (secrets, tips and basic nuances), and then at your fingertips you will always have a bunch of fragrant and fresh greens. It can be dried and frozen, and also used for salads, soups. Inflorescences and seeds are also used, mainly in the preparation of marinades for canning vegetables.
Seed preparation
Experienced gardeners and gardeners recommendsoak the seeds before planting dill. Growing dill seedlings is also practiced, without fail it is applied to the bush varieties. To soak the seeds, it is enough to wrap in a rag and maintain its moisture for a couple of days, until swelling. Then they need to be dried for 20 minutes in the air and sown in the prepared soil. Uniform shoots appear, as a rule, in two weeks. All this time it is required to maintain constant humidity. The temperature of the seeds of dill are not demanding and begin to actively germinate already at +3 ° C.
Dill sowing time
Growing dill in the open field canbe carried out in two ways: this is sowing in spring or late autumn. The plant is quite cold-resistant and can tolerate frosts down to -6 ° C, so the seeds can be embedded in the soil in late autumn (October-November), the timing depends on the region. The second option involves spring planting. It starts too early enough, as soon as the snow melts and the soil dries out a little. Tentative terms - from mid-April until the end of May. Dill reproduces very well by self-sowing. If the umbrellas with seeds are not removed in the fall, then next spring, most likely, the whole garden will be covered with fragrant greens.
Dill: planting and care in the open field
The bed for spring sowing need to be cooked withautumn. It is required to dig up the ground to a depth of about 25 cm and add a bucket of humus (per square meter). In the spring, it is enough to level the bed with a rake and make grooves at a distance of 20 cm and a depth of 2-3 cm from each other. Sow the seeds in them, sprinkle them on top with a small layer of humus. It is not necessary to water before emergence.
Throughout the summer, dill can sow more than onetime, and with an interval of 20-25 days for receiving fresh greens. That is the time of its maturation. At this point, the plant reaches a height of about twenty centimeters. To get seeds, you will have to wait a little longer, before the umbrellas ripen. These are the basic rules for growing dill in the open field. Everything is quite simple and will not cause difficulties even for a novice gardener.
Sprouts dill: features of cultivation
This variety has appeared on the seed market.recently. Its appearance and cultivation technology are somewhat different from those of ordinary fennel. If you do not comply with agricultural techniques, then he, of course, will grow, but he will lose his elite qualities. The main feature of this species is its size and strong foliage. Sprouts dill can grow up to one and a half meters in height, therefore, the distance between plants should be large (25 cm). It is more demanding on soil fertility and climate, and therefore it is planted in greenhouses. Cultivation of dill in the open ground is also possible, but only by seedling (sowing in mid-April - early May). It is planted on the bed when the air temperature is set within 20-25 ° C.
The capriciousness of dill is offset by its high yield. So, 20 plants will provide you with greenery, not only for the whole summer, but also for the winter.
Если вы практикуете выращивание укропа в открытом soil, it is best to remove flower stalks, especially in central Russia, as the seeds still do not have time to ripen, even in greenhouses. The plant only in vain will spend power. This variety is best grown exclusively for greenery.
Dill diseases
One of the main enemies of fragrant green -powdery mildew. It may appear at any time in the form of white bloom on seeds, stems and leaves. Mealy dew most often occurs at the end of the summer, when the nights become cool. As a result, the plant loses its taste and is no longer suitable for eating. Perhaps the appearance of downy powdery mildew, which is characterized by the appearance of chlorotic spots, gradually turning yellow.
Dill may also be exposed to fomoz. This fungal disease manifests itself as blackening on seeds, stems, and sometimes leaves.
These diseases can in principle appear inany time, regardless of whether you practice growing dill in the open field or greenhouse. It is impossible to treat plants with chemicals; therefore, it is only possible to use preventive measures, namely, alternating crops, timely destroying weeds and infected specimens, and disinfecting dill seeds. To do this, before planting, they need to be heated in hot water (50 ° C) for 30 minutes.
Growing dill: the main nuances
- Thinning.This is the case when you do not need to regret the plants. In the phase of 2-3 true leaves, shoots must be thinned out, leaving at least 6-7 cm between neighboring bushes. This contributes to the better development of dill, it will be strong and even. For the bush varieties it is generally a mandatory procedure, and it can be carried out in several stages, gradually increasing the distance between plants to thirty centimeters.
- Зелень вырастает примерно за месяц, поэтому в the growing season fertilization is not required. In extreme cases, if you notice the yellowing of the leaves, you can water the plants with a solution of urea or mullein.
- Young greens can be pulled out directly from the root, but from adult plants (25 cm and higher) it is better to pick off only green leaves.
- Choose for planting sunny places where there is no stagnation of moisture and fertile soil. In the shade you will get pale green or almost yellow dill.
Growing dill: the choice of varieties
Often, growers and gardeners do not attach importancevarieties of dill, because the greens - it is greens. And this is a completely wrong opinion. In the modern seed market, the choice of dill varieties is very large. As a rule, they all differ in terms of maturation, and sometimes in agricultural cultivation. Therefore, carefully read the inscriptions on the bags with fragrant seeds. It is worth noting the following varieties of dill.
- Mid-season: Anna, Gribovsky, Umbrella, Lesnogorsky, Salute, Patterns.
- Late-ripening: Alligator, Boreas, Superdukat.
- Bush varieties: Buyan, Bouquet, Sultan.
Harvesting and drying the crop
Collection of greens for drying or freezing is made25-30 days after shoots appear. By this time the plant grows up to 15-20 cm in height. Before freezing, rinse the herbs and let them drain. Then dill should be crumbled and packaged in sachets or containers. You can also dry it. This should be done not in the sun, but in the shade, in a well-ventilated room. Store dried dill in jars with tight-fitting lids or in paper bags, the same goes for seeds.
Be sure to plant on your site fragrantdill! Planting and care in the open field does not require much time and effort. But as a result, you get not only delicious, but also very useful spicy greens, and the seeds are great for use in pickling and salting vegetables, in addition, have medicinal properties.
