Revealing the secrets of the sunflower
The sunflower is native to southern North America. In ancient times, about a dozen yellow baskets could be seen on one stem of a sunflower, then, centuries later, breeders bred sunflower varieties with one basket. It was only in the nineteenth century that the sunflower in the garden became popular.
Sunflower varieties for growing in the garden are diverse, but they are combined into groups:
- Pancake variety sunflower. This group usually has small seeds, which are eight to fourteen millimeters long and one large kernel that contains half the oil.
- Gnawing variety sunflower. This group has large seeds, their size reaches 25 millimeters, their core is partially replaced by cavities of soft ones, their oil content is low, the maximum reaches up to thirty-five percent, but has a high huskiness.
- A variety of mezheumki. This sunflower group occupies an intermediate position between those two groups.
A sunflower in the garden treats the cold well and its seeds already germinate at five degrees of heat, and seeds that have risen can withstand frosts up to eight degrees. Therefore, you can sow sunflowers in the earliest spring and are not afraid that they will freeze.
Sunflower varieties are diverse in their early maturity. The fastest ripe varieties bear fruit after three months as they were sown in the soil. The latest varieties grow and ripen up to five months. Sunflower varieties that ripen late must be grown only with seedlings.
A sunflower in the garden is very fond of a lot of sunlight and light. Plant it in an open place where there will be a lot of sun, in places where there is shade, or the weather conditions change to cloudy, which does not have a good effect on its development. This inhibits its growth and the flower baskets form slowly.
The root system of a sunflower can survive for a long time without watering, but this is not always good, because if there is very little moisture in the soil, then this will have a bad effect on the formation of flowers in the baskets and bring empty seeds in the baskets.
It will be good if you plant a sunflower in the garden in fertilized sandy loam and loamy soil, here it will grow comfortably and well. Sunflower does not like sandy and boggy soils. The soil on which it grows should be neutral or slightly acidic.
Sunflower in the garden: sowing rules
In order for sunflower sowing in the garden to bring a good result, it is necessary to take seeds from the peripheral part of the basket.
If you are sowing sunflower seedlings in the garden, then somewhere in the middle of April, soak full-weight seeds for one night in water or in a solution made from wood ash. After soaking, keep them in a wet cloth in a warm place for five days.
Which seeds have begun to peck, then they will need to be sown in polyethylene bags in which there is already soil. And in about three weeks, your seedlings will be ready for open field planting. The sunflower must be placed at a distance of a meter from each other, it still depends on which variety
Rodent and late-ripening varieties prefer a larger area of food, be sure to take this into account when planting them.
As it grows, this plant will need to be cleared of weeds and fed with fertilizers a couple of times before the formation of baskets and their flowering.
If the petals of a sunflower in the garden began to wither and fall off, the reverse side of the sunflower has become yellow in color and the leaves are drying on the stem, then this is a sign that it is necessary to start harvesting.When the sunflower is ripe, birds love to peck it, wrap the baskets with gauze to protect them from birds.
From peeled sunflower seeds, you can make a very tasty delicacy, it is called kazinak. We probably know they are very famous. But few people know that sunflower also has medicinal properties.
For example, in England, flower petals and young baskets are recommended for the prevention of a common disease like cancer. The recipe for the medicine is as follows: take two tablespoons of only plucked sunflower flowers and boil in a water bath for ten minutes in two hundred milliliters of water, then insist for three hours and consume one tablespoon three times a day before meals. Also, young sunflower baskets are added to vegetable salads.
Many also use the roots of a half-flower grown in the garden; a decoction from such roots can dissolve stones and does not allow salts to be deposited in the kidneys, liver and joints.
