Any housewife knows about such a plant as dill. This versatile spice is used in almost every dish: soups, pilaf, various salads and others. It can be consumed both fresh and dried and even frozen.
Only now, not every gardener dares to grow dill in open field, since there is an opinion that caring for this plant is quite troublesome. But is it really so?
In order for dill greens to grow green and juicy, you must follow a few simple rules for caring for her, which every gardener who decides to grow this plant should know.
Rule 1. When purchasing dill seeds, do not opt for only one variety. Give preference to those with different dates aging, but similar care conditions. This will facilitate your work, as well as ensure the uninterrupted supply of fresh herbs to the table.
Rule 2. Before planting dill in open ground, it is necessary that the soil be prepared in advance. Make sure the soil is loose and nutritious. Increased daylight hours and abundant watering will bear fruit in the form of the first shoots of fresh dill. If the earth in the garden is acidic, you can neutralize it with lime.
Rule 3. For faster and better germination dill seeds before planting in open ground, it is advisable to soak them for a while in water. Seeds will quickly absorb moisture, swell, and in a couple of days they will be ready for planting. Undesirable to keep long time seeds in water, better - no more than 3 days.
Rule 4. When the first sprouts appear, provide dill good care. The plant will need regular feeding and weeding. As a top dressing, fertilizers rich in potassium will be an excellent option.
Rule 5 An important point is the observance of the distance between plants during planting, this applies to both open ground and growing in a greenhouse. The distance between rows should not be less than 30 cm, and between seedlings 10 cm, only then you can get good harvest. If dill is grown at home, this distance can be reduced.
Rule 6. No less important is when the landing will take place. It is preferable if it is produced before frosts in winter time or in early spring.
When planting dill in winter, deepen the seeds into the ground to a depth of at least 4 cm. In the spring, 0.5 cm will be enough.
Rule 7. The choice of landing site plays a key role. If you want to get a vitamin crop of dill, choose a place well lit by the sun, as in the shade it will be pale and less valuable in terms of its nutritional characteristics. Even the most careful care will not be able to save the landing. If dill is grown at home, provide it with a sunny location.
At proper fit with all the subtleties, we can assume that half the work has already been done. The next important task will be to prevent drying and yellowing of the greenery. This problem is faced by many gardeners. The causes of yellowing can be very different, but most often it can be due to one of these points:
- soil acidification
- Too dense fit
- Insufficient watering and care
- poor soil
Diseases and pests
Any planting of dill is not immune from pests. Most often, dill is affected by aphids. Nettle will help to fight it, it is crushed and infused in water for seven days. Then just water the beds with this composition. This method is the most natural and safe. After a few days of such treatment, dill becomes immune to this pest.
There is another effective method control of harmful insects is the use of ash. The ash is steamed into hot water, let it brew overnight, and in the morning the infusion is filtered, grated grated is added to it laundry soap. After that, you can spray dill beds with this remedy.
Also, to combat aphids, infusions with onion peels or citrus peels are successfully used. They are also filled hot water and insist for several days. And then, at the first lesions of dill, aphids, the beds are processed with this composition.
When growing dill, some may encounter such a problem as reddening of the leaves. This indicates that the soil contains little nitrogen. Therefore, do not forget to fertilize it, but only without fanaticism, do not overdo it, because the plant very actively absorbs all fertilizers applied to the soil, and their excess can adversely affect the quality of fresh dill.
How to grow good dill (video)
The sight of fresh greenery on the windowsill improves mood, helps to survive the dull winter season. Dill or others spices grown in room conditions, will not only please their appearance, but will also become a vitamin supplement to your diet.
When grown outdoors, dill is unpretentious, but when grown indoors, all the necessary conditions should be provided for obtaining fragrant greenery.
Choosing a variety of dill for growing in an apartment
When growing celery or parsley, flowering should be expected in the second year of growth. With dill, the situation is different: it can bloom in the first year, practically without giving greenery. Successful Harvest directly depends on the selected variety.
There are dozens that grow well in open ground. For growing on the windowsill, you should choose those that give a green mass abundantly and for as long as possible.
Among them:
- Beam
- asparagus bouquet
- Kibray
- superducat
- profusely leafy
They form a dense bush and feel good on the windowsill. Pinch off actively growing shoots to encourage branching.
How to plant dill seeds on a windowsill
Dill is difficult to sprout, like all other umbrella crops. The composition of the seeds includes essential oils that slow down spitting.
Pre-sowing seed treatment
Seeds must be processed before planting, otherwise, even with abundant watering, sprouts can be expected to appear for 2-3 weeks. Soak the seeds for a day in warm water or a growth stimulator solution: the germination rate of the seeds is almost 100%, they will germinate in 3-4 days.
Container preparation
Choose a wide pot or container with drainage holes. At the bottom, place a drainage layer (a mixture of stone chips and expanded clay) 1.5-2.5 cm thick.
Priming
The soil needs loose, fertile, neutral reaction. You can use a general purpose seedling substrate or vegetable crops. Suitable soil mixture: in equal proportions garden soil, humus, sand, peat.
How to sow
Moisten the soil. Plant the seeds to a depth of 1 cm, keep a distance of about 2-3 cm. Sprinkle peat on top, press down a little. As seedlings appear, thin out, leaving intervals of 7-10 cm, so that the plants do not suffer from a lack of space, lighting and nutrition.
How to sow dill on the windowsill, look at the video:
To always be green
After cutting, dill greens again practically do not form. For a regular harvest, re-sow in 10-14 days. Thus, on the windowsill there will always be dill ready for cutting with herbs about 10 cm long.
How to care for dill on the windowsill
Lighting and backlight
Lighting is required bright, but without direct sunlight. Place on east or west windows. When grown in the period March-August, the plant creates lush bushes - there is enough natural light.
Most often, dill is grown indoors in winter, so you can’t do without additional lighting. At a height of 50-60 cm above the home plantation, hang a phytolamp, it gives the necessary spectrum, you can use fluorescent lamps. The length of daylight hours should be 13-15 hours. This is especially important at the stage of development and strengthening of seedlings.
If you do not provide a sufficient level of lighting, the shoots will grow thin and weakened.
Watering and air temperature
- Indoors, the air is warmer and drier than in the outdoor garden: in addition to lighting, it is necessary to ensure optimal temperature conditions and humidification. For a plant, the temperature range of 16–22 ° C will be ideal, even when the temperature drops to +8 ° C, dill does not lose viability.
- High air temperature in combination with insufficient watering leads only to the release of flower stalks, and the leaves practically do not appear.
- Follow the rule: the higher the air temperature, the more often and more abundantly you should water.
- If the air temperature is cool, excessive moisture will cause the root system to rot.
- as the topsoil dries up. Apply water in small portions so that a crust does not form on the surface of the soil.
- Insufficient watering is evidenced by lethargy and discoloration of the shoots.
- If the temperature is above 25 °C, spray regularly.
- For watering and spraying, use soft water (thawed water, rainwater, tap water, settled for at least a day).
top dressing
Make sure you get enough nutrients. Every 2 weeks, apply complex mineral fertilizers for greens, the nitrogen content should be low so that the greens do not accumulate nitrates.
It happens that even if all necessary conditions at the stage of appearance of 2 leaves, the growth rate slows down - do not be alarmed, the period of growth inhibition will last about a week.
Another video about growing dill on the windowsill:
It is well known that the value of fresh dill, parsley and other spicy herbs is not so much in giving flavor and appetizing appearance to dishes, but in vitamins that the body needs. Therefore, housewives try to plant dill on the windowsill of their own kitchen.
But here's what's interesting: if garden bed dill is unpretentious and practically does not require care, then in a flower pot instead of fragrant fluffy bushes usually grows a frail stem with a few pale, odorless leaves. How to grow useful dill greens on the windowsill? To do this is not so difficult. It is enough to know the secrets, which will be discussed in the article.
In order to grow dill for greens indoors, you should:
- stock up on seeds from one of unpretentious varieties: Gribovsky, Richelieu, Kibray and others;
- purchase a package of neutral soil from a gardening store "Universal";
- on garden plot since autumn, collect loose fertile land;
- buy the right size containers or flower pots;
- use extra lighting, for example, a fluorescent lamp;
- apply complex mineral fertilizers that contain not one nutrient, but several. For example, two-component ammophos is a nitrogen-phosphorus fertilizer (12% nitrogen and 52% phosphorus), and a three-component ammophoska (15% nitrogen, 15% phosphorus and 15% potassium);
All of the above is easy enough to purchase, we don’t need anything special or expensive.
It turns out that there are no special varieties of dill for planting at room conditions. So you have to choose seed based on the ripening period. Certainly, early varieties
will provide you with greens earlier than late-ripening ones, but they quickly stretch upwards.
On the stem, the leaves are small, and there are very few of them. But late-ripening varieties, which do not always have time to ripen over the summer, form dense bushes on the windowsill and continue to form new shoots from the axils of existing branches.
The early maturing varieties are Gribovsky. Its advantages lie in high yield and disease resistance. This variety has a pronounced aroma, is not afraid of temperature changes, and is undemanding to care for.
Late maturing high yielding variety Kibray with large dark green leaves, it has excellent taste and is not affected by a disease that is fatal for many plants called powdery mildew. The disease is caused by a microscopic fungus that forms grayish-white spots on the leaves.
As the spores mature, droplets of liquid appear, resembling dew. Most often, the disease manifests itself with sharp fluctuations in temperature and humidity, as well as with excessive application of nitrogen fertilizers. Infected parts of the plant disappear, the yield drops sharply.
Another interesting mid-season variety - fragrant dill or Richelieu. Its bluish-green openwork leaves have a strong smell, for which they are valued. To obtain fresh greens for both early-ripening and late varieties, it is enough to provide fertile soil, regular watering and weed removal.
What containers for growing dill on the windowsill are best suited? It can be regular flower pots, wooden box or plastic container. The size of the containers depends on your family's needs for fresh herbs. Pots for dill should not be small, because plants have a tap root system.
Housewives usually prefer containers with a volume of 1.5 - 2 liters. When buying, a prerequisite should be the presence of one or more drainage holes at the bottom of the pot to drain excess water.
In open ground, dill grows well on a wide variety of soils, but indoors, the composition of the soil plays a very important role. The land must be fertile, then you can do without additional monthly top dressing. In addition, care should be taken drainage, which fits into the bottom of the pot.
It could be broken brick or expanded clay. It is poured over the drainage layer humus-rich soil. It is best to buy a specially processed sterilized substrate in a specialized store, in which pathogens and pests are destroyed under the influence of hot steam.
The container with the soil mixture is prepared. You can start sowing.
- Dill seeds are rich in essential oils, so they germinate for a long time. To speed up this process, you need for 2 days soak seeds in warm water. In this case, the water should cover the layer of seeds. Need to change the water every 6 hours.
- ways sowing there are several:
Attention! Dill seeds must not only be soaked before sowing, but also disinfected. To do this, after two days of soaking, place the seeds in a pink solution of potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate) for 2-3 hours.
- seeds should be planted directly on the surface of a moist substrate, and then sprinkled with a mixture of humus and peat;
- in rows into moistened grooves with a depth of about 1 cm;
- bundle into pits, the depth of which 1 cm, sprinkling the seeds on top of the earth.
Each of the proposed methods is good in that a dense crust does not form on the soil surface, which can interfere with seed germination.
It is important to remember that the sowing density should be no more than 0.3 g/dm².
You can learn a little tricks about growing dill at home from this video:
Spicy herbs are simply indispensable in cooking - without their taste and aroma, even the most exquisite culinary masterpiece will be insipid and inexpressive. One of the most popular aromatic spices is dill greens, with the addition of which any dish acquires a spicy taste and unique aroma. In addition to high palatability dill has numerous healing properties due to the presence of vitamins in its composition, essential oils and mineral salts.
It has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the heart, regulates the activity of the gastrointestinal tract, is used as a sedative, diuretic, wound healing and antispasmodic, is indicated for use by nursing mothers to improve lactation, and dill water is excellent for colic in newborns. The use of seeds and umbrellas in home canning not only improves the taste of marinades and pickles, but also contributes to their long-term storage.
The presence of fresh dill in the diet in summer is not a problem, but in the autumn-winter period, fresh herbs can be grown on the windowsill. It is worth noting that cultivating dill at home is quite troublesome, however, subject to agricultural technology, the culture will grow indoors no worse than in a summer cottage, and bright greenery will bring a touch of spring freshness to the interior.
Features of pre-sowing preparation
Despite the fact that dill seeds remain viable for a long time, it is better to choose fresh material for sowing. Quality seeds, cool and slightly moist to the touch, have a specific, pronounced aroma, which disappears during long-term storage. The content of essential oils in the shell of dill seeds significantly slows down their germination, therefore, in order to speed up the process, the seeds need special treatment.
One of best practices pre-sowing preparation is considered bubbling - soaking dill seeds in water enriched with oxygen by means of an aquarium compressor. The procedure takes 18-20 hours at a water temperature of at least +20° C. Treated seeds must be planted immediately in the ground. In the absence of such equipment, the seeds are simply soaked for 2-3 days in warm water, which should be changed 2-3 times a day. For the effectiveness of the procedure, you can add a small amount of a growth stimulator or a few crystals of potassium permanganate to the water. Some experienced gardeners recommend using milk or whey for soaking instead of water. At the end of the procedure, the seeds should be dried a little and proceed to sowing.
Seeding technology
As a sowing container for dill, you can choose a small plastic container with a pallet or clay flower pot with low walls, equipped with drainage holes, and as soil fit universal peat mixture for vegetable seedlings. For self cooking substrate, garden soil is mixed with humus, peat and sand in a ratio of 1: 1: 1: 1, after which the mixture is subjected to heat treatment (fried in the oven or scalded with boiling water). For every m soil surface consumes about 30-40 g of seeds. The sequence of sowing is as follows:
- The soil mixture is poured into prepared dishes, at the bottom of which drainage is laid, and moderately watered.
- Seeds are sown in rows in grooves 2 cm deep or evenly distributed over the surface, sprinkled with a thin layer of earth.
- To create a greenhouse climate, the crops are covered with polyethylene and placed in a dark and very warm (+20 ° C and above) place.
- With the advent of seedlings, the film is removed, the container with the seedlings is placed on a light windowsill.
- In order to prevent excessive stretching of the sprouts, the temperature in the place where they are kept should be lowered (it is enough to slightly open the window or “settle” the seedlings on a glazed loggia). The optimal temperature indicators for the well-being of young dill are from +16° C to +18° C, a decrease to +8° C is acceptable.
- At the stage of formation of the second pair of leaves, excessively dense crops should be thinned out, leaving a distance of 2-3 cm between the seedlings.
Unlike dill grown on country beds with minimal care, home plantings need to create suitable conditions for full growth. All stages of caring for a room "dill plantation" are important and require maximum attention:
- During the period of germination and active vegetation, seedlings must be provided with abundant watering, while avoiding accumulation excess moisture which can lead to root rot and plant death. The danger of waterlogging is especially high when the plantings are kept in a cool place. In a hot and dry room, seedlings can suffer from a lack of moisture - the problem is easily recognized by sluggish, discolored leaves and dill shoots. In addition, in the heat, plants do not grow green mass well and quickly release flower stalks, so the frequency of watering the crop directly depends on temperature regime- the warmer the room, the more often the dill is watered. For irrigation, it is recommended to use melted, rain or settled water at room temperature.
- The most important factor for home dill, especially in the autumn-winter period, is lighting. Daylight hours for the full development of seedlings should be at least 13-15 hours, so it is recommended to equip the landing site with fluorescent lamps or special phytolamps suspended at a height of 50-60 cm above the plantings. Additional lighting is desirable to carry out in the first half of the day for 5-6 hours.
- As a rule, at home, with the heating turned on, it is most difficult to maintain optimal temperature(from +16° C to +22° C) for dill beds. So that the heat and dryness of the air do not destroy future harvest, at temperatures above + 24 ° C, dill is shown frequent spraying with cool water and regular airing. At night, containers with greens can be taken out to the glazed balcony.
- For a quick increase in leaf mass, it is recommended to feed dill twice a month. Culture responds well to the introduction of complex mineral fertilizers or liquid concentrated dressings.
At home, the culture is practically not exposed to diseases and pest attacks, so the health of dill bushes directly depends on compliance with agricultural standards.
Dill varieties for home cultivation
Many varieties of dill are suitable for growing at home, but some of them received the highest marks. experienced gardeners. From early ripe varieties varieties have proven themselves well in home cultivation:
- Gribovsky is one of the most popular varieties of culture. Resistant to diseases and sudden changes in temperature, unpretentious care. Dark green leaves have a pleasant taste and a pronounced spicy aroma.
- "Grenadier" - undemanding in care, very juicy greens of light shades have a delicate taste.
Early ripe dill is ready for cutting in 30-35 days. A little longer (40-45 days) dill ripens mid-season varieties. In addition to greens, it can be grown for umbrellas and seeds that are ideal for canning. For home growing adapted varieties:
- "Aelita" is a tall, densely leafy shrub with a dark green crown. Fragrant leaves have a rich spicy taste.
- "Richelieu" - in addition to high taste, it is distinguished by external decorativeness due to openwork foliage with a bluish tint.
For dill late-ripening varieties characteristic features are expressive aroma, tart taste and high content useful substances. special attention deserve varieties:
- "Kibray" is a vitamin variety with wide, yellowish leaves and a pleasant sweetish taste.
- "Salut" is a high-yielding variety with bluish-green leaves that grow back quickly after cutting.
Despite long terms ripening, late-ripening varieties of dill are considered the most suitable for cultivation in "captivity".
Home cultivation of dill is not an easy process, but the presence of fresh, fragrant and incredibly healthy herbs on the table, regardless of the season, will more than compensate for the labors and troubles of an indoor gardener.
