True lovers of cooking probably know such a rare herb as tarragon . Unfortunately, among our gardeners it is not very popular. Another name for tarragon is tarhun - it is more familiar to ordinary people who remember the unusual taste of a drink since childhood. In fact, this herb is a kind of wormwood, which does not have characteristic bitterness. In cooking, tarhun is used as a spice for cooking delicious sauces, marinade for tomatoes and cucumbers: it gives the dishes an original piquant taste. If you are interested in an unusual plant, we will talk about growing tarragon.
There are three ways to plant - seeds, cuttings and root offspring. Let's consider each method in more detail.
How to grow tarragon from seeds?
For growing tarragon, select areas with normal lighting and sandy-loamy fertile soil with excellent drainage properties. Agrotechnics of tarragon implies the preparation of the site in the fall: it is dug, freed from weeds and their rhizomes, and humus is introduced. Plant seeds early in the spring, when there will be no frost. It is carried out in rows at a distance of 30 cm from each other.
As to how to sow the tarragon, then bear in mind that the seeds are very small, and therefore they are simply sown on the ground and lightly covered with earth. In two weeks, the first shoots should appear, which should be thinned out. In the future, planting and leaving tarragon include timely watering, weeding and fertilizing with humus. In the first year the stalk is formed in the plant. The taerghoon blossoms for the second year. When sowing tarragon with seeds, you can harvest leaves from the second year, when the height of the grass is at least 25 cm.
Some gardeners first grow seedlings in a greenhouse, and then in April they transplant young plants into the open ground.
It is interesting that it is possible to grow tarragon from seeds on a window sill or on a balcony. Seeds should be sown in prepared boxes with soil, covered with a thin layer of sand, covered with a film and placed in a place where the air temperature is + 20-25 degrees. When the seedlings and the first real leaves appear, fertilizers are introduced, for example, togum. In the future, it is important to water the seedlings in a timely manner.
Keep in mind that when growing tarragon from the seeds of the house or in the garden for the fourth year, its taste is deteriorating - spicy aroma disappears, but bitterness appears. Therefore, it is more effective to grow the plant in a vegetative way. We will describe it below.
Other ways of growing tarragon
It is simpler and more effective to grow a tarkhoon by vegetative reproduction: by dividing a bush, by root layers, by cuttings. In the latter method, cuttings 10-15 cm in length are cut in adult plants in early May, which have several leaves. In this case, the lower cut must be beveled. Cuttings are placed in a box with a peat-sand mixture at an angle of 30-45 degrees. After a month and a half, when rooting takes place, cuttings are transplanted into the open ground.
If we talk about how to plant a tarragon by dividing a bush
To take care of the tarragon follows as follows: two waterings per week, one feeding in May (in a bucket of water, dissolve in a tablespoon of urea, superphosphate, potassium sulfate), shelter before the cold comes with straw or fallen leaves. For the winter, plants can be transplanted into pots and installed on a windowsill.