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Ramson can be called the first spring delicacy. The spicy garlic smell of young plants is familiar to many. But in appearance the culture is difficult to distinguish from hellebore and lily of the valley. What is wild garlic: photo and description, its varieties, where, when and how it is collected - this will be discussed in the article.
What does wild garlic look like?
Ramson is a perennial herbaceous bulbous plant. It has a triangular stem, reaching a height of 0.5 m. The leaves are lanceolate, shorter than the stem, up to 5 cm wide, their upper part is darker than the lower. The bulb is small, elongated, with parallel shells that split into fibers. The roots go deep into the soil. The wild garlic flower has the shape of an umbrella, in the form of a hemisphere. Petals are white, up to 12 mm long. The capsule is spherical, with three sides, inside of which there are seeds.
The plant goes by different names - bear onion, wild garlic, flask. Blooms in May-June. The flowers are fragrant, fragrant, beautiful, and are used in cooking and for decorating dishes. The leaves of wild garlic are tender and juicy; in appearance they are similar to lily of the valley, autumn colchicum, and hellebore. In order to accurately recognize the plant, you need to carefully study the photo and description of the wild garlic.
Varieties of wild garlic
There are two types of plants:
- Bear bow - compact appearance, leaf height is about 40 cm, has 3 - 4 leaf plates up to 5 cm wide. They appear already in March-April, after the snow has melted and the soil has warmed up. Bear onion, or wild garlic (pictured) is listed in the Red Book.
- Victory bow – on a powerful root there are several cone-shaped bulbs, the leaves of the plant are massive, can reach a height of 1 m, the flowers are pale green.
Forest wild garlic of the victorious onion variety grows successfully in acidic soils. Its frost resistance is higher than that of the bear onion, the bulb is larger and the peduncle is denser. Like the first species, the victorious bow is listed in the Red Book.
After wild wild garlic was domesticated and actively grown, scientists and breeders paid attention to it. Thanks to them, several new varieties with their own characteristics have appeared:
- Teddy Bear – produces the earliest greenery (up to 1.5 kg per square meter), the leaves are long, emerald green, with a waxy coating; the crop is not afraid of frost and excessive soil moisture;
- Bear Delicacy – a productive variety (up to 2 kg per square meter) with fleshy leaves up to 30 cm long, which are used for pickling and pickling;
- Bear Ear – an early ripening variety with a delicate and pleasant taste; The leaves are light green, elongated, the yield is up to 2.5 kg per square meter.
How does wild garlic grow?
Wild garlic (ramson) grows throughout Europe, Turkey, and the Caucasus. Early aromatic greens are most often found in shaded lowlands. Ramson likes shade, moisture and coolness, so the places where it grows are coniferous, deciduous forests, thickets of alder trees, swampy places near rivers and lakes.
To grow wild garlic in your garden, you need to know a few secrets:
- shade and moist soil are conditions for successful growth of wild garlic;
- It is better to propagate plants by seeds, since in this case the survival rate is more reliable;
- It is necessary to sow “before winter” so that the seeds lie at sub-zero temperatures for at least 100 days.
The growth of wild garlic takes a long time. The plant becomes an adult only in the fourth year.
To grow bear onions from seeds, you need:
- Prepare the soil - dig up the soil, remove weeds, make drainage.
- Apply organic fertilizers.
- In September, sow wild garlic seeds in the furrows (at a distance of 20 cm). Sowing density is 10 g per square meter. Sprinkle peat on top.
- Water.
You can also sow in the spring, which requires hardening the seeds in wet sand, then weeding periodically and only after a year replanting them in a permanent place.
Planting with bulbs is not particularly relevant due to low yields, but this method is also used:
- The best time for planting is mid-spring or early autumn.
- Prepare the area as for sowing.
- Plant the bulbs at a distance of 15 cm, deepening them into the ground and sprinkled with peat.
When growing wild garlic, you must follow the following procedures:
- frequent watering,
- loosening,
- weed control,
- feeding.
The plant becomes demanding of such care at the age of two years. Before this, there is no urgent need to carry out all activities.
What is the difference between wild garlic and hellebore and lily of the valley
Wild wild garlic is very similar to poisonous hellebore and lily of the valley.
Hellebore is a forest plant, belongs to the genus Melanthiev. It has wide folded elliptical leaves, belongs to the alkaloids, and is very poisonous.Toxic substances cause heart failure and poisoning. One leaf is enough to cause symptoms of intoxication of the body after some time. At the same time, tincture and powder are prepared from hellebore root. The powder helps in the treatment of head lice and wounds in livestock. If a poisonous plant is used incorrectly, even externally, it can result in fatal poisoning.
To avoid this, you should know how to distinguish plants. The leaves of wild garlic and hellebore are similar. But upon closer examination, differences can be identified. The leaves of the bulb are narrow, elongated, absolutely smooth. In hellebore they are wide. dense, veined, slightly corrugated, grooved, with fibers on the reverse side. The stalk of wild garlic coming out of the ground has a pink-red hue, while that of hellebore is white.
A bush of wild garlic contains about 4 leaves and an arrow with a flower, in which the seeds later ripen. Hellebore grows up to 1 m in height and forms a head of cabbage.
The main difference between the plants is the garlicky smell of wild garlic, which can be felt by breaking and rubbing its leaves.
Lily of the valley is a poisonous herbaceous plant belonging to the Liliaceae. It is easy to confuse it with wild garlic, since they have the same place of growth and a similar appearance. The differences are as follows:
- lily of the valley leaves are lighter in color and have pointed ends;
- bearskin flowers are an umbrella, and lily of the valley flowers are a bell;
- The main difference between wild garlic is its garlicky smell.
Poisoning by poisonous plants manifests itself in the form of symptoms:
- burning tongue;
- vomiting;
- nausea;
- seizures;
- slowing heart rate;
- feelings of fear.
To provide first aid, you need to call a doctor, and before he arrives, you should rinse your stomach, drink activated charcoal, and put ice on your head.
Where does wild garlic grow in Russia?
Bear onion, wild garlic and bulb are the same plant. It has different names because it grows in many regions of Russia.
Bear onion is widespread in the Caucasus and the west of the Russian Federation. If the soil is not covered with turf, then wild garlic grows in clearings, in oak, ash, and hornbeam forests.
In the North Caucasus, bear bow covers an area of about 5,000 hectares. Thickets of plants occupying up to 10 hectares are often found.
Siberian wild garlic, or flask, spread from Bashkiria and the Urals to Eastern Siberia. The places where it grows in these areas are light forests and forest edges, but the plant is often found in fir and cedar forests.
The Urals are rich in reserves of bear onions, which amount to 3000 kg/ha. The least amount of it is in coniferous forests; the largest amount grows in clearings ten years ago with abundant moisture.
On the plains of Western Siberia, victory onions grow on gentle slopes, in cedar forests.
In the Altai and Sayan region, wild garlic is common on gentle slopes, meadows and woodlands.
The Northern Yenisei is a place where the phytomass reserves of the victorious onion amount to 50 kg/ha. The habitat is fir forests and tall grass meadows.
The Far East is a place where flask reserves amount to 50 thousand tons, procurement - 700 tons.
When and where can you collect wild garlic in 2019?
All varieties of wild garlic are rich in vitamins A, E, C, group B. They contain many useful macro- and microelements necessary for humans. The plant is used in different forms - pickled, pickled, dried, salted.
The main time for harvesting wild garlic is May-June. The harvesting of wild garlic has recently become so widespread that it has led to a decline in the plant's population.For this reason, in a number of regions of Russia (Leningrad, Bryansk, Smolensk and others) it was listed in the Red Book. In the Moscow region and other regions of the Russian Federation, wild garlic is successfully grown in plots, being collected from the end of spring.
In the Urals, bear bow occupies spaces on the western slope of the ridge, in the area of Krasnoufimsk and Irbit. Collection time is May. A ban on logging has been imposed in the Sverdlovsk region.
In the Caucasus and Chechnya, garlic is harvested in the foothills and mountainous areas, starting in February-March.
In Siberia - from the end of April.
Conclusion
Bear onion, or wild garlic, a photo and description of which are given in the article, is a very useful plant, widespread throughout Russia. But as time has shown, in certain territories of the Russian Federation, with immeasurable harvesting, its range decreases and even tends to zero. For this reason, wild garlic was included in the Red Book. Planned harvesting, industrial cultivation and cultivation of the crop on personal plots make it possible to preserve the plant in the country.
