The Mediterranean is considered the birthplace of arugula. This spice was used in ancient Rome, and later it was willingly used by culinary specialists of French and English cuisines. The Egyptians prefer to add grass to bean dishes and salads, while Italians use arugula leaves for filling pizza, put in risotto and salads.
How to grow arugula on the windowsill, we will consider in detail below. Eruka, Indau, caterpillar, gallant are all the names of the annual arugula plant.
Varieties of plants vary in appearance. Some of them have yellow flowers and oblong serrated leaves, others with white flowers and dissected leaves. For eating, use the whole plant: seeds, flowers and leaves.
Beneficial features
Healing qualities are preserved if the eruca is torn into small particles, and not cut with a knife.
- Arugula leaves contain a lot of dietary fiber, vitamins, essential oils, trace elements, citric and malic acids, tannins, pectin compounds, antioxidants.
- Thanks to this chemical composition, it improves bowel function, normalizes metabolism, strengthens immunity, reduces inflammatory processes, strengthens blood vessels, positively affects male potency, and slows down the development of cancerous tumors.
- Arugula leaves salad is included in the menu for those who decide to lose weight. The grass is low-calorie, contains a lot of fiber and vitamins, a feeling of hunger disappears for a long time.
- Arugula is a salt substitute for many dishes.
- The use of indow on fasting days normalizes metabolism, removes toxins and toxins.
- Herb leaf oil reduces brittle nails and softens the skin.
- Helps with problems with potency in men.
- Hair masks with broth or arugula oil reduce brittle hair and give it strength and natural shine.
Healing properties
Due to the unique composition, indau is also used as an additional tool in the treatment of certain diseases. Properties:
- promotes wound healing;
- strengthens the walls of blood vessels;
- normalizes pressure;
- reduces cholesterol;
- improves metabolism;
- regulates the water-salt balance;
- raises hemoglobin;
- has a sedative and calming effect;
- lowers blood sugar;
- Helps the body fight infections.
Harmful properties
Unfortunately, arugula can also harm the body in addition to its benefits. Due to the content of phytoncides in the grass, severe allergic reactions are possible.
Do not use Eruka for diseases:
- liver
- gastritis;
- urolithiasis;
- gout
- stab.
Indow and pregnant women are contraindicated.
How to grow arugula on the balcony?
All year round lettuce can be grown on a glazed balcony if the temperature is more than 10 degrees. It grows well in such conditions. To plant, you need to take a container, box or pot and sow the seeds to a depth of 1.5 cm. To properly cultivate the plant on the balcony, you need to know how to grow arugula on the windowsill.
Indau has a high germination capacity, so when planting you should not lay them often. Shoots appear on the 5th day. To save seeds, use the seedling method. Plantings are also made more thickened, so that later they are thinned out and salad is made. Harvest ripens in a month.
When growing grass on the balcony, it is important to remember:
- do not use fertilizers, nitrates are quickly absorbed into greens;
- growing arugula requires moderate watering; excess water gives the leaves bitterness;
- make the distance between plants at 8 cm, then the taste will improve;
- will grow well if the balcony faces the sunny side;
- the best temperature for growing is 18 degrees;
- the leaves are ready for use when the bush reaches a height of 10 cm.
How to grow arugula at home on a windowsill
As a planting material, take any kind of grass. Early ripe varieties will delight you with a harvest after 20 days, and mid-ripening and late varieties will delight you after 30-40 days, respectively.
In drawers or trays, make a drainage layer of pebbles, broken bricks or expanded clay. Earth to take slightly alkaline or neutral. Ideal calcined at high temperature soil from under pumpkin or legume plants, taken from the suburban area. Alternatively, you can use boiling water or a solution of potassium permanganate. After disinfection, the soil should stand for 10-14 days. You can prepare the soil yourself, for this in the proportions of 2: 1: 2 take the land of turf, sand and humus.
On moist and slightly tamped soil, make rows or small holes. They put seeds at a distance of three centimeters and sprinkle with a layer of earth in one centimeter.
Care, harvesting
It is watered from the spray gun so as not to erode the soil. After sowing, the boxes are covered with a film of polyethylene and placed in the dark. The optimum temperature at which growing arugula is considered ideal is 18 degrees. When the first shoots appear, usually on day 5-6, the film coating is removed. Weak and sick plants are thrown away. The trays are transferred to a well-lit window sill and moved closer to the glass. Grass is a photophilous plant. If the windows face the north side, then they make a backlight from daylight lamps, which are located at a height of 60 cm. Watered once every two days. Feeding is not required. The Eruka plant is very tender, so it should be protected from drafts and not open the window leaves on the windows where the boxes are located.
After about a month, juicy greens with an unusual taste will appear in your kitchen. Cut off leaves with a height of 10 cm. The size of the leaves is important, since small leaves contain a large amount of bitterness.
"How to grow arugula on a windowsill in the winter?" - lovers of this greenery ask a question. The only difference between growing grass in winter is extending daylight hours by 4–6 hours.
It's so easy to grow an Eruka at home. In the refrigerator, greens do not last longer than six days. For long-term storage, it is washed, dried and frozen in the freezer. There will always be fresh greens on the table if indow is planted in small volumes every two weeks.
Pests and diseases
How to grow arugula on a windowsill to use its properties to enhance health and protect yourself from disease? It is necessary to observe certain rules for caring for her.
Indau contains a large amount of essential oils. No pests infect her. The smell of essential oils will scare away harmful insects from other plants that are next to it. But it is not protected from fungal diseases that affect the roots due to increased soil moisture. The disease manifests itself as withering stems, and white bubbles appear on the roots. Destroy the greenery, the disease is incurable.
Trying to experiment
Increasingly, one can see in houses how arugula grows on a windowsill; growing from seeds does not require special conditions for obtaining a crop. This amazing plant feels equally good not only on balconies and window sills, but also in the open ground.
After the flowering of Eruka, seeds are formed that are sown in the soil and the next year give new seedlings, so in summer cottages there is no need to plant it annually. You can try to leave the seeds, wait until the arugula sprouts on the windowsill, growing from seeds in this case will not require any effort at all.
Cultivation of indau is not difficult due to the unpretentiousness of the plant. Greens has a refined and piquant taste, which in a different way reveals the possibilities and subtleties of well-known products. How to grow arugula on the windowsill so that the green garden is always at hand is described in this article.