Mustard - a plant for green fertilizer: useful properties, whether to care, methods of application. Good tips for growing lettuce mustard

Lettuce leaf mustard is a cold-resistant plant, ripening quickly, ready for use in 4-5 weeks. Grown in an annual culture. The leaves are strongly dissected, with wavy edges, very rich in vitamins, mineral salts of calcium, iron, trace elements. Try it in a salad or use it when preserving vegetables (cucumbers or tomatoes) and appreciate the delicate flavor of horseradish, mustard. The presence of mustard oil gives a slight sharpness.

Varieties

Salad - 54 most best grade, there is a very elegant variety Krasnolistnaya. For greenhouses, the Muravushka variety is sown, for open ground - Ladushka.

Salad mustard "VOLNUSHKA" early ripe variety, harvest after 30 days, cold hardy, with fast leaf growth.

cultivation

Growing this crop is very simple, as it is unpretentious, although not very common among vegetable growers.

Any fertile soil is suitable for growing leafy mustard. For this, they dig up the bed, add humus up to 3 kg per 1 m 2, dig it up again and level it. Then watered with a solution liquid fertilizer Ideal 1st. spoon on a bucket of water. Ratio: 2-3 liters for every 1m 2 .

Seeds of leaf mustard do not need special pre-sowing preparation, they are sown in a greenhouse or in open ground under covering material. Grooves are made with a depth of 1 to 1.5 cm and a distance between rows of 20 to 25 cm.

Sowing seeds is carried out in several terms -

In hot weather, leaf mustard is not sown, as the plant shoots.

Seedlings appear after 3-4 days at temperatures up to +20 degrees, this is the most optimal temperature for its growth. When shoots appear, thickened plants must be thinned out, leaving 3-4 cm between them. At the same time, they should be fed: for this, 1 teaspoon of urea is dissolved in 10 liters of water, and watered at the rate of 3 liters per 1 m 2.

When the mustard leaves grow up to 10-12 cm, then they start harvesting. Caring for leaf mustard is simple: loosen the aisles and water as needed. Watering: given that the roots of this plant are superficial, and the mustard itself is moisture-loving, therefore, it is necessary to monitor and water at least 2 times a week, in dry times it is possible more often, since the lack of moisture will immediately affect the quality of the leaves, they will be rough and tasteless, and the plant itself will immediately go to the arrow.

Salad mustard can be used as a sealant.

Fresh leaves and young rosettes are consumed before shoots appear. Raw - in salads with sour cream or vegetable oil, boiled or stewed - as a side dish for fish and meat dishes. Cooked mustard sandwiches are very tasty.

Some argue that mustard sauce is the only thing that is made from a plant that is often cultivated by ordinary gardeners. But there is also salad mustard - and not only the one whose seeds are used for the production mustard powder, hot sauce or condiment.

Leaf mustard can be used as a fresh product for salads, as well as for preservation for the winter.

Vegetable crops are so diverse that you often get lost in their abundance. Modern gardeners grow salad mustard using different varieties while pursuing different goals. Someone likes to preserve, and someone likes to make fresh summer salads with a spicy taste. This plant has another name - mustard lettuce. Varietal salad mustard differs from wild varieties: it is characterized by whole leaves and short stature. And now you can get acquainted with the most popular varieties of mustard culture.

Popular varieties

Mustard salad wave is a variety that grows early and indulges in a juicy crop of greens. The plant has a voluminous and slightly spreading leaf rosette and elongated oval leaves. Their diameter is 32 cm. They delight the eye with a pale greenish color and smoothness. The taste of this salad is tart and spicy. The weight of one outlet is 80 g. From 1 sq. m you can collect 2 kg of waves.
Freckle
This variety is early, it gives lush juicy greens in a month. The plant grows up to 30 cm and has a weight of 170 g. This variety has large, slightly wrinkled dark green leaves with red veins. In terms of taste, mustard is slightly spicy, the leaves are tender and juicy. Freckle gives from 1 square. m 3.6 kg of crop.
Mushtarda
This plant grows very fast. Greens are harvested after 25 days. The rosette has a height of 20 cm. In order to get more yield, mustard is sown every 15 days until August 15th. Due to the fact that lettuce leaves have a spicy flavor, it is used to prepare side dishes and vegetable salads. From 1 sq. m going to 3 kg.

Mustang
This variety has an average ripening period. The term of formation is 35 days. Rosette has red-green whole leaves big size. They reach a height of 30 cm. The socket has a weight of 60 g. From 1 sq. m you can collect 4 kg of spicy and juicy greens.
lovely
This variety gives a harvest very early, literally 20 days in greenhouse conditions, and if the ground is open, you will need a month. The plant has the shape of an upright rosette, its diameter is 15 cm. The leaves are pale green color and egg-shaped covered with a wax coating. They have a special tenderness and juiciness, as well as a pleasant weak spicy taste. From 1 sq. m you can collect 3.4 kg of lettuce leaves.
Vigorous
And we are also pleased with the Vigorous salad mustard. This variety is also practiced by gardeners. In salads with mayonnaise sauce, the hotness of this spice disappears, but it gives the dish a rich flavor.

Beneficial features

Surely not everyone knows that salad mustard is also an old doctor. The fact is that this plant contains useful components: ascorbic acid, magnesium, iron, potassium and many other minerals, as well as vitamins, proteins, fiber, mucus and mustard fatty and essential oils.

Mustard leaf contains few calories, so it is also a dietary crop and generally has a beneficial effect on the human body. Salad mustard has:

anti-inflammatory;
protective;
cleansing action.

In addition, it is an antioxidant.

Mustard leaves tend to stimulate appetite, favorably affect the digestive organs, metabolism and help to lose weight.

Harm and contraindications

Although this plant is rich in micro and macro elements, and is also known for its beneficial properties, it is able to harm the body. Therefore, you can not eat mustard leaves:

if there is an individual intolerance to the plant;
with diseases of the gallbladder and kidneys;
if drugs are taken that contribute to blood thinning;
also while taking calcium;
with an ulcer of the gastrointestinal tract;
in the presence of severe heart disease.

It is not recommended to use the spice in large quantities for pregnant women, otherwise swelling may appear. Nursing mothers should generally forget about this plant, as the child may develop an allergic reaction.
Salad mustard tastes like horseradish, lettuce and mustard sauce. It has a spicy aftertaste, so pickled blanks delight us with sweet and at the same time spicy shades.

Thanks to salad mustard, fresh salads from vegetables, fish and meat have a spicy taste and aroma. And its leaves are also ideal for sandwiches, decorations for ready-made dishes, they can be consumed with boiled eggs and put in soups. In addition, salad mustard is preserved for the winter and served as a separate dish. Delicious pickled and salted mustard lettuce leaves.

Growing mustard is not very popular with Russian gardeners, and in vain. After all, this plant is recognized as a storehouse of useful substances - vitamins, antioxidants and trace elements that have a beneficial effect on almost all human organs. Salad mustard, due to its unpretentiousness, can be grown both in the open field, and in greenhouses, and even on the windowsills of an apartment, providing us with vitamins all year round.

Salad mustard - a useful spice

Salad (aka leafy) mustard has large juicy leaves with a piquant spicy taste that combines notes of radish, horseradish and spicy mustard. Leafy greens are great for salads, appetizers, sandwiches, and sandwiches. The leaves of the plant are added to soups, meat and fish dishes, canned and pickled for the winter. Pasta with mustard leaves is popular in Italy, and Americans add it to their favorite steaks. Yes, and the domestic food industry is unthinkable without salad mustard, which is used in the production of mayonnaise and savory sauces.

For cultivation in Russian latitudes, the most popular varieties are:

Red-leaved;
Volnushka;
Ladushka;
Salad 54;
Ant (for greenhouses and greenhouses).

The beautiful names of the varieties are inspired by the structure of the leaves of the plant - wide with wavy edges and a green or reddish color.

Salad mustard contains vitamins A, B, C, K, E, the composition of trace elements is also wide: selenium, magnesium, potassium, iron, phosphorus, calcium, zinc and others. Mustard oil reduces cholesterol, improves immunity and vascular elasticity, improves the functioning of the digestive and cardiovascular systems.

Supporters healthy eating can safely include salad mustard in their diet due to its low calorie content (26 kcal per 100 g of product).

Leaf mustard can grow in any soil, but for a generous harvest, loose fertile soil with a slightly alkaline or neutral acidity index is needed, and the planting site should not be waterlogged. Areas after potatoes, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas are best suited. At the same place, the annual planting of mustard is not recommended - it is necessary to resume sowing after 3-4 years.

It is undesirable to sow mustard in those areas where cabbage (garden, cauliflower, leafy, kohlrabi), radish, swede or turnip grew before - that is, any representatives of the cruciferous family.

The plant is frost-resistant and is able to tolerate cooling down to -5 ° C, so the sowing is carried out in early April. Sow the seeds in rows in moist soil at a distance of at least 25-30 cm, so that when the green mass is set, the plants can develop normally. The recommended sowing depth is 1-1.5 cm. An average of 0.8-1 g of seeds is consumed per 1 square meter.

Mustard cultivation is practiced in greenhouses and greenhouses. Sowing technology is the same as in open ground, only the sowing time can be moved to March. After sowing in the greenhouse, it is recommended to create a temperature of + 25 ° C, and then gradually lower it to + 14 ° C, which will allow seedlings to adapt to a cool climate and prevent them from stretching out.

Mustard Care

After the formation of the first true leaflet, the shoots must be thinned out, leaving 5 cm between plants. The next time, the entrances are thinned out after the formation of the fourth true leaf, while the distance between plants is increased to 10-15 cm. Thinning when growing mustard is necessary condition. Culture can grow in a thickened plantation, but you should not wait good harvest.

When the height of lettuce mustard reaches 10-15 cm (2-3 weeks after sowing), the leaves can be cut off and eaten. It is customary to remove the plant from the garden before the moment it releases flower-bearing arrows. Rosettes of leaves are cut with scissors or pulled out with roots. It is enough to leave a few plants for seeds.

Mustard pods crack when ripe, so they need to be collected when browning. In the future, the pods must be kept for a month at a temperature of +16 to +18 ° C for final maturation.

If desired, sowing can be carried out repeatedly with an interval of 1-1.5 weeks, then fresh greens will delight for a long time. However, it is worth considering that when hot weather sets in, the plant quickly leaves the stems, and the leaves coarsen. Therefore, it is recommended to sow leafy mustard in spring period or at the end of summer, when the heat will subside. Optimal temperature regime for spicy leaves - from +18 to +20°C.

Caring for a mustard crop is simple and consists in loosening the soil, timely weeding and regular watering. Water the site sparingly as needed - if the plant feels a lack of moisture, the taste of the leaves will deteriorate.

Fertilizers for mustard

Additional nutrition for leaf mustard should be applied from the fall, when the site is being prepared for future sowing. The earth must be dug up with the use of fertilizers per 1 sq. m.:

compost - 3-6 kg;
potassium chloride - 10 g;
superphosphate - 15 g.

For a good harvest, the plant needs top dressing, especially on poor soils. After the first thinning, experts recommend using young shoots as additional nutrition:

urea solution - 10 g per 10 liters of water;
mullein solution - in a ratio of 1:10;
chicken manure solution - in a ratio of 1:15.

Suitable and "green fertilizer" in the form of an infusion of fermented herbs, as well as wood ash(200 g per 10 liters of water).

Summing up

Salad mustard is worthy of growing in our beds and greenhouses. Its cultivation will allow almost all year round to provide the family with not only tasty, but also useful product. Given the unpretentiousness of the culture, planting and caring for it is within the power of even novice gardeners, and timely fertilization will ensure bountiful harvest curly foliage.

Everyone is used to the mustard sold in any grocery store. We add such mustard to dishes as a seasoning or spice, spread it on a roll or bread. We know the wonderful property of mustard - to protect human body from the harmful effects of microbes, equating it to products such as horseradish or garlic.

But you can eat green mustard, it has a lot of useful substances. For the use of green mustard, people grow mustard leaf, or lettuce.

Description of mustard leaf

Mustard leaf, or salad- annual plant. It can reach one and a half meters in height. Her stem is bare, branched. The leaves are pale green with purple-blue veins. The leaves have a mustard smell and a delicate, delicate bitter taste. The flowers are quite small, golden yellow, collected in inflorescences. The fruit is a pod. Seeds are yellow or dark brown, small, rounded.

The most common varieties of leaf mustard are: early ripening, southerner, non-shrinking, as well as some Japanese varieties.

Useful properties of leaf mustard

Mustard leaf - very useful plant rich in vitamins. Its leaves contain a large amount vitamin C as well as vitamins B 1, B 2, PP, A. In addition to vitamins, mustard leaf is useful iron, phosphorus, magnesium.

Growing mustard leaf

Mustard leaf - enough cold hardy plant. In addition, she famous his precocity. It can be eaten within half a month after sowing.
You can grow leaf mustard as in closed ground, as well as in the open.
leafy mustard undemanding to the composition of the soil. However, fertile soils, well-fertilized, rich in organic matter, are best suited for it.

How and when to plant mustard leaf?

Salad mustard seeds should be planted in early spring . Usually they are sown densely, if necessary, they can then be pulled through. 15-20 days after sowing the first mustard seeds, the seeds should be sown again. This is done several times during the summer. It all depends on the amount of mustard leaf you need.

Rows in the garden should be located on distance thirty centimeters(plus or minus five centimeters). Embedding depth should not be deeper half a centimeter.
thin out mustard shoots ten centimeters between plants. It is necessary to thin out only when two or three leaves appear on them.
Care behind the mustard is in weeding and sufficient watering. Salad mustard is very demanding on the amount of moisture. With a lack of water, crops develop poorly.
Leaf mustard is a relative of watercress. Therefore, it should also be grown with little shade. In the sunshine, high temperature air and low humidity, mustard leaves become rough and acquire a not very pleasant aftertaste.
If mustard grows poorly, it can be feed(after thinning!) nitrogen fertilizers.
When the plants have grown ten centimeters, they can already be harvested. To do this, they are pulled out along with the root.
To get seeds plants shoot 25 days after sowing. They flower and produce seeds.

Applicationmustard leaf

Mustard leaves are used as food in fresh. They are put in sandwiches, added to various salads, used as a side dish for all kinds of fish and meat dishes.

Juicy young stalks of lettuce mustard canned, dried and salted. Leaf mustard increases appetite, promotes the secretion of gastric juice, has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic effects.

A spicy seasoning for sandwiches is prepared from mustard sprouts. Enjoy your meal!

Especially for Lucky-Girl.ru - Margo

Vitamin greens can be grown on the windowsill all year round - it can replace expensive vitamin complexes. Delicate mustard leaves have a piquant taste - they are recommended for salads and side dishes.

Useful information

Exist different types mustard:

Sizaya (Russian, Sarepta);
black (French);
white (English).

On the windowsill, it makes sense to grow salad mustard, which has the most tender and long-lasting leaves.

The term for reaching technical maturity is about 30 days. The rosette of the plant has a diameter of 28-37 cm. Slightly wavy leaves are raised up. They are narrower at the base than at the top. The edges are slightly serrated. Dark green leaves covered with a light wax coating have a red-violet "tan". Taste characteristics are good - there is a slight astringency and sharpness.

The term for reaching technical ripeness is 26-27 days. Plants are light-loving, fruitful - from each square meter you can collect up to 3 kg of greens. The leaves are colored green. They are tender, juicy, spicy in taste.

Mustard salad Ant

This variety has earned great recognition thanks to high yield- from a square meter of planting, you can collect 4-4.5 kg of useful greenery. The diameter of the rosette of leaves is on average 25 cm. The elongated leaves are egg-shaped. Leaf blades are covered with a thin wax coating. The taste of greens is pleasant, spicy and spicy.

What is useful salad mustard? Greens bring significant benefits to the body, because they contain a large amount of vitamins (A, C, P, B1) and minerals (calcium, potassium, sulfur, iron, zinc, etc.). The leaves contain vegetable protein, carbohydrates, fats. Sprouts are recommended for eczema and other skin diseases, as well as for problems with the intestines, cough, beriberi and neuralgia.

Mustard on the windowsill: growing rules

To plant mustard, purchase seeds from a specialty store. Soak them in a pink potassium permanganate solution for 20 minutes. Rinse the container in which you plan to sow the seeds with the same solution. If you want to speed up the process of seed germination, wrap them in a damp cloth (gauze). Maintain moisture by periodically spraying with a spray bottle. The resulting sprouts can be planted in the ground or immediately added to the salad. To receive constant inflow green leaves, 2 weeks after the first sowing, plant a new batch of seeds (then repeat the sowing, not forgetting to disinfect the planting containers).

Mustard prefers nutritious soil, the acidity should be neutral or slightly alkaline. You can take the soil from the garden (best of all - from the beds after growing tomatoes or potatoes). Add biohumus and coconut fiber. Be sure to calcine the earth in the oven. If you want to make the task easier, purchase a ready-made soil mixture for vegetable seedlings - it has the composition necessary for the development of plants.

As a container, use disposable cups, pots, boxes - whatever you think is convenient (you need the container to have holes for the outflow of water). Fill the planting container by a third with expanded clay or other drainage material, fill in the soil, sow the seeds (immersion depth - about 0.5 cm). Pour over, cover with foil. Leave in a cool place until germination, and then - rearrange in the sun (but not under direct rays). When growing mustard on greens, it makes no sense to thin out the planting much - when thickened, the leaves remain juicy longer.

You can grow greens without soil - put foam rubber on the bottom of glass jars, moisten it, spread the seeds on top. Moisten the sponge periodically. When the seedlings reach a height of about 5 cm, you can cut them and use them.

Care for salad mustard on the windowsill

Homemade mustard does not need top dressing, you just need to water and spray it on time (this is especially important in winter, when the heating is on). AT cloudy weather and in the cold season it is worth organizing additional lighting. Greens can be cut as needed. In summer, it is advisable to find the coolest place in the apartment - if the temperature exceeds 20 ... 24 degrees, shooting begins.

Lettuce can grow on your windowsill both in winter and in summer. Plants do not need special care. They quickly sprout and reach technical maturity in a short time.