Features and characteristics of the Alligator dill variety. Growing Tips and Other Practical Advice

Description of the species, characteristics and photos

Bush dill of this variety is a late-ripening plant ; its harvest can be harvested several times during the season. In appearance, the Alligator is a small shrub, with an average height of 25-40 cm. Sometimes the height of the bush can exceed 100 cm. The leaves of dill are dissected, with a green-blue tint.

The ripening period for dill is 40-45 days for greens, 115 days if it is needed for spices.

Loose black soil is most suitable for the alligator, but in other soil it can produce a good harvest. Another advantage of the Alligator is its resistance to low temperatures. You can sow the seeds of this variety of greens twice a year: in late autumn and early spring.

Advantages and disadvantages

The alligator is very often found not only in the garden beds of summer cottages, but also in large farms that grow it for sale in stores.

• This popularity of the variety is due to its undoubted advantages:
• thick, juicy, aromatic greens;
• the ability to harvest several times during the season;
• strong immunity to pests and diseases;
• ease of care;
• resistance to errors in growing conditions: withstands temperature changes and lack of lighting.

The Alligator has practically no disadvantages, with the exception of not very good shelf life; cut greens do not retain freshness for long.

Benefits and contraindications for consumption

Dill is a healthy and easily accessible seasoning that can be found on almost every table. Fresh herbs have a positive effect on:

• general well-being of a person;
• functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
• helps with headaches and stress.

But we cannot say with confidence that dill can be taken by everyone and in any quantity. Alligator dill contains many vitamins that are useful and necessary for humans, but you should monitor the daily intake of nutrients in the body, especially for people with low blood pressure.

Read more about the benefits of dill here.

Growing Dill Alligator

The variety loves moisture very much, so regular watering is one of the most important nuances of growing.

In addition to watering, fertilizing plays an important role. It is especially worth paying attention to potassium-phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers. This will prevent yellowing from appearing on the dill branches. But too many of these components will not be beneficial, since the plant has the ability to absorb chemicals.

During the growing process, it is necessary to regularly remove weeds.

Collecting greens is simple: due to the large size of the bushes, you can safely cut off all the greens, leaving 2 - 3 branches for the further development of the plant. You can learn more about planting and growing Alligator dill from the video:

Use in folk medicine

Dill Alligator has a diuretic, antioxidant, bactericidal, choleretic, and antiseptic effect on the human body. Dill helps remove toxins and improves overall health .
If dill is regularly included in a person’s diet, then this green:

• improves metabolism;
• accelerates the production of enzymes and gastric juice necessary for the stomach;
• normalizes the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
• useful for colitis and gastritis.

Alligator dill also has a calming effect on the human body - it reduces irritability, headaches and nervous tension. The diuretic properties of dill, with systematic use and use of extracts from the plant, free the body from excess fluid and swelling. Alligator dill seeds and the greens themselves will also help with bad breath. Dill destroys pathogenic microflora in the oral cavity.

Pros and cons of the variety

Reading the description of the variety, as well as reviews from gardeners about it, one can highlight several positive and negative aspects. After reading them, you will definitely decide whether to plant this crop or not.

Pros:

• Dill Alligator can be grown in open and closed ground.
• Alligator dill has a high yield.
• On average, the bush reaches up to 60 grams in weight.
• The bush itself is very dense and at the end of the season the formation of baskets begins.
• Dill is very tasty and juicy, and also has a pleasant aroma.
• In this variety, stemming occurs slowly.

Minuses:

• Dill Alligator Gavrish belongs to the late ripening period.
• If frosts come early, the Alligator dill seeds become spoiled and unsuitable for planting.
• If improperly cared for or planted, only about 70% of all planted seeds germinate.

Growing by seeds and transplanting

Description of planting Crocodile dill:

In the spring, you can plant Alligator dill seeds immediately after the snow melts. The seeds and the plant itself are frost-resistant and can tolerate slightly negative temperatures.

The soil should not be excessively wet. To sow seeds on the site, you need to choose the right place. Despite the fact that the Alligator variety is unpretentious and hardy, favorable conditions will guarantee a high yield.

Recommendations for choosing a landing site:

• there should be uniform good lighting on the site for a long time - not in the shadow of the house;
• neutral soil;
• you should not plant Alligator dill in places where carrots, fennel and other umbrella plants used to grow;
• dill and parsley cannot be sown side by side;
• ideal for the Alligator variety would be the soil on which nightshade and legume crops were grown.

The beds for the Alligator should be located 15 cm from each other. Seeds are planted in the soil to a depth of 0.5 cm in increments of 1.5-2 cm.

After you have sowed the bed, the seeds need to be covered with a mixture of peat and humus, 2-2.5 cm thick, and compacted. There are no problems with seeding dill if you do not cut off the umbrellas that appear during the growing season.

Dill Alligator will reproduce on its own - the seeds will fall into the soil, and next year they will again turn out to be bushes of fragrant greenery.

Main characteristics

You can grow dill of the Alligator variety in all regions of Russia. Its scope of application is gardening and household plots, as well as small farms. The State Register classifies dill as a medium-late variety.

Dill belongs to the category of spicy annual plants from the celery family. The Alligator dill variety contains many vitamins and other useful substances, is unpretentious and has a high yield. Sprigs of greenery have a pronounced aroma.

Productivity

The marketable yield of Alligator bush dill when grown for greens is 1.45 - 2.60 kilograms per square meter, for spices - 2.8 kilograms per square meter. Greens can be cut after forty to forty-five days. If you also need seed material, it can be collected no earlier than after 115 days.

Application area

Dill of the Alligator variety, a photo of which can be seen below, is used in cooking in fresh and dried form. Fresh dill is added as a seasoning to salads, sauces and other dishes. In dried form, it is included in many seasonings. The most famous of them are adjika and suneli hops. Dill seeds can be added to soup, fish dishes and used as spices for home canning.

Outdoor care

The variety does not require specific and scrupulous care. For a good harvest, you should follow a few simple rules.

1. Dill Alligator needs watering at least 1-2 times a week (5 liters of water per 1 square meter).
2. Fertilizers are not required; the only feeding that is suitable for increasing productivity is feeding the soil before planting.
3. Dill must be weeded, the soil loosened and weeds removed at the initial stage. When dill of this variety produces 3-4 leaves, it begins to grow actively, and in this case weeds will not be a hindrance.

We talk about growing dill in open ground here, and read about the best varieties for growing in the garden here.

How to grow

Even a novice gardener can cope with growing dill. This greenery is easy to care for and resistant to adverse environmental factors.

Dill is grown without seedlings. Its seeds are sown immediately in open ground in autumn or spring. In the first case, the harvest will be ready for harvest much earlier.

Dill is also grown in a greenhouse. If the room is heated, greens are collected throughout the winter.

Preparing for cultivation and sowing seeds

Dill seeds require preliminary preparation. This will not only speed up their germination, but also reduce the likelihood of infection of adult plants.

Dill seeds have a film of essential oils. It protects seeds from bacteria and slows down the appearance of first shoots. It is removed before sowing.

At home, you can get rid of the oil film by soaking the seeds. They are kept for 2-3 days in water at room temperature, changing the liquid every 6 hours.

Advice. If you have an aquarium compressor, it is possible to carry out a bubbling procedure. To do this, the seeds are placed in warm water with the compressor turned on for a day. During this time, air bubbles will gently remove the oil layer from the sedimentary material.

After soaking, the seeds are disinfected. This is done in one of the following ways:

• 30 minutes in a light pink solution of potassium permanganate;
• 15 minutes in hydrogen peroxide;
• 2 hours in phytosporin;
• 12 hours in a soda solution prepared from 1 tbsp. water and 1 tsp. soda;
• 12 hours in aloe juice, diluted half and half with water.

The soil for growing dill is prepared in the fall, regardless of when the seeds are planned to be sown. To do this, it is dug up and cleared of plant debris. For every 1 sq. m of soil add 6 kg of humus or manure.

Before sowing seeds, the beds are watered with a solution of copper sulfate. It is prepared by adding 1 tbsp to 10 liters of boiling water. l. vitriol.

For dill, choose well-lit areas of the garden. With a lack of light, the greens will turn yellow.

It is not recommended to plant dill in the same place for several years in a row. It is better to grow it in areas of the garden where fruit crops previously grew.

If dill is sown in winter, then this is done at the end of October or at the beginning of November. In spring, the seeds are placed in the ground as soon as the snow melts.

Alligator seeds can germinate at a temperature of +3°C:

• make grooves 2-3 cm deep at a distance of 10 cm from each other;
• seeds are scattered in one line along the bottom of the depression;
• the grooves are sprinkled with soil (preferably humus or peat), which is lightly compacted;
• the beds are watered with warm, settled water;
• The crops are covered with film until germination.

If dill was sown in early spring, then in case of severe frosts it is recommended to cover the beds with film even after the first shoots appear. This is especially important to do at night.

After the first shoots appear, the vegetation is thinned out. There should be 10-15 cm free between the bushes.

Advice. Some gardeners cut off dill bushes completely 40-45 days after the first shoots appear. They then reseed the beds with this crop. So over the summer it is possible to collect young greens several times.

Watering

Dill is watered 1-3 times a week, depending on how hot the summer is. For 1 sq. m use at least 5 liters of water. It should be warm and settled.

Plants are watered in the morning or at sunset. If you do this when the sun is active, burns will appear on the leaves, and the risk of developing diseases will increase.

While the plants are still small, the soil is loosened after each watering. This is necessary to destroy the earthen crust, which prevents full root air exchange and promotes stagnation of water in the roots. If this is not done, the root system will begin to rot, and fungal infections will have ideal conditions for development.

Feeding

Gardeners' opinions are divided on whether it is worth fertilizing dill beds. Some believe that this will help plants increase maximum green mass. Others claim that it is unsafe because the greens accumulate chemicals that have fallen into the ground.

To get a bountiful harvest and avoid the accumulation of harmful substances in dill, special attention is paid to adding organic matter to the beds before sowing the seeds. Potassium and phosphorus fertilizers are applied during plant growth if symptoms of a lack of such substances appear (yellowing of leaves and loss of turgor).

Soil care

In the first two weeks after the first shoots appear, dill beds are regularly cleared of weeds. At this stage, harmful plants negatively affect the roots of dill and often lead to a slowdown in its development and death.

When the plants grow up, there is no need for weeding. Dense plantings of dill prevent weeds from developing.

If you plan to sow dill multiple times in the same beds in one summer, then the beds are prepared before each new batch. The dill roots remaining after cutting off the above-ground part are dug out of the ground. The soil is watered with a hot solution of copper sulfate and mixed with a new portion of fertilizer (if you re-apply organic matter, 2-3 kg per 1 sq. m will be enough).

Features of keeping at home

The Alligator variety is suitable for planting at home . Garden soil mixed with neutral soil for indoor plants is suitable. The planting box must be long to allow the dill to develop normally.

1. A drainage layer is placed at the bottom of the pot.
2. Seeds are sown on the top layer of soil, without holes.
3. You can fill the top with soil.
4. The soil needs to be moistened and the box placed in a dark and warm place, and after a couple of weeks moved to the windowsill.

Dill is a light-loving crop , so in winter, even on a windowsill, dill will need additional lighting with a fluorescent lamp for at least five hours a day.

Dill also needs daily watering, but the plant cannot be overwatered; once every few weeks, fertilize with complex fertilizer. The seeds can be pre-soaked in potassium permanganate. With proper care, the first greenery will appear in a month. You only need to cut off the side branches.

The time of vegetative development of dill is short. For a fresh harvest, new crops need to be done.

Pests and diseases

The alligator is practically not susceptible to the most common diseases of agricultural crops.

1. It has average resistance to powdery mildew . May get sick at the end of summer. Plants affected by the disease have a whitish coating on the stems and leaves.
2. Most often, the Alligator suffers from fusarium (withering) . The reason may be a temperature difference. To protect the plant, the seeds must be soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate or phytosporin before planting.
3. In the rarest cases, the plant may suffer from phomosis . In this case, the plants become covered with brown spots and they dry out. Prevention of this disease will be treating the beds with a solution of Fundazol and spraying the plants with a solution of boric acid twice a season.

Do you know which animals can and cannot be given dill, and what are the pros and cons of the Gribovsky variety, how to grow it and use it in folk medicine, or what is the difference between cumin and dill? The answers to these questions can be found in our articles.

Diseases

• The most famous is powdery mildew. You may not immediately notice the whitish coating that affects the leaves and stem. The disease appears more often in the second half of August, when the temperature drops at night. Such plants can no longer be eaten.
• Sometimes dill is also affected by Phoma. With this infection, the stems, leaves and seeds begin to turn black. This fungus can appear when grown outdoors, at home, or in a greenhouse. To protect dill from the virus, it is necessary to treat the seeds with hot water (50 degrees) and take preventive measures.

Collection

The first harvest of greens is, on average, harvested 30-40 days after planting. Some gardeners practice selective harvesting, others - continuous harvesting. The most valuable in terms of taste and benefits for the body are young fresh greens, about 5 cm in size. If the greens are not collected on time, then the plant must be cut off completely, otherwise an inflorescence will form and the crop will lose its taste.

The ease of care, unpretentiousness and excellent taste of the Alligator variety have made it one of the most popular green plants among gardeners. Due to its frost resistance, it can grow throughout Russia, even in the northern regions.