Spinach

Family - mazy. In natural conditions it grows in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Spinach is a herbaceous annual plant, 25-50 cm high. Juicy leaves are harvested, they are round, round-oval or lanceolate in shape. The plant is precocious, drought-resistant and cold-resistant. For more information about the useful properties of spinach, see here.

The taste of it, just like that of an ordinary salad, is fresh. This plant is cold-resistant, undemanding to soil fertility, however, moist, fertile soils of neutral reaction and good lighting.

Spinach is a plant of short daylight. In the Northwest it is better to sow in the second half of the summer, then it gives a lot of greenery. At spring plantings the plant produces small leaves and quickly goes into color due to white nights and hot weather.

In other regions it can be sown every 2 weeks and receive a young green mass all summer. You can sow directly into the soil from early spring. This is one of the fastest growing green plants - the willingness after the shoots comes after 25 days. The required area of ​​supply is 7x15 cm, it is necessary to sow immediately. This is easy, since the seeds of spinach are large.

General: is an annual plant. His homeland is considered Iran and the Caucasus, because even now there are species close to the cultural ones in the mountain valleys. About the healing properties of the plant wrote back in the X-XI century Avicenna. However, in Russia spinach became known only in the middle of the XVIII century.

Spinach forms a basal rosette of several leaves and an erect stalk, and male specimens are less liable than females. On the latter, fruit-nuts of round shape are formed.

Requirements: plant is cold-resistant. The optimum temperature for growth and development of plants is 15-18 ° C.Demanding to fertility of soils. It grows well on cultivated non-acidic soils. However, excess nitrogen causes accumulation of nitrates in the leaves. Under the digging of the soil in the fall, 3-5 kg ​​/ m2 of peat or peat land is made, better - peat-manure compost, 10-15 g / m2 superphosphate and potassium chloride. In the spring, add 15-20 g / m2 of ammonium nitrate.

Ingredients: , leaves contain relatively rare folic and nicotinic( PP) acids, pyridoxine( B6), pantothenic acid( B3), B1, B2, B6, PP, rutin( R), vitamins K, D. Eand H. Spinach leaves contain a considerable quantity of mineral substances - iron, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, which are in compounds easily assimilated for humans. In this case, vitamin C-37 mg%, which is more in spinach than in salad and sorrel, as well as caroty are very stable and almost not destroyed during cooking.

Chlorophyll of spinach is close to hemoglobin of human blood, therefore spinach is extremely useful, and it must be used in writing for any blood diseases. In addition, it contains a large amount of iron necessary for the formation of hemoglobin of the blood, so it is useful for people with a low level of hemoglobin. In addition, spinach perfectly cleanses the walls of the stomach and intestines from food slags.
Green spinach is rich in vitamins, mineral salts, proteins. By the amount of protein it stands next to milk and second only to meat.

Site selection and site preparation. Spinach is reserved for places protected from the northern and eastern winds, with a weak slope to the south or southeast.

Spinach is desirable to sow after planting potatoes or cabbage. He likes watering and grows well on any fertile, but not acidic soil at a temperature of 15-18 ° C.In the absence of moisture quickly goes into the arrow and coarsens.

In autumn, the spinach area is dug to the full depth of the plow layer. If the soil is acidic, it is sprinkled with lime-pushenka at a rate of 200-300 g per 1 m2 and phosphorite flour - 40 g per 1 m2, which is a good fertilizer and also neutralizes the soil.

In the spring, snow is scattered from the site, sprinkled with ashes, and when the soil dries, it is harvested, mineral fertilizers are added at the rate of 30 g of ammonium nitrate and 5-7 g of potassium chloride per 1 m2, finely dig and make ridge. A lot of potassium fertilizers can not be applied, as they contribute to the spinning of spinach.

Cultivation: for continuous leaf production from spring to autumn is sown every 2-3 weeks - from April to mid-August. Seeds of spinach are found in the wooden pericarp, which inhibits germination, so they are soaked with warm( 20-25 ° C) water before sowing, which is changed 2-3 times during the day. Then the seeds are dried to flowability. On light soils, spinach is sown on a flat surface in a ribbon way, on heavy soils - on ridges. The rows are left with a width of 10-14 cm. The depth of sowing is 1.5-2 cm, the seeding rate is 1-1.5 g / m2.

Seed growing. Seeded and germinated seeds are poured onto a clean cloth, knotted and processed with manganese potassium in the same way as salad, and then stored in a wet state under the cloth until a single pecking. This method accelerates the emergence of shoots for 4-5 days.

Prepared seeds are lightly dried and sown on the 15-20th of April in an ordinary way to the prepared ridges, on which the furrows with a depth of 4 cm( the distance between them 10 cm) are made manually with a hand marker and handle. Seed the seeds evenly - 2-3 cm one from the other, and at the edges a little thicker. Then they rake the earth with the rakes so that the seeds are at a depth of 2 cm, and to smoothly get the shoots the soil is slightly compacted with a rake or a hand roller. If the soil is dry, then water it, and then cover with matting or sacking. On 1 m2 of ridge is consumed from 4 to 5 g of seeds, depending on their germination.

Found that spinach with a shorter daylight develops better and gives more leaves, and with a long day and low temperatures it gives fewer leaves and quickly goes to the arrow. Given this circumstance, spinach is best sowed in hotbeds or warmed ridges.

The simplest heat-insulated ridge is arranged as follows. Lay the sides of the ridge 4 boards so that they are 10-14 cm above its surface, and strengthened with pegs. Spinach is usually sown, but with the emergence of shoots for 15-20 days, plants need to give a 10-hour light day. To do this, from 5 pm to 7 am, the ridge from above is covered with frames, covered with tar, or mats. This agro-reception is recommended to be carried out especially when there comes a period of light nights.

After the emergence of shoots, spinach is regularly watered, loosened the soil and combats pests and diseases. At the end of the first decade of May, it is weeded and thinned down to 8-10 cm, and young plants are used for food. Then spinach is fed with a solution of ammonium nitrate. Norm for watering 1 m2 of crops - 30-40 grams of ammonium nitrate, dissolved in 10 liters of water. In order not to burn the leaves, the plants are slightly irrigated with clean water after the feeding.

The second seeding of spinach is carried out at the end of May, and the third - at the end of June or early July.

Podzimniy seeding of spinach. To obtain an early crop of spinach, it can be sown and under winter in elevated areas with light soil. To do this, in late September and early October, carefully remove the remains of vegetables and weeds, make mineral fertilizers, as mentioned above, dig and cut the ridges, cut the grooves.

To seal seeds, prepare light sandy loam, peat or good humus soil and cover it with straw and manure so that it does not freeze.

Sow in November in frozen soil with dry seeds at the rate of 5 g of seeds per 1 m2.Seeds are sown in grooves and covered with specially harvested soil. In the spring, when the earth dries, loosen the rows and weed out the weeds. When the shoots appear, the plants are watered, fed with ammonium nitrate at the doses indicated above, and the surface of the ridges is mulched.

Further care for spinach consists of loosening, weeding, watering and pest and disease control.

Spinach at home. For room conditions, the varieties are best suited: Victoria, Virofle, Godri and hybrids from Holland - Melody, Mazurka, Tarantella.

Spinach needs intensive lighting, so after emergencies( during sowing in January-February) boxes or pots with plants are installed on windowsills or heated glazed verandas, in loggias and greenhouses as close as possible to the light. The optimum temperature of the content is 14-18 ° C.If these conditions are met, you will be able to gather fresh fresh spinach greens in a cold, winter time in a month.

The best substrate for growing indoor spinach is an earth mixture consisting of rich turfy ground, humus and river sand( 2: 2: 1).High yields of spinach are obtained by using a universal "Biogrunt".The substrate is best filled in small boxes or pots with a layer of 12-15 cm.

Before sowing, the seeds are soaked for 1-2 days in water and sowed to a depth of 1.5-2 cm. When sowing in room conditions, it is optimal to place 30 seeds per 1m2.Sow spinach in the grooves with a distance between them 5-6 cm, between plants - 3-4 cm. If necessary, the shoots are thinned out.

Spinach is often recommended and abundantly watered.12-15 days after the emergence of the shoots, the plants are fed. It is best to use a concentrated fertilizer "Rainbow" as a fertilizer.

Spinach seed growing. Treated seeds of one variety are sown in the ridge no later than May 8 by the ordinary method with a distance between the rows of 20 cm. On 1 m2 of area, 2 g of seeds are consumed.

Spinach care consists of watering, loosening the soil, weeding out the weeds and thinning out the plants by 15-20 cm. After flowering, the male plants, little leafy and sick women are pulled and removed.

When the stalk and leaves begin to turn yellow, the spinach is cut, tied into a sheaf, dried, threshed and seasoned. They store it the same way as salad seeds. Germination of seeds of spinach retains 3-4 years.

Harvesting. Remove the spinach selectively: first, when the plant produces 4-6 well-developed leaves, and then as you grow, but not allowing the formation of flower shoots. Spinach is cut or pulled out with a root in the morning, when the dew dries.

Spinach quickly self-warms and spoils, but it is well preserved( for two months) in cellophane bags in the refrigerator at temperatures from -1 to-2 ° C.

In the absence of a refrigerator, the collected spinach can be poured with fine chipped ice( 75% of the weight of spinach) and stored in a cellar at a temperature of 5-9 ° C for 5-6 days.

Spinach varieties

There are more than 20 varieties of cultural spinach, characterized by high dietary properties and differ in shape, size and juiciness of the leaves.

The best and most common varieties of spinach are Virofle, Ispolinsky, Victoria, Blymesdelsky.

Virofle .Early ripened early variety of French origin, has a rosette of leaves up to 30 cm in diameter. The leaves are tender, fleshy, green with a yellowish tinge. It is suitable for food in 20-25 days after seed germination. Tasty, but quickly enough to shoot.

Giant. Early maturing variety, suitable for greenhouses and open ground. Has a rosette of leaves up to 33 cm in diameter. Leaves ovate, elongated, fleshy. You can eat them on the 15-20th day after germination.

Victoria. The variety is late-ripening, of German origin. Rosette leaves reach a diameter of 20 cm. Leaves are rounded, bubbly, dark green in color. The variety is fairly resistant to rifling.

Bluesdel .A new variety of Dutch origin, has a high rosette, reaching a diameter of 25 cm. The leaves are dark green, fleshy, tender, but most importantly - this variety is resistant to rifling.

Spinach disease

Root rot. Sprouts and young plants are affected. The root neck is rotting, the plant fades, and then perishes.

Control measures - thinning, loosening. You can not post crops after beets.

Downy mildew. It often affects the leaves of spinach, with yellow spots appearing on them. Such plants must be destroyed. When spinach is affected by downy mildew, it is necessary to dress seeds of TMTD( 7 g per 1 kg), sprinkling seed plants with 1% Bordeaux liquid.

Spinach pests

Green and brown caterpillars of scoop-scales, cabbage scoops and aphids as pests bring the greatest harm to spinach. In order to combat them, it is necessary to destroy weeds on the border and remove them from the site.

Larvae of miner beetroot fly and aphids also damage spinach. Seed-seed crops are sprayed with anabasin sulfate at a rate of 15 cm3 per 10 liters of water or phosphamide( 0.2%).Food crops can not be sprayed. For the destruction of aphids, sprayings of spinach crops with tobacco or tomato infusions can be used.

To prevent diseases of plants, it is necessary to observe a crop rotation, to sow spinach in the same place not earlier than in 3 years, and necessarily with etched seeds, to avoid thickened crops.

Spinach is a product of dietary and baby food.

Spinach can be used in raw salads, like a normal salad with sorrel, lemon or vinegar juice, or season with mayonnaise to give the salad taste. It is harvested for future use in the form of puree and in winter they are used as a side dish for meat and fish dishes.