How to grow chicory

Chicory is a wonderful plant. Its young shoots can be used for stewing, from the roots, make one of the best coffee substitutes, and when winter forcing get a small dense head. Salad chicory is extensively used in European cuisine.

You will need

• Land, seeds, shovel, water, watering can, fertilizer, dark pantry or cellar.

Instruction

1. Proizvestkovat land if its acidity is more neutral. Neutral or alkaline soil liming is not needed. Make the autumn of 5-8 kg of fresh manure per square meter ridge. When autumn simultaneous liming of manure is undesirable, in this case, it is advisable to abandon it in favor of the spring mixing the soil with compost. Be sure to add the double superphosphate. All root plants are responsive to phosphate fertilizers.
2. Make a good drainage layer, if you're going to grow chicory on heavy clay soils. Water stagnation is detrimental to his roots. Not like the plant and drought. With insufficient watering the roots of bent, growing small and fibrous. Draw furrows at a distance of 20 cm from each other. Wisata seeds. Quite a little sprinkle them with earth and pour water at room temperature, using a funnel divider. If irrigation water is too cold, it can reduce the soil temperature, seeds will germinate more slowly.
3. Propolice seedlings at the stage of cotyledons. Chicory is growing very quickly, it can drown out such weeds as chickweed, goutweed, Thistle. Weeding, don't be lazy to pull out weeds by the roots, afterwards it will save you from having frequent weeding. When the chicory will grow to 4-5 cm, it will thin out, leaving the groove of the plants at a distance of 10-15 cm from each other. Dense planting will not allow the rhizomes to grow a decent consumer qualities.
4. Harvest before the onset of sustained autumn frosts. Chop off the leaves and roots, washed and chopped, dry on a baking sheet in the oven. When cool, grind them in a coffee grinder – a refreshing drink with a pleasant taste for Breakfast or lunch guaranteed.
5. Use the roots of chicory and lettuce for forcing kochanchikov. For this purpose the roots with a little "stumps" that make up the growth point, shake from the earth, a little dry in shade, fold into boxes with sand and put in a cool place, for example, the cellar. A few months prepare the boxes with soil (enough layer of 30-40 cm). Pour. Plant in them the roots of chicory "bridge way", firmly placing next to each other. Place the boxes in a dark place – a cellar or pantry, if we are talking about a city apartment. In two weeks roots will give dense white heads with a size of about 1o-15 cm they make a great salad.