An edible fleshy plant, the greens of which are a valuable food product for some peoples of Europe, the entire population of China, called fat grass in Turkey, are cultivated in Central Asia, Siberia, and Transcaucasia. In Russia, it is called as a purslane, and for some gardeners it is associated with a malicious weed - a wild purslane.
What is a purslane
An object for scientists to study this plant called "Portúlaca" was only at the end of the twentieth century. Then it was found out that the grass contains a large amount of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, vegetable proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
The stems and leaves of plants include the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which increases the heart rate and leads to an increase in blood pressure.
What does grass purslane look like?
Important! Purslane can cause significant harm to patients with hypertension.
What does edible purslane look like?
To have an idea which of the Portulakov family members is eaten, you need to know what garden purslane looks like. It is very different from decorative terry and large-flowered species. Its fleshy leaves are not oblong in the form of tubes, but semicircular wedge-shaped, the flowers are not colorful bright, but small, collected in bunches of yellow color.
The stems of the plants are branched, lying, up to 30 cm long. The taste of leaves and stems is burning-sour. The color of the leaves can be green, yellow, red. The first flowers of Purslane edible bloom in June, the flowering of bushes ends after lowering night temperatures in August. Seeds ripen in September, they are in the ovoid seed box, they can spill out on the soil on their own.
Wild purslane: where and how it grows
In terms of vitality, wild purslane weed is equated to thistle and wheat grass - grasses that gardeners are constantly struggling with. It is unlikely that they will succeed in completely destroying these herbs in the garden. Portúlaca can be seen along the roads, at the seams of paving slabs, on wastelands, banks of rivers and ponds, and the edge of the forest. Any soil is suitable for it, but at the same time it does not grow in the shade and freezes at low temperatures.
Thickets of purslane
Beneficial features
The herbaceous parts of vegetable purslane are used in folk medicine. Application occurs in the form of infusions, decoctions, juices, ointments. For the preparation of preparations, recipes based on seeds, dry and fresh herbs are used. Natural raw materials are used to treat vitamin deficiencies, bronchial asthma, lichen, diabetes, wounds, hypotension, and relieve inflammation and headaches.
There are contraindications for the use of purslane in medicine. First of all, this herb should not be given to children, pregnant and lactating women. The condition for taking drugs, which include Portúlaca components, is to consult with your doctor.
Cooking use
Residents of the Mediterranean can tell any tourist what Portúlaca is, name all its advantages, describe its enveloping sour taste. After all, the plant is one of the components of the Cretan method of nutrition. For food use stems and leaves, torn from young plants.
According to the descriptions of lovers of portulac dishes, if you eat a lot of it, then in your mouth you will feel like those after eating fresh sorrel leaves. Purslane is poorly stored, even when stored in the refrigerator, the period of use after it is removed from the garden is no more than 12 hours.
Note! The plant is used in salads, soups, for the preparation of homemade marinades.
Purslane dish
Growing purslane from seeds: when to plant
You can grow garden grass from seeds on any, even the poorest soils. But in order for it to form large edible parts, they use plots of land on which early vegetable crops grew as predecessors. Usually mineral fertilizers are applied to the soil under vegetables. They are not completely consumed by plants, purslane roots extract residual nutrients and use to build their own green mass.
Deciding when to plant grass seeds for cultivation for culinary purposes is sometimes difficult. In street conditions on the ground, even in the month of May, night frosts occur. Seeds and seedlings of Portúlaca do not withstand even low positive temperatures, not to mention the minus ones.
Note! Grass seeds can not be planted even to a depth of 1 cm, they simply will not sprout, so they are scattered superficially.
Therefore, they either take measures to protect the beds with sown seeds from the cold, or sow the seeds when stable heat occurs, or use the method of growing seedlings.
When and how to plant seedlings
The development of an adult Purslane plant from seeds requires a long time. For it to turn from seedlings into a bush that can be used for sale, it takes about 2-2.5 months. Therefore, for an early harvest, seeds for seedlings are sown in greenhouses at the end of February. Then, with the onset of heat, the seedlings are transshipped into the open ground.
Stratification of seeds before planting
Many gardeners do not recommend hardening the seeds of thermophilic plants with cold before sowing in the ground. Stratification is done to improve seed germination. But those gardeners who know how difficult it is to deal with purslane in the garden know that the germination rate of the seeds is excellent, and you should not waste time keeping the seeds in the refrigerator.
Site selection
For beds of garden purslane, a light, draft-protected place is chosen. The plant does not like waterlogged soil, so lowlands should be abandoned. The soil should be well warmed up, moistened and consist of a mixture of sand and garden soil.
Step-by-step landing process
Seeds in open ground are sown in shallow furrows. They are pre-mixed with dry sand. Between the rows leave an interval of 50 cm.
If seedlings will be grown in greenhouse conditions, then first, low landing boxes with drainage holes are prepared, and a moistened soil substrate is placed in them. The topsoil is slightly compacted. Seeds are sown in rows, sprinkled with sand with a layer of 0.5 cm. The boxes are covered with transparent materials, taken out into the light in a warm place. Periodically, the soil in the drawers is moistened.
Purslane bed
Purslane grass care
When two leaves appear, Portúlaca dives in separate small containers or in common boxes with a distance of 10 cm between plants. After transplanting plants into beds (the procedure is carried out after the formation of 8-10 leaves), purslane is regularly watered.
Watering mode
Herbs from the Portulakov family tolerate heat and drought well and do not need abundant watering. Excess moisture leads to the appearance in the lower part of the stems of seedlings of the disease, which is called the black leg. In adult plants, with severe overmoistening, the roots rot. Watering a garden plant is carried out after the top layer of soil dries out a little. The amount of water should be minimal.
Important! To accelerate the growth of the bush, pinch the tops of the stems.
Plants do not need to be fed, as they are removed from the beds until they bloom.
When and how to harvest
If gardening of purslane in open ground was carried out under favorable conditions, then harvesting is possible 1-1.5 months after sowing seeds on the beds in the budding phase before flowering begins. Usually the stems are cut to the root. As the stems grow, the stalk cut is repeated. But in some countries, plants are torn out along with the roots and sold as such in the markets. This is due to the culinary preferences of the inhabitants of these countries.
Portulak garden: how to remove weed from the garden
To understand how to get rid of purslane in the garden forever, it is necessary to take into account that the plant in its leaves and stems retains a large amount of moisture, allowing it to survive even after it is pulled out of the soil along with the roots.
To remove Purslane from the garden, both chemical weed control agents and agricultural techniques are used. These include deep digging of the soil, mulching of beds with reflective materials, manual weeding. Regular uprooting of weeds is an effective agrotechnical technique that will prevent portulaca from growing. The use of this technique will be 100% if the purslane torn from the ground is removed on a wooden flooring or stone walkway on which it will dry.
Note! Even pieces of leaves and stems of purslane can take root.
Hand weeding
Weeding of weeds with the help of plane cutters, choppers, cultivators is impossible. Plants will be cut into pieces, which immediately begin to take root in a new place. Everyone must decide on how and how to get rid of purslane, on the basis of their own health.
Purslane herbicide
Without much physical effort weed control is carried out using chemical agents. Such drugs include herbicides Hurricane Forte, Antisapa, Zencor, Permacline liquid.
Purslane will undoubtedly be a useful plant if its cultivation is controlled. The growth of Portúlaca without control of the seeding measures always leads to the fact that the plant becomes like a disaster, which is not so easy to get rid of.
