Chinese cabbage: growing and care

Chinese cabbage reacts extremely badly to transplants, so it can be grown exclusively by seedlings or by planting seeds in pots or boxes filled with a special nutrient mixture, with further transplanting into open ground. At the same time, special requirements are imposed on the seedling substrate: for example, it must be disinfected and with a good structure, have high water-retaining properties and indicators of absorption capacity. The ideal soil for Chinese cabbage is a mixture of turf, peat and humus, taken in percentages of 40, 30, and 30, respectively.

Chinese cabbage is transplanted into open soil when four or five true leaves appear in it so that there is twenty centimeters of free space between the plants in a row, and thirty centimeters between the rows. Caring for Chinese cabbage is quite simple, but many inexperienced gardeners often face the problem of premature cabbage stemming, which significantly reduces its marketability and yield. This can be avoided by choosing the right planting time (in spring it is necessary to plant in mid-April, and in summer - in early July).

Caring for this crop includes its regular watering, weeding, loosening the soil between rows, as well as thinning, that is, removing the weakest plants. There is no need to sprinkle Chinese cabbage, but special attention should be paid to its protection from pests, in particular, from the cruciferous flea. To protect the crops, immediately after the seeds are laid, the furrows and pits should be powdered with a mixture of tobacco dust, ordinary wood ash and black ground pepper.