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Ramson can be called the first spring delicacy. The spicy garlic smell of young plants is familiar to many. But in appearance, the culture is hardly distinguished from hellebore and lily of the valley. What is wild garlic: photo and description, its varieties, where, when and how it is collected – this will be discussed in the article.
What does wild garlic look like
Ramson is a perennial herbaceous bulbous plant. It has a trihedral stem, reaching a height of 0,5 m. The leaves are lanceolate, shorter than the stem, up to 5 cm wide, their upper part is darker than the bottom. The bulb is small, elongated, with parallel shells, splitting into fibers. Roots go deep into the soil. The wild garlic flower has the shape of an umbrella, in the form of a hemisphere. Petals are white, up to 12 mm long. The box is spherical, with three sides, inside of which there are seeds.
The plant has different names – bear onion, wild garlic, flask. Blooms in May-June. The flowers are fragrant, fragrant, beautiful, used in cooking and for decorating dishes. Wild garlic leaves are tender and juicy, in appearance they look like lily of the valley, autumn colchicum, hellebore. In order to accurately recognize the plant, you must carefully study the photo and description of wild garlic.
Varieties of cherry trees
There are two types of plants:
- bear bow – compact appearance, leaf height – about 40 cm, has 3 – 4 leaf plates up to 5 cm wide. They appear already in March-April, after the snow has melted and the soil has warmed up. Bear bow, or wild garlic (pictured) is listed in the Red Book.
- Victorious Bow – on a powerful root there are several bulbs in the shape of a cone, the leaves of the plant are massive, they can reach a height of 1 m, the flowers are pale green.
Wild garlic of the victorious onion species successfully grows on acidic soils. Its frost resistance is higher than that of the bear’s onion, the bulb is larger and the peduncle is denser. Like the first type, the victorious bow is listed in the Red Book.
After the wild wild garlic was cultivated and began to be actively grown, breeders drew attention to it. Thanks to them, several new varieties have appeared with their own characteristics:
- Teddy-bear – gives the earliest greens (up to 1,5 kg per square meter), the leaves are long, emerald, with a wax coating; culture is not afraid of frost and excessive soil moisture;
- Bear Delicacy – productive variety (up to 2 kg per square meter) with fleshy leaves up to 30 cm long, which are used for salting and pickling;
- Bear Ear – an early ripening variety with a delicate and pleasant taste; light green leaves, elongated, yield – up to 2,5 kg per square meter.
How wild garlic grows
Wild garlic (ramson) grows throughout Europe, Turkey, and the Caucasus. Early fragrant greens are most often found in shaded lowlands. Ramson likes shade, moisture and coolness, so its habitats are coniferous, deciduous forests, thickets of alder trees, swampy places near rivers and lakes.
To grow wild garlic in your backyard, you need to know a few secrets:
- shade and moist soil – the conditions for the successful growth of wild garlic;
- plant propagation is best done by seeds, because in this case, survival is more reliable;
- it is necessary to sow “before winter” so that the seeds lie at sub-zero temperatures for at least 100 days.
The growth of wild garlic takes a long time. The plant becomes an adult only in the fourth year.
To grow bear onions from seeds, you must:
- Prepare the soil – dig up the ground, remove weeds, make drainage.
- Apply organic fertilizers.
- In September, sow wild garlic seeds in grooves (at a distance of 20 cm). Sowing density – 10 g per square meter. Sprinkle peat on top.
- Water.
You can also sow in the spring, which requires hardening the seeds in wet sand, then weeding periodically and only after a year transplanting to a permanent place.
Planting with bulbs is not particularly relevant – due to low yields, but this method is also used:
- The best time for landing is mid-spring or early autumn.
- Prepare the site, as well as for sowing.
- Plant the bulbs at a distance of 15 cm, deepening into the ground and sprinkled with peat.
Growing wild garlic, you must perform the following procedures:
- frequent watering,
- loosening,
- weed control,
- top dressing.
The plant becomes demanding for such care at the age of two years. Prior to this, there is no urgent need to carry out all the activities.
What is the difference between wild garlic and hellebore and lily of the valley
Wild garlic is very similar to poisonous hellebore and lily of the valley.
Hellebore is a forest plant, belongs to the Melantiev genus. It has wide folded elliptical leaves, belongs to alkaloids, is very poisonous. Toxic substances cause heart failure and poisoning. One leaf is enough to get symptoms of intoxication of the body after a while. At the same time, tincture and powder are prepared from the hellebore root. The powder helps in the treatment of head lice and livestock wounds. With the wrong, even external, use of a poisonous plant, you can get fatal poisoning.
To avoid this, you should know how to distinguish plants. The leaves of wild garlic and hellebore are similar. But upon closer examination, differences can be discerned. The leaves of the flask are narrow, elongated, absolutely smooth. In hellebore they are wide. dense, veined, slightly corrugated, corrugated, have villi on the reverse side. The stem of the wild garlic coming out of the ground has a pink-red hue, in hellebore it is white.
A bush of wild garlic contains about 4 leaves and an arrow with a flower in which seeds ripen later. Hellebore grows up to 1 m in height and forms a head of cabbage.
The main difference between plants is the garlic smell of wild garlic, which can be felt by breaking and grinding its leaf.
Lily of the valley is a poisonous herbaceous plant belonging to Liliaceae. It is easy to confuse it with wild garlic, since they have the same place of growth and a similar appearance. The differences are as follows:
- lily of the valley leaves are lighter, have pointed ends;
- flowers of a bear’s bow – an umbrella, and a lily of the valley – a bell;
- The main difference between wild garlic is the garlic smell.
Poisoning by poisonous plants manifests itself in the form of symptoms:
- burning tongue;
- vomiting;
- nausea;
- convulsions;
- slow heart rate;
- feels the fear.
To provide first aid, you need to call a doctor, and before his arrival, you should wash your stomach, drink activated charcoal, and put ice on your head.
Where wild garlic grows in Our Country
Bear onion, wild garlic and flask are one and the same plant. It has different names because it grows in many regions of Our Country.
The bear bow is widespread in the Caucasus and in the west of the Federation. If the soil is not covered with sod, then wild garlic grows in clearings, in oak, ash, hornbeam forests.
In the North Caucasus, the bear’s onion covers an area of about 5000 hectares. Often there are thickets of plants, occupying up to 10 hectares.
Siberian wild garlic, or flask, spread from Bashkiria and the Urals to Eastern Siberia. The places of its growth in these areas are light forests, edges, but often the plant is also found in fir, cedar forests.
The Urals are rich in bear onion reserves, which amount to 3000 kg/ha. It is least of all in coniferous forests, the largest number grows on clearings ten years ago with abundant moisture.
On the plains of Western Siberia, the victorious onion grows on gentle slopes, in cedar forests.
In the region of Altai and Sayan wild garlic is common on gentle slopes, meadows and light forests.
The Northern Yenisei is a place where the reserves of victorious onion phytomass are 50 kg/ha. The place of growth is fir forests and large-grass meadows.
The Far East is a place where the flask reserves are 50 thousand tons, the billet is 700 tons.
When and where can you collect wild garlic in 2019
All varieties of wild garlic are rich in vitamins A, E, C, group B. They contain a lot of useful macro- and microelements necessary for a person. The plant is used in different forms – pickled, pickled, dried, salted.
The main time for harvesting wild garlic is May-June. Harvesting wild garlic has recently become so massive that it has led to a reduction in the plant’s population. For this reason, in a number of regions of Our Country (Leningrad, Bryansk, Smolensk and others), it was listed in the Red Book. In the Moscow region and other regions of the Federation, wild garlic is successfully grown on plots, harvesting from the end of spring.
In the Urals, the bear bow occupies spaces on the western slope of the ridge, in the region of Krasnoufimsk and Irbit. Collection time is May. In the Sverdlovsk region, a ban on harvesting has been imposed.
In the Caucasus and Chechnya, garlic is harvested in the foothills and mountainous regions, starting from February-March.
In Siberia – from the end of April.
Conclusion
Bear onion, or wild garlic, the photo and description of which is given in the article, is a very useful plant, widespread throughout Our Country. But as time has shown, in some territories of the Federation, with immense harvesting, its range decreases and even tends to zero. For this reason, wild garlic was listed in the Red Book. Planned harvesting, industrial cultivation and cultivation of crops on personal plots allow you to save the plant in the country.
