Cabbage - decoration of the site

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If you ask gardeners which vegetable is your favorite, many will call cabbage. We know white cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, but few know about ornamental, which is the ancestor of almost all modern types and varieties of cultivated cabbage.

Homeland of wild cabbage - Greece, where back in the IV century BC. e. its two forms were known - with smooth and curly leaves. About how much the ancient Greeks valued this plant, says the legend that existed at that time, which ascribes to the cabbage its "high" origin: "Jupiter, working somehow on clarifying two conflicting sayings of the oracle, swept so heavily that a few drops rolled down from his shoulder to the ground, and from these drops the father of the gods sprouted"(Zolotnitsky N. F." Our garden flowers, vegetables and fruits. Their history, role in the life and beliefs of different peoples ").

Wild cabbage was also very popular among the ancient Romans. Cato attributed to her all kinds of hygienic properties and said that thanks to this plant Rome for almost 600 years was cured of various diseases, not knowing what a doctor is. There were already known 6 forms of kale. In the 13th century, in France, there were two types of kale - gray and white curly, and in the 16th century, red curly appeared, which had not been mentioned before.

In England, until the sixteenth century, only wild cabbage was used, and all cultivated species were imported from Holland. In this country, a monument in the form of a head of cabbage was erected in the cemetery of S.-Giles in Dorset to the man who first brought it to England. Cabbage came to Russia from the Black Sea coast, but it was already cabbage.

Various forms with cut and curly leaves formed from kale. Curly-leaved types were formed in the central and northern parts of Western Europe, where to this day a large number of varieties are grown for food and decorative purposes. As ornamental plants, they are common in Japan, North America and in Russia (except for the Non-Black Earth Region and some other regions).

Decorative cabbage - a biennial plant. In the first year of vegetation it forms leaves, and in the second year it blooms and bears fruit. The height of the plants is from 20 to 130 cm, in diameter they reach 1 m. The color and shape of the leaves give the cabbage a beautiful appearance. Leaf blades are from 20 to 60 cm long and from 10 to 30 cm wide, ovoid, obovate, elliptical, truncated-elliptical in shape. The edges of the leaves are once or repeatedly serrated or dentate incised, which makes them curly, and the whole plant is lush and delicate.

According to the curliness of the leaves, decorative cabbage is divided into festoon-shaped-coarse-curly, festo-like-fine-curly and mossy-curly. The color is diverse: light green, green with a white stripe, bluish-green with pink or lilac spotting.

With the help of decorative cabbage, it is quite possible to solve the problem of decorating a personal or garden plot. Looks good flower bed with different height and color varieties of cabbage. For example, in the middle of 3-5 plants of the Tongue lark variety, and Mosbach on the edges at a distance of 70 cm. Either plant Red Curly High in combination with Green Curly Low or Red Curly Low and vice versa. You can use cabbage with other ornamental plants.

Cabbage is decorative for quite a long time - from mid-July to the end of October. It withstands frosts to minus 8 ° C, tolerates transplantation well. During one season, you can change the landing site up to 3 times if you dig it up with a large lump of land and water it abundantly. This plant is humid and sun-loving, but also feels good in rainy, cold years.

Ornamental cabbage leaves are edible and taste good. Young people can eat them as a bitter salad and canned for the winter. In a strong preservative solution, they retain their shape and color well. Finely chopped leaves and young shoots can be stewed with potatoes. To remove bitterness, they need to be frozen, and thawed before use.

Ornamental cabbage propagates by seed through seedlings grown in heated greenhouses or under a synthetic film. Seeds are sown from March 5 to April 1 in boxes with a layer of land 10-12 cm (2 parts of sod land and 1 part humus or equal parts of sod humus and peat) in rows at a distance of 6 cm and to a depth of 1-1.5 cm. Before By sowing in order to prevent diseases, the soil in the boxes is shed with a 1% solution of potassium permanganate, which simultaneously serves as a necessary trace element in the process of plant nutrition. After sowing rarely watered, but plentifully.

During the period of well-developed cotyledon leaves, plants dive into crates with a layer of the earth of at least 16-20 cm according to the 6X6 cm pattern. To keep a lump of earth when digging at the roots of the seedlings, humus and well decomposed peat are added to the soil mixture ('/ s in volume) , and 10-12 days before planting in open ground, the plants are thinned out between the rows in two directions.

When growing seedlings, it is necessary to observe a special temperature regime. Before emergence, the temperature is reduced by 5-7 days to 8-10 ° C, and then maintained within the range of 14-18 ° C. Watering seedlings, as well as crops, is rare, but plentiful, after which the shelter is thoroughly aired. Plants are planted in open ground in the II and III decades of May in the phase of 4-5 true leaves when the soil is heated to 6-7 ° C, with a lump of earth.

The most beautiful are the following varieties of decorative cabbage

Mosbach - the height of the stem is from 20 to 60 cm. The stem is not branched. In diameter, the plant reaches 80 cm. Leaves are lyre-shaped, 20 cm wide, 40 cm long, scalloped-finely-curly, their color is juicy, light green. The plant has a dome shape, very decorative.

Lark tongue - refers to the group of green curly high. The height of the stem is 130 cm. The leaves sit on long petioles (15-20 cm), they are obovate in shape, the edges are scalloped-finely curly. The color of the leaves is green with different shades. Palm plant.

Red curly high - unlike the previous variety, the leaf color is dark purple with a blackish tint or blue-violet.

Red curly low - differs from Red Curly by a high stem height, which is not more than 60 cm. Leaves are elongated-elliptical in shape, very spreading. In diameter, the plant reaches more than 1 m, so that a flowerbed or lawn can be decorated with just one plant.