Kohlrabi is a unique vegetable, is cabbage and turnip at the same time. However, the amazing properties do not end there, kohlrabi cabbage is the keeper of a wide variety of useful ingredients that a person leading a healthy lifestyle needs.
Kohlrabi cabbage
Kohlrabi belongs to the cabbage family, is a two-year-old herbaceous plant. For the first time it began to grow in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is known that they were cultivated with white cabbage in ancient Rome.
This cabbage got its name thanks to both German and Swiss. The literal translation sounds like "cabbage turnip." Indeed, kohlrabi has the same appearance as turnips, but it tastes like real cabbage. She is one of the leaders in precocity, for which she is loved by vegetable growers.
Kohlrabi cabbage is very popular and is used in dishes of various cuisines of the world, for example, Turkish, Central Asian, Western European and Chinese. It is characterized by a wide variety of vitamins, amino acids and minerals, and is often used in the preparation of diet foods. Today, kohlrabi is grown all over the world, despite the climatic differences on the continents.
Short description of kohlrabi
Kohlrabi has large leaves of a dark green color. Edible in this vegetable is the stembled, which forms faster than a head of cabbage. Growing up, stembled in its aerial part takes the form of turnips. To taste, kohlrabi cabbage is similar to white cabbage, especially it resembles a stump, but has great juiciness and sweetness.
Kohlrabi is a close relative of vegetables such as:
- Brussels sprouts.
- White-headed.
- Colored.
- Red-headed.
- Beijing.
- Radish.
- Radish.
- Broccoli.
- Turnip.
Of the types of cabbage and turnips listed in the list, kohlrabi is the richest in the content of active biological elements, various vitamins and minerals that the human body needs for a full life. In addition to its beneficial properties, this cabbage is also a very tasty vegetable.
Growing Kohlrabi Cabbage
Kohlrabi is grown and planted in various ways, one of them is the seedling method. In most cases, it is more convenient to use it than seedless, you only need to know all the nuances of this method.
Kohlrabi seeds are sown in a greenhouse or at home in boxes 35 days before transplanting into open ground. To grow crops early, seeds under seedlings are sown in the middle of the second decade of March. In this case, it is possible to get ripe vegetables at the beginning or middle of June.
If you sow seeds in early May, then at the end of July it will be possible to collect a full crop of kohlrabi. Gardeners will receive late vegetables that ripen in early October if they sow seeds for seedlings in late June. Before planting kohlrabi cabbage seeds, they will need preliminary preparation so that most of them give good, healthy seedlings.
Growing seedlings
The cultivation of kohlrabi from seedlings begins with pre-sowing preparation of seeds. For this, the kohlrabi seeds are kept in water with a high temperature (about 50 ° C) for 15 minutes. After that, for one minute they are placed in cold water, and then transferred to a solution containing trace elements for 12 hours. After this period of time, the seeds are washed with cool water and left in the refrigerator for one day.
Then they are wrapped with a damp cotton cloth and wait until they hatch. As soon as this happened, they are sown in different containers, which contain a mixture consisting of humus, peat and turf in a ratio of 1: 1: 1.
This is necessary in order not to pickle seedlings in the future, which damages their root system. Crops are kept under glass while maintaining the temperature at a level not lower than 20 ° C. After the first shoots appear, the glass is removed, and the temperature is maintained in the range of 7–8 ° . After 10 days, it is increased to 16–18 ° .
Seedling Care
Growing and caring for kohlrabi, when it is still seedling, is very important and requires a lot of attention. During this period, the vegetable is taken care of in the same way as the seedlings of white cabbage. The soil is moistened with water as it dries, and the necessary temperature conditions are maintained in the room. In order for seedlings not to become infected with a black leg, it is necessary to pour it once with a solution of potassium permanganate, which is necessarily weak.
During the developmental phase of leaflets, top dressing is required. For this purpose, a solution of half of one tablet of microelements and three milliliters of complex mineral fertilizer, previously diluted in one liter of water, should be evenly distributed over the leaves.
Kohlrabi suffers greatly from picking, which is why seedlings are grown in separate pots. However, if young plants are in the same container, they will definitely need a pick, which is carried out in the phase of development of the first leaf. Shoots are planted in separate pots that contain a peat-humus mixture. The temperature regime is maintained in the range of 18 - 20 ° C.
The choice of soil for planting kohlrabi
Transplanting, growing and caring for kohlrabi in the open ground can begin after the seedlings are ready.
Kohlrabi is well transplanted into the soil in which such crops as before grew:
- Potatoes.
- Carrot.
- Pumpkin.
- Tomatoes
- Zucchini.
- Perennial herbs.
A good place for planting kohlrabi cabbage is the slopes in the southern or southeastern areas. It grows well in soils that have almost any composition, with the exception of depleted and acidic soils, since in this case the stems will turn out to be stiff and will have coarse fibers.
The best indicator of hydrogen content for growing kohlrabi in open ground is a pH of 6.7–7.4. To prepare the site for landing, it must be dug up in advance to a depth of one bayonet shovel. This is done in the autumn period with the addition of about four kilograms of organic fertilizers, 250 mg of wood ash, 3 mg of urea and 5-7 mg of superphosphate for each square meter of land.
Landing
Kohlrabi pick up cloudy weather for landing or land in the evening, after sunset. Varieties that are precocious are arranged on a bed in a sketchy manner. It looks like this: 60 to 40 or 70 to 30, for later varieties the scheme works: 60 to 55, and also 70 to 30. In order to have a healthy and rich crop when growing kohlrabi, 10 mg must be added to each well superphosphate, 3 mg of urea and about 40 mg of wood ash.
Seedlings are planted, deepening it to cotyledonous leaves, since if planted deeper, this can lead to a delay in the formation of the stem plant or lead to flowering. Kohlrabi roots are located at the very surface of the earth and sprinkled with soil. After planting, you need to slightly trample the soil, and then pour plenty of water. After moisture is absorbed, this area must be covered with soil to prevent rapid and significant evaporation of moisture.
Care and watering kohlrabi cabbage
It’s not difficult to take care of kohlrabi, cardinally this process is no different from caring for other varieties of cabbage. Stebleplod kohlrabi begins to form at a time when seven to eight leaves have developed well enough, after which it gradually gains volume.
When growing kohlrabi in open ground, it is necessary to periodically weed the beds, as well as loosen the aisles and the earth around the plants themselves in rows. This is necessary in order to grow juicy and tender stems. Before they begin to appear, kohlrabi need to be spud.
Planted seedlings need to be watered abundantly in a day or two, and after it has taken root and its active growth begins, a weekly watering is sufficient. The greatest need for watering at kohlrabi arises in June, especially if the weather is dry. Kohlrabi is watered often, but not as abundantly as other types of cabbage. It is important to ensure that the soil in your area is moderately wet.
Feeding and processing kohlrabi
During the growing season during the cultivation of kohlrabi cabbage, top dressing should be carried out three times. In the phase when the first two leaves develop, foliar fertilizing with complex fertilizers and microelements is performed. Then, at the beginning of hardening, 14 days before planting in the soil, the seedlings are sprayed with a solution containing 10 mg of potassium sulfate and the same amount of urea diluted in 10 liters of water. And also the treatment is carried out immediately before disembarkation into the soil, placing mineral and organic fertilizers in the wells.
In cases where kohlrabi is exposed to disease or parasite damage, the treatment of cabbage with special agents is necessary. In most cases, insecticides are used to control pests.
When kohlrabi cabbage is affected by diseases, fungicidal agents must be used to help cope with most diseases. If kohlrabi is infected with a viral disease, it is necessary to remove the diseased plant from the garden and burn it, and disinfect the soil where it grew. As follows from the article, the care and cultivation of kohlrabi cabbage does not present any difficulty, or rather, are very simple.
Harvesting Cabbage Turnips
Kohlrabi, which was sown in the spring, must be removed from the beds as they mature, but they cannot be stored in the refrigerator for more than two weeks. But the cabbage, which was sown from the last decade of June to the end of July, can be harvested at about the time when the harvest of white cabbage is harvested, namely, when the day temperature on sunny days drops to three to five degrees of heat, and the night reaches zero degrees.
By this time period, kohlrabi stalks have already reached 8-10 cm in diameter and weigh about 110 grams on average. In that case, if you do not harvest the crop on time and allow it to overripe, the stem stalks will coarsen, will contain a lot of fibers and lose their taste.
Storage of kohlrabi cabbage
After the efforts made in the cultivation of kohlrabi cabbage in the open ground, the vegetable grower will be pleased with the fact that the stems are well preserved if you follow certain rules. The main factor is maintaining the optimal temperature regime. It is also important to know that stems with purple color are best preserved.
It must be remembered that kohlrabi must be harvested in clear and dry weather. Stem crops are removed from the soil along with the roots, and then dried in a dark, dry room. After that, they are cleaned of soil and pruned leaves. To increase the shelf life, it is recommended not to remove the root system.
Kohlrabi are placed in boxes filled with sand, so that the stalklopods do not touch each other. In this form, maintaining a room humidity of approximately 95% and a temperature of zero degrees, the crop can be stored for five to eight months.
Growing kohlrabi cabbage in the open ground and caring for it does not imply significant time costs and physical effort. Having stockpiled cabbage turnips, you can provide yourself with tasty and healthy kohlrabi stalks that are rich in phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and cobalt. They also have a lot of different acids, carotene, fructose, glucose and a large amount of vitamin C, for which Kohlrabi received the nickname - "northern lemon".