Fennel: photo, cultivation
Fennel is a perennial plant that is used for food purposes, is used in the manufacture of spices, and also has medicinal properties. The culture is rich in vitamins, minerals and healthy fatty acids. For its wide use in folk medicine, it was called pharmaceutical dill.
The culture belongs to the umbrella family and is subdivided into 2 types: ordinary and vegetable. Common fennel resembles dill in appearance, but has a more powerful trunk and lush foliage. The plant tastes like anise.
Fennel with tuber is best planted through seedlings
Vegetable consists of several stems that originate from a powerful fleshy tuber. The tuber is the root of the plant. This part is especially rich in vitamin reserves and trace elements and is widely used for medicinal purposes.
Growing and caring for fennel
To grow a crop, you must choose a site that will be well lit by the sun. It is important to thoroughly fertilize the soil before planting the plant. It is better to do this in advance. To do this, you can use humus, in the calculation – one bucket per square meter. You can also use ready-made mineral fertilizers. Directly on the day of planting, you need to dig, loosen and level the soil in the garden, divide it into rows and holes. The rows are watered abundantly.
Depending on the type of plant chosen, there are 2 ways to plant a crop:
- Sowing seeds in open ground. This planting method is used for common fennel. Seeds are sown on the bed in the first half of April to a depth of 2 cm. The distance between the holes is 15-20 cm, between the rows – 40-45 cm. The bed must be covered with foil until May. As soon as the seedlings reach a level of 5 cm, they must be thinned out.
- Planting through seedlings is used in order to obtain a plant with a tuber. Seeds are sown in pots in the second half of March. You need to put 3 seeds in each pot. If all the seeds have sprout, you only need to leave one, the strongest stem. At the end of April, the plant needs to be transplanted to the garden bed.
Plant care consists in regular watering (every 5 days), removing weeds and loosening the soil. A plant with a tuber still needs to be spud. Top dressing is carried out 2 weeks after planting the crop. The best way to do this is to use a liquid organic fertilizer.
Dill greens can be used throughout the summer, until the umbrellas appear. The vegetable must be removed from the garden when the tuber reaches the size of a medium apple.