Purslane garden - growing from seeds
Content:
An edible fleshy plant, the greens of which is a valuable food product for some peoples of Europe, the entire population of China, in Turkey called a fatty herb, is cultivated in Central Asia, Siberia, Transcaucasia. In Russia, it is called as garden purslane, and for some gardeners it is associated with a malicious weed - wild purslane.
What is purslane
This plant called "Portúlaca" became an object for the study of scientists only at the end of the twentieth century. Then it was found that the herb contains a large amount of fatty acids from the omega-3 group, antioxidants, plant proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
Plant stems and leaves contain the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which increases heart rate and increases blood pressure.
What does the herb purslane look like?
What does an edible purslane look like?
To have an idea of which of the representatives of the Purslane family is eaten, you need to know what the garden purslane looks like. It is very different from the decorative terry and large-flowered species. It has fleshy leaves that are not oblong in the form of tubules, but semicircular wedge-shaped, the flowers are not multi-colored bright, but small, collected in bunches of yellow color.
Stems of plants are branched, recumbent, up to 30 cm long. The taste of leaves and stems is fiery and sour. The color of the leaves can be green, yellow, red. The first flowers of edible purslane bloom in June, the flowering of the bushes ends after the night temperatures drop in August. The seeds ripen in September, they are in an ovoid seed capsule, they can spill out onto the soil on their own.
Wild purslane: where and how it grows
In terms of its vitality, wild purslane weed is equated with sow thistle and wheatgrass - grasses with which gardeners are constantly fighting. It is unlikely that it will be possible to completely destroy these herbs in the garden and garden. Portúlaca can be seen along roads, in the seams of paving slabs, on wastelands, on the banks of rivers and reservoirs, at the edge of the forest. Any soil is suitable for him, but at the same time he does not grow in the shade and freezes at negative temperatures.
Purslane thickets
Beneficial features
The herbaceous parts of the vegetable purslane are used in folk medicine. Application occurs in the form of infusions, decoctions, juices, ointments. For the preparation of preparations, recipes are used based on seeds, dry and fresh herbs. With the help of natural raw materials from garden purslane, they treat avitaminosis, bronchial asthma, lichen, diabetes, wounds, hypotension, relieve inflammation, headaches.
There are also contraindications for the use of purslane in medicine. First of all, this herb should not be given to children, pregnant and lactating women. The condition for taking medications that contain Portúlaca components is to consult with your doctor.
Cooking use
Residents of the Mediterranean can tell any tourist what Portúlaca is, name all its advantages, describe its enveloping sour taste. After all, the plant is one of the components of the Cretan diet. The stems and leaves plucked from young plants are used for food.
According to the descriptions of fans of purslane dishes, if you eat a lot of it, then in the mouth there will be sensations similar to those that occur after eating fresh sorrel leaves. Edible purslane is poorly stored, even when stored in the refrigerator, the period of use after it is torn from the garden is no more than 12 hours.
Purslane dish
Growing purslane from seeds: when to plant
You can grow garden grass from seeds on any, even the poorest, soils. But, in order for it to form large edible parts, they use plots of land on which early vegetable crops grew as predecessors. Usually, mineral fertilizers are applied to the soil for vegetables. They are not completely consumed by plants, the roots of the purslane extract the remnants of nutrients and use them to build their own green mass.
Deciding when to plant grass seeds for culinary purposes can sometimes be tricky. In the conditions of the street on the soil, even in the month of May, night frosts occur. Seeds and seedlings of Portúlaca do not even withstand freezing temperatures, let alone freezing temperatures.
Therefore, either measures are taken to protect the seed beds from the cold, or the seeds are sown when the heat is stable, or the seedling growing method is used.
When and how to plant seedlings
The development of an adult purslane plant from seeds takes a long time. It takes about 2-2.5 months for it to turn from seedlings into a bush that can be used for sale. Therefore, for an early harvest, seeds for seedlings are sown in a greenhouse at the end of February. Then, with the onset of heat, the seedlings are transshipped into the open ground.
Stratification of seeds before planting
Many gardeners do not recommend hardening the seeds of heat-loving plants with cold before sowing into the ground. Stratification is carried out to improve seed germination. But those gardeners who know how difficult it is to deal with purslane in the garden know that seed germination is excellent, and you should not waste time keeping the seeds in the refrigerator.
Site selection
For the garden purslane beds, choose a bright, draft-protected place. The plant does not like waterlogged soil, therefore, low-lying areas should be abandoned. The soil should be well warmed up, moistened and consist of a mixture of sand and garden soil.
Step-by-step planting process
Seeds in open ground are sown in shallow furrows. They are pre-mixed with dry sand. An interval of 50 cm is left between the rows.
If the seedlings are grown in greenhouse conditions, then first they prepare low planting boxes with drainage holes, a moistened soil substrate is placed in them. The top layer of the soil is slightly compacted. Seeds are sown in rows, sprinkled with sand with a layer of 0.5 cm. The boxes are covered with transparent materials, brought out into the light in a warm place. Periodically, the soil in the boxes is moistened.
Purslane bed
Purslane grass care
Portúlaca seedlings, when two leaves appear, dive into separate small containers or into common boxes with a distance of 10 cm between plants. After transplanting plants into the beds (the procedure is carried out after the formation of 8-10 leaves), purslane is regularly watered.
Watering mode
Herbs from the Portulacov family tolerate heat and drought well and do not need abundant watering. Excessive moisture leads to the appearance of a disease in the lower part of the stems of seedlings, which is called black leg. In adult plants, with strong waterlogging, the roots rot.Watering a garden plant is carried out after the topsoil dries out a little. The amount of water should be kept to a minimum.
Plants do not need feeding, as they are removed from the beds before they bloom.
When and how to harvest
If the sowing of the garden purslane in open ground was carried out under favorable conditions, then harvesting is possible 1-1.5 months after sowing the seeds on the garden bed in the budding phase before the beginning of flowering. Usually the stems are cut at the root. As the stems grow, the cutting of the stems is repeated. But in some countries, plants are uprooted and sold in markets. This is due to the culinary preferences of the inhabitants of these countries.
Purslane garden: how to get a weed out of the garden
To figure out how to get rid of purslane in the garden forever, it must be borne in mind that the plant retains a large amount of moisture in its leaves and stems, allowing it to survive even after it is pulled out of the soil along with the roots.
To remove the purslane from the garden, both chemical means of weed control and agrotechnical methods are used. These include deep digging of soil, mulching beds with reflective materials, hand weeding. Pulling weeds regularly by the roots is an effective agricultural technique that will prevent purslane from growing. The benefits of this technique will be 100% if the purslane torn from the ground is removed on a wooden flooring or a stone path on which it dries up.
Hand weeding
Cutting out weeds with flat cutters, hoes, cultivators is impossible. The plants will be chopped into pieces, which will immediately begin to take root in their new location. Everyone should decide how and how to get rid of purslane independently, based on their own health.
Herbicide from garden purslane
Without much physical effort, weed control is carried out using chemicals. Such drugs include herbicides hurricane forte, antisapa, zenkor, permaklin liquid.
The garden purslane will undoubtedly be a useful plant if its cultivation is controlled. Growing Portúlaca without controlling the seed rate always makes the plant look like a disaster that is not easy to get rid of.
