Oregano: growing a medicinal plant

Oregano, also often called forest mint, incense, fleabane and marjoram, is a perennial herbaceous plant, which, due to the content of essential oils, has a strong, specific odor. In the middle zone, oregano is ubiquitous in the wild. Forest mint is also grown as a cultivated plant. for the purpose of collecting medicinal raw materials.

Oregano seeds are best sown in soil richly fertilized with manure and superphosphate in the fall at a sufficiently high air temperature: as a rule, this is done no earlier than mid-May. Seeds are sown without preliminary preparation in even rows, between which there should be about half a meter of free space, then the rows are thoroughly mulched and watered. At first, oregano seedlings, which germinate two weeks after sowing, are very small and fragile, so they must be protect from weeds by constantly breaking through them and keeping the garden bed clean. If necessary, shoots that are too dense should be broken through, leaving the plants at a distance of 15-20 centimeters.

After two months, the common oregano is already strong enough and does not need special care (for the normal development of the plant there will be Just water it from time to time). You can collect medicinal raw materials of oregano as early as July, when the plant begins to bloom. Throughout the summer with oregano cut off leafy flowering stems, which are then dried and threshed, and in September the seeds are collected from the peduncles remaining after collecting the raw materials.