Cucumber borage is also called borage. Culture is popular in European countries and is grown as a vegetable. Her leaves are freshly smelling like cucumber, borachnik pleases cornflower flowers. Useful properties of grass - the ability to improve mood, give strength. It is used in cooking, used in medicine.
What does a cucumber grass look like?
Herbaceous borage borage is an annual upright plant 30-60 cm high. It is densely covered with hairs, on wrinkled elongated olive leaves they look like white fluff, on the stalk - more rigid. The lower plates are somewhat larger than the upper ones. Borage borage has unusual flowers - 5-petalled, large, blue or blue with a pinkish tint, sitting on a long pedicel. They are very fragrant and attract many useful insects, are considered a good honey. The culture blooms for a long time, quickly conquers new sites.
Cucumber grass planting
The plant does not need special care. Borago, as a whole unpretentious and cold-resistant culture, cucumber grass can give the first shoots as soon as the soil is thawed, and in the autumn it grows up to the very first snow. Vegetables multiply by seeds formed after flowering, they can be scattered by the wind. For the first landing it is better to choose a sunny place or a light penumbra. A rich crop yields on fertile and light soils, any culture, under which fresh manure was added, can become a precursor.
How to plant borago?
The fruit of borage cucumber grass is ribbed to 5 cm in length. Seeds are large, black color, retain the germination capacity 2-3 years. Planting of cucumber grass is carried out by direct arrangement of fruits in the substrate. For this, a groove is prepared, the seeds are placed at a depth of 1.5-2 cm, the seeding rate is 3-6 g per 1 sq. M. The material is pre-soaked for 24 hours and placed between the rows 25-30 cm and the distance between the plants 10 cm (after thinning).
You can use a three-line tape with an interval of 50 cm and between specimens of 20 cm. After planting, the plant needs to be thoroughly watered. It is appropriate to thicken the seedlings with a thin layer of sawdust. Seedlings will last 10-12 days later. If they are thick, they should be thinned, leaving one plant to 15 plants. The total growing season from planting to the appearance of seeds is 70-80 days.
When to plant cucumber grass?
It is advisable to lay seeds in the soil in late April-early May. For early harvest, the plant is sown in a container in March, and after 3-4 leaves are formed, they are planted under a film. In order to always have fresh borage greens on the table, the borage is planted in several stages throughout the season every 15-18 days. When summer-autumn crops are harvested in late September - early November. In the years to come, borago will be able to multiply perfectly by self-seeding - the seeds that crumbled in autumn will grow in the spring one of the first in the garden.
How to grow cucumber grass?
Cultivation of the plant is not difficult even for beginners. Cucumber grass is unpretentious, growing it in the open ground or at home in a pot. To obtain an early crop, the culture can be sown in March in a greenhouse or a greenhouse under a film. Grow the grass better next to the apiary or strawberry. It fits well with cucumbers, any types of cabbage, tomatoes, zucchini.
Cucumber borage in open ground
All parts of the grass smell of fresh cucumbers, they season salads. The flowers of the plant are also edible, they are consumed in a candied form, added to drinks. The initial location of borage when grown outdoors depends on future use. If the young shoots are to be used as a whole, sowing is carried out according to the intercostal pattern of 10 cm with a gradual pulling of the seedlings, increasing the distance to 30 cm. When growing stems for flowers or seeds, the intervals between the adult plants are left at 75 cm.
Culture grows large, quickly reaches maturity. You can cut off the sheets after 25-30 days after sowing. Timely cleaning of peduncles promotes more rapid growth of green mass. If they are not cut off, then self-seeding of the plant is guaranteed, and in one area you can get a double or triple yield. The borer is practically not affected by invasions of parasites, it soon grows and blooms for a long time. Experienced gardener notes that he protects nearby plants from parasites, contributes to their rapid growth, clogs weeds.
Borago - growing from seeds
To produce seeds, select several developed strong sprouts. Leaves from them are not cut off, the stems do not remove. The flowering period of borage cucumber grass is strongly stretched, so the seeds are harvested as it ripens. A sign of readiness is the encouragement of the capsules, the stems are cut and kept in the shade. Ripe seeds shake easily when shaken, store them in paper or glass containers. How to grow cucumber grass:
- The plant is better bred on sandy soils with a slightly alkaline reaction. In the autumn, the site is dug up, and in the spring they harrow and make beds.
- After the preparation of the row, the seeds are equidistantly distributed according to the planting scheme and slightly sprinkled with soil.
- Borage borage is not afraid of heat or cold, it easily withstands shadow and thickening. In crops protected from direct sun, its shoots become more tender. In summer, when the weather is hot, they quickly coarsen, and a solid stem forms.
- As the young leaves appear before they blossom, they are used for food.
- Seeds can be sown in the winter, then in the spring they will give amicable shoots.
Borago on the windowsill
For spicy cucumber borage grass, planting and competent care can be successfully carried out in winter and summer in a sunny window sill in an ordinary flower pot. In the room, the stem of the plant reaches 70 cm in height. Ellipsoidal juicy leaves and large sky-blue flowers, gathered in panic-shaped rosettes, will decorate any interior. Plant the culture in March-April in flower pots for several seeds.
After the emergence of sprouts, leave one of the strongest plants. Then, after 3 weeks, the flowering arrows are removed, then the borage cucumber grass will not grow much, and it will be easy to grow in containers on a windowsill, veranda, balcony. For regular production of greenery, sowing is carried out in several steps - after 2-3 weeks. For the early harvest, the bed should be placed in a sunny place, and in the summer - in a shaded place.
Borago - care
Cucumber grass is unpretentious, care for it is a regular watering, weeding, if necessary, loosening rows, feeding, thinning and harvesting. Rules of cultivation:
- Only at first the grass needs to get rid of weeds;
- without competent care borage borage very quickly wilds, becoming a weed. It is important to monitor the activity of its reproduction. Thinning is carried out in the phase of 2-3 leaves, making it easy, because the cotyledons of the plant are large. If you need to collect your seeds from the plant, you need to leave one specimen at 75 cm row;
- During the summer, young leaves 5-7 cm long are cut to the table;
- borago should not be allowed to grow - old shoots coarsen, lose their taste and the smell of fresh cucumber;
- the yield of grass is 600-700 grams per square meter;
- for harvesting for future use borago cleaned entirely during the flowering period, after it accumulates the largest amount of essential oil and nutrients;
- grass is crushed, dried in a shaded corner, stored for culinary purposes.
Borage plant - watering
Bramachnik (borago) - cucumber grass is drought-resistant, but planting and caring for it requires regular watering. Leaves in the culture without moisture in the dry weather coarsen. Watering is moderate and timely, it is important for the product to be juicy. Often the plant lacks natural rainfall. And dryness leads to the fact that it becomes not a nutritious herb, but a wild weed.
Borage borage - top dressing
To obtain a juicy nutritious herb borago care in terms of recharge will not hurt. Fertilizer is carried out in two stages per season, it is timed to weeding and thinning. The first fertilizing is planned at the stage of formation of 1-2 present leaflets. For the fertilizer is suitable common mullein , diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10, or urea - 10 grams per liter of water.
The next feeding is carried out 15-20 days before the stage of flowering of the culture with the same mullein or dry ash, using it at the rate of half a glass per 1 sq.m. When growing borage at home, you can use mineral fertilizer - make 20 grams of ammonium nitrate per 1 square meter of area, and the problem with fertilizer will be successfully solved.
Cucumber grass plant - diseases
Culture is distinguished by excellent vitality and is rarely affected by pests or diseases. And it scares off some parasites. For example, many gardeners plant it next to potatoes or tomatoes, since it is believed that the borage man drives away the Colorado beetles from them. The borage plant is a problem in cultivation:
- In a particularly dry period, the grass is an increased attack object for aphids. It feeds on the juice of young greenery. Fight it with the help of a real garlic, tobacco, red hot pepper, soapy water.
- Sometimes it is amazed by caterpillars-crabs. In order for the pest to leave the plantation, the area can be sprayed with a solution of valerian tincture (1 bottle per 3 liters of liquid). An unusual method is the use of toothpaste, which is soaked in water overnight and sprinkled with a plant.
- The plant can damage the impeller oxalic. Methods of struggle:
- spraying with Parisian herbs (20 grams of poison per 10 liters of water);
- treatment with a dust suspension (200 grams of soap per 10 liters of water);
- collection and manual destruction of caterpillars.