Cucumber, borage or borage
Family - borage. Homeland - Asia Minor, the Mediterranean. The plant is easily bred, therefore in the wild it occurs in many regions of Europe and Asia. Perfectly grows and yields in the room. Borago supplies the early, rich in vitamins greens. It has curative properties, and it is widely used in folk medicine. Leaves have a taste of fresh cucumbers and they are used for salad dressing and as a seasoning for meat and fish dishes.
The plant is biennial, in the culture - annual. The stalk of the borage is fleshy, in the room reaches 30 to 70 cm in height. Leaves are juicy, elliptical. Flowers - large, blue, collected in paniculate inflorescences, at the end of flowering acquire a pink color. Seeds are small. The plant is cold-resistant, a good honey plant.
There are no varieties of borago.
♦ Location - on light windows. The plant is not afraid of partial shade. In hot sunny weather, if you do not cover borago from direct sunlight, the leaves quickly coarsen and flower stalks appear.
♦ Care. In the room, can give greens throughout the year. For this, the interval between crops should be 15-20 days.
The best substrate for borago is soil rich in humus. We recommend the following soil mixture for sowing: soddy earth, humus, coarse-grained sand( 1: 1: 0.5).For better development of borago on a bucket of this substrate, add a water-soluble tablet of microfertilizers. A good substratum for sowing is the ready soil "Rose" with a high content of humus.
The finished substrate is covered in pots or small boxes and placed on a window or glazed verandas. Sowing is carried out in grooves at a distance of 5 - 6 cm from each other and 4 - 5 cm in a row. Seeds are sown to a depth of 1.5-2 cm. After sowing, shoots appear on the 5th - 6th day.
Watering, especially in winter, is moderate. For a better growth and development, 2 times a month, feeding is done. The best fertilizer is a liquid concentrate fertilizer for flowers "Rainbow".
♦ Pests and diseases - whitefly, various spots. Aphids rarely damage the plant.
♦ Reproduction - by seeds.
Application of
Cucumber grass has a taste and smell of cucumber, so early in the spring and winter it is used in the preparation of salads. The flowers of cucumber grass are sweet, they can be sugared and used to decorate cakes and pies. Young leaves of cucumber grass can be used as a side dish to stew.
Useful and curative properties of borage plants have been known for a long time. In the instruction "capitularia", published in 812 under Charles the Great, a number of plants to be cultivated in the gardens are listed. There is also a cucumber grass, about which it is said: "Let it be cheerfully used with food and drink, because the leaves have a pleasant cucumber smell."