How to properly plant lettuce in open ground with seeds. How to grow lettuce at home

Regardless of whether you've run out free place in the garden or you just want to grow lettuce all year round, this plant is easy and simple to grow at home. Because lettuce thrives at room temperature and in direct sunlight, it adapts well to home conditions and will survive well with basic care. Even if you've never kept any plants in your home before, you won't need anything more than regular potting soil, water, fertilizer and light or a sunny window to keep the plants growing strong. A month after planting the seeds, it will be possible to harvest the lettuce!

Steps

Part 1

Sowing lettuce seeds in pots

Choose a lettuce variety that does well at home. While most varieties of lettuce can be grown at home, you may have an easier time succeeding with some than others. Purchase any of the following lettuce varieties from a garden center or seed store:

“Moscow Greenhouse”;
“Emerald lace”;
"Parliament";
“Dubrava”;
"May";
“Parisian green”;
“Bettner”;
“Merlot.”

Fill the pot with soil for forcing the seeds. The soil for forcing seeds should be light to promote root growth and provide good drainage without allowing water to stagnate. If you are unable to find special soil for forcing seeds, you can prepare it yourself from equal parts of sphagnum or coconut fiber, vermiculite and sand.

Sow the seeds in the ground about 2.5 cm apart. Dig a hole 1–1.5 cm deep in the soil and place lettuce seeds in it at a distance of about 2.5 cm from each other. Limit yourself to four seeds per pot so you don't have to thin out the seedlings once they emerge. If you want to plant more than four seeds, prepare several pots in advance.

Lightly sprinkle the seeds with soil and water. Take a handful of soil and carefully sprinkle it over the lettuce seeds. Fill a spray bottle with water and gently moisten the soil so as not to wash out the seeds.

If you do not want to wait for germination, plant lettuce seedlings immediately. If you don't have the patience to wait for seedlings to appear, lettuce can be planted as seedlings. Use the same technique as if you were planting seeds: plant no more than four plants in pots.
- You can buy ready-made lettuce seedlings secondhand or look for them at garden centers.
Part 2
Seedling care
1. Moisten the soil in pots daily with a spray bottle until shoots appear. Once the seeds have sprouted, the lettuce will need watering equivalent to about 25mm of rain per week. Check the condition of the soil twice a day with your finger and water it when it is dry.
  - The soil should remain moist, but not waterlogged.
  - Another way to check the moisture level is to lift the pot. If it is heavy, then the soil is saturated with water.
2. Grow lettuce in conditions room temperature. Lettuce grows best at a temperature of 18–21℃. Turn on the air conditioning or heating as needed to keep the plants as stable as possible.
  - If it is warm or cool enough outside, you can periodically expose the plants to fresh air.
3. Place the lettuce pots in a sunny window or under a fluorescent light. Lettuce grows best under direct sunlight. If you live where there is very little sun, buy a fluorescent light from a garden center and hang it about a foot above the lettuce.
  
  Water the salad when the leaves begin to wilt. Lettuce leaves begin to noticeably wilt when the plant does not have enough water. If you notice that the leaves are drooping, water the salad to make the soil moist again, but not soggy or soggy.
  - The higher the air temperature, the more often it is necessary to water the salad.
4. Fertilize the lettuce three weeks after planting. Lettuce needs nitrogen fertilizer to grow, so three weeks after planting the seeds or when the first leaves appear, spray the seedlings with liquid fertilizer. Spray the fertilizer close to the soil so that it does not get directly onto the leaves and leave burns on them.
Part 3
Harvesting
1. Start harvesting lettuce 30–45 days after planting. On average, lettuce takes 30–45 days to grow from seed to mature plant. Mark your calendar to begin harvesting in about 30 days.
  - Homemade lettuce continues to grow and mature, so after you pick its leaves for the first time, you can continue to harvest it later.
  - Grown lettuce at home usually grows up to 10 cm in height.

" Salad

Mother Nature is pleased to present to our table good salad to help in the fight against the annual vitamin deficiency that plagues us in spring days. This fast-growing annual is one of the main suppliers of useful components. Crispy foliage plays the role of that extraordinary zest that can harmoniously decorate a meat, fish, or cheese dish. Important feature Greenery is considered to be that it can be cultivated all year round. And quite often, gardeners who have harvested an early harvest re-sow the seeds of this crop in open ground.

Leaf lettuce is an annual plant that tolerates cold weather. Seeds produce their first shoots even at four to five degrees Celsius and survive light frosts without problems.

Mature plants are even more resilient and can withstand six degrees of frost in the garden and in the country.

The root system is well branched, located in most cases near the soil surface. The color of lettuce bushes varies from light green to dark purple. By the time of ripening, a flower stalk grows from the central part of the rosette. Later, inflorescences in the form of baskets are formed on it, numbering from fifteen small flowers. Flowering can last no more than a month. In Russia, leaf lettuce is very popular, known for its tender and juicy leaves, short terms

maturation. It is recommended to be eaten at any time of the year.

The crop is grown without any particular difficulties. It is enough to set aside one or two beds for it, on which you can harvest several crops. During the summer season, lettuce bushes have time to grow and produce seed material.

For open ground
downy mildew;

internal necrosis;

It grows well in unprotected beds and in greenhouses. For open ground, lettuce is recommended for cultivation from mid-spring to autumn. Ruksai is another salad plant with a late (up to fifty days) ripening period. Rosette open view , loose, reaches twenty centimeters in height. Rounded foliage of a reddish hue, with a slight purple

. The head of cabbage weighs about four hundred grams. Taste characteristics are expressed by brightly spicy and nutty notes. Gascony is a mid-early plant with a growing season of forty-five to forty-eight days.

The rosettes are compact, reaching thirty-five centimeters in diameter. The average weight is five hundred grams. The variety perfectly resists flowering and the most common diseases. Excellent cultivation in open ground conditions.

Leafy early ripening Sandwich is an excellent variety of lettuce with early Grows equally well in greenhouse conditions and in open beds. The foliage is light green, tender, contains a large number of vitamins and mineral components.

Firebird is an early ripening plant that can produce a harvest one and a half months after sowing. The rosettes are large, ruby red, the foliage is tender and crispy. The foliage contains many vitamins and mineral salts.

Grand is early ripening, produces a harvest in forty to forty-five days after the appearance of the first shoots. The foliage is large, curly, juicy, the rosettes are highly uniform. The variety is known for its resistance to K6.

floweriness;
necrosis;
marginal burns.

Kitezh is an early ripening salad plant, forming erect rosettes, the height and diameter of which reach twenty-five centimeters. The foliage is medium-sized, oblong, reddish in color. The wavy edges have small cuts in the apical parts. The taste of the salad is excellent, the yield reaches two and a half kilograms per square meter of bed.

Without bitterness for the garden

Lollo bionda is considered one of the popular and beautiful salad types. The foliage is soft and goes well with hot dishes, sauces, baked vegetables, and fried meat. It can be a good decoration for any dish or garden bed.

Batavia– includes a number of varieties, united by common features:

leafly;
risotto;
greenie;
fanley;
country house;
jumble;
Prague residents

The rosettes are large, semi-spreading, the foliage is slightly wavy at the edges. The salad is delicious, slightly sweet, complements perfectly meat dishes. IN Lately The variety is popular with many gardeners.

Oakleaf - owes its name to appearance foliage. The plant is recognized by its color shades and taste qualities, characterized by the presence of nutty notes. It is an excellent addition to hot salads, appetizers, and fish dishes. Due to the increased sensitivity of the foliage to temperature changes, the salad should not be stored for more than a few hours.

Corn - forms small leaves of a dark green hue, creating rosettes. The taste is sweetish, with nutty notes, and a slight spiciness is felt. You can plant it in the country house or balcony.

Oily is a varietal variety of head lettuce. The leaves are smooth and feel oily to the touch due to the high amount of vitamin E. Previously, this lettuce was grown for its oil. The foliage is juicy, with a sweetish aftertaste.

Lettuce is considered an unpretentious plant; it does not have any special requirements for cultivation. Having determined the most suitable varieties for yourself, you can plant every year and have several harvests of plants enriched with vitamins and other useful components.

A healthy and easy-to-grow crop, green salad, is extremely popular among gardeners and gardeners. And for good reason. After all, this plant contains almost the full spectrum of vitamins and substances beneficial to the human body.

The salad is for those who are not at all picky about it. environment plants.

Growing lettuce in the country - simple process. The technology of the process does not take much time. This unpretentious plant always pleases gardeners with its rich harvest. The green plant is grown in almost all parts of Russia.

How to grow lettuce on the plot correctly

If you want already in early spring If a vitamin product appears on your table, you should pay attention to planting lettuce. Leaf lettuce is distinguished by its early ripening and early germination. We grow this salad so that it can be eaten in the spring or after autumn sowing. The fact is that in summer lettuce loses much of its nutritional value, and its leaves begin to taste bitter.

Among the varieties of leaf lettuce that are perfect for growing are “Tornado”, “Ballet”, “Emerald”, “Dubachik”, “Roblen”, “Dubrava”, “Zabava”.

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Seed preparation

The peculiarity of lettuce seeds is their size. Since the seeds are quite small, it is recommended to mix them with sand in a 1:1 ratio before planting. It is important to maintain the correct proportions to avoid too thick shoots.

Sow the seeds in the prepared soil to a depth of 1 cm. There should be a distance of 30 cm between the rows. A prerequisite is timely thinning of the seedlings. The first shoots appear on the third day. When thinning, removed seedlings can be replanted.

Soil preparation:

Sow seeds in prepared soil to a depth of 1 cm.

The place for the future garden bed should be sunny.
Fertilize the soil with humus, per 1 sq. m a third of a bucket of humus. Add a tablespoon of superphosphate and a teaspoon of potassium sulfate there.
It is recommended to add dolomite flour to the soil before planting.
The soil for planting should be loose and soft.
The grooves for planting seeds are spaced at a distance of 3 cm.
Sow seeds in prepared soil in early spring.
You need to water the seedlings twice a week with a moderate amount of water. Carry out the watering procedure in the evening or in the morning so that Sun rays did not burn the plant.

To ensure there is always fresh greenery in the garden, you can sow lettuce seeds throughout the summer. The last date for planting is the first week of September. But if you have a greenhouse, you can sow later.

For better growth, you can feed the growing plant with urea. We grow this salad and after 1-2 leaves appear, we pick out the seedlings. Green leaf lettuce can be eaten when the plant has 5 or more leaves.

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How to grow watercress correctly

Watercress requires abundant and thorough watering.

A variety of salads that can be grown in the garden includes watercress. This plant especially highlighted by nutritionists because of its rich content of vitamin C, iodine, carotene, sulfur and potassium salts.

So, we grow watercress salad. This will not cause much trouble for gardeners. First you need to prepare the seeds for planting. As with lettuce, the seeds need to be mixed with sand. We prepare the soil for watercress using the method described above. In order for the greens to be lush, watercress requires careful watering.

Seeds can be sown in the greenhouse as early as April-May. Then the finished seedlings should be planted in an open bed. You can finish sowing throughout the summer, until September.

The growth feature of watercress is very fast pace stem elongation and leaf growth. You should pay attention to the fact that with very dry air and a lack of soil moisture, the leaves of the plant will begin to coarse and form inflorescences. Of course, and the nutritional value of such a product will decrease significantly.

Watercress really likes the spraying procedure. There is no need to plant the plant in an open area under the scorching rays of the sun. It is best to choose a slightly shaded place.

Cut plants can be stored in the refrigerator at 10 degrees in an airtight container. Under such conditions, the product can be stored for up to a month.

A lot of food is prepared from the green plant. delicious dishes, they also use it for decoration.

We grow salads correctly - we get greens all year round.

You should start growing seedlings with preparing seeds for sowing for seedlings

Sowing lettuce seeds

Early varieties of lettuce are most often grown using seedlings; among late varieties, cabbage varieties are suitable for cultivation using this method. The technology for growing seedlings is the same for all salads. The difference lies in the timing of sowing and planting in the ground. It is very important to choose the right timing for sowing seeds, which depends on the timing of planting seedlings. permanent place. Lettuce is an early ripening and fairly cold-resistant crop, so it can be planted in early spring, as well as before winter.

Timing of sowing seeds

It is best to plant lettuce in a greenhouse or heated greenhouse through seedlings. Seedlings grow within 25-30 days after germination. Therefore, if you want to get a lettuce harvest in early spring, around the first half of April, it needs to be sown starting from the last week of January until mid-February.

If it is intended to grow freshlings in open ground, then the seeds of head and asparagus lettuce can be sown approximately in the third ten days of March - the first ten days of April, since the age of the seedlings should not exceed 30-35 days. Specific sowing dates depend on local and weather conditions. climatic conditions. IN middle lane In Russia, seedlings of early head and asparagus lettuce are grown starting from late March - early April. Seedlings are planted in a permanent location in May.

Early-ripening varieties of lettuce are usually sown in open ground from mid-April, mid-ripening and late-ripening - from April to mid-June. Starting to sow lettuce seeds in mid-April, if you want to continue to receive a lettuce harvest throughout the season, you can carry out stepwise sowings every 10-14 days for the first three plantings. Planting can continue until the end of August, performing summer sowings at a reduced interval of one week. The last two plantings should be done with a break of two weeks, as at the beginning of the season.

Technique for sowing lettuce seeds

Having decided on the timing of sowing seeds for seedlings, you need to choose a method for growing them. Lettuce seedlings are grown using a potless or potted method with or without picking seedlings, using bulk pots, peat or peat-humus cubes and cassettes, as well as other methods.

Growing lettuce seedlings using a potless method

When growing lettuce seedlings using a potless method, seeds should be sown directly into the beds of greenhouses or hotbeds, with or without further planting. For such planting, greenhouse racks or seed boxes are used. The approximate consumption rate of lettuce seeds when sowing is 5-7 g per 1 m2. If you plan to use plant picking or replanting to increase the feeding area, lettuce seeds are sown at a rate of 6-8 g per 1 m2 or 10-12 g per greenhouse frame.

❧ Lettuce is attractive because it can be grown almost all year round, using different varieties, sowing dates, growing methods, using re-seeding and much more. You can plant several at once various types lettuce, obtaining a wide range of plants with leaves of different shapes and colors.

To effectively grow lettuce seedlings using a potless method, you first need to prepare the right container in the form of a wooden rectangular box. Such a box should not be too small, otherwise the soil in it will dry out very quickly. The optimal size of the container for sowing lettuce seeds is small boxes with side dimensions of 60 X 60 cm or 60 X 80 cm, their depth should be approximately 10-12 cm.

Before sowing, the boxes need to be filled with the selected soil mixture, then lightly compacted so that there are no voids, and watered a little warm water, to which a very light solution of potassium permanganate is added. The thickness of the layer of soil mixture in the seed box should be from 12-16 cm or more. Shelves in a greenhouse need to be covered with greenhouse soil of approximately the same thickness.

Seeds should be sown in grooves made in the soil, at a distance of about 10-12 or 20-25 cm from one another. The row spacing depends on the type of lettuce: for spreading bushes it should be larger. When sowing, a certain distance between seeds should be maintained - 2-3 cm, since only in this case large and strong seedlings can appear. (Although at this stage you can sow the seeds in a continuous strip and then thin out the seedlings.)

For convenience, before starting sowing, you can mark the location of rows and furrows on the soil surface using a special marker. Immediately before sowing, the soil should be thoroughly moistened. After this, lettuce seeds are sown, planted to a depth of 1-1.5 cm and watered with water at room temperature (25°C). The seed boxes are then transferred to warm place and wait for the emergence of seedlings, maintaining the temperature at least 23°C.

Growing lettuce seedlings in pots

When growing lettuce seedlings using the pot method and then planting them in pots, the seeds are usually planted in seed boxes of the same size as in the previous case. The box is filled with soil mixture so that the thickness of its layer is at least 12-16 cm. The approximate seed sowing rate is 2-4 g per 1 m2. When grown without diving, the approximate seed sowing rate is 1 g per 1 m2.

Seeds are planted in rows in a sowing box to a depth of 0.5-1 cm, maintaining a distance between rows of 3-6 cm. The soil is moistened before sowing. The lettuce seeds are small, so they can be mixed with some sand. After sowing, they are sprinkled with a thin layer of soil, and then additional watering is carried out using warm water(25°C).

Lettuce seedlings can be grown without diving, by direct sowing in peat or peat-humus pots measuring 5x5cm and 6x6 cm, or bulk containers (cups) filled with compost or soil mixture, measuring 3 x 3 cm or 6 x 6 cm. With this method of sowing 2-3 seeds are placed in each pot and sprinkled with light humus soil or peat with a layer of 0.3-05 cm. After sowing, the seeds are watered abundantly. Then the cups are placed in a greenhouse or in a warm place in a living room.

The future harvest of lettuce depends on the quality of the conditions created during seed germination. Until the first shoots appear, boxes or pots with seeds should be kept in a dark place.

Daytime air temperature should be maintained at 18-22°C, and at night at 6-10°C. At this temperature, lettuce germinates fastest. (Although the optimal temperature for germination of lettuce seeds is considered to be 8-15°C.)

It is very important that the soil does not dry out when germinating seeds. Therefore, they need to be constantly watered with a weak stream using a strainer. It is best to water the crops with warm water (25°C), covering the soil with gauze or cloth, being careful not to expose the seeds. You can water during the pre-emergence period by spraying the soil with warm water from a spray bottle, this will speed up the process of seed germination.

Cassette method of growing lettuce

Nowadays, the cassette method of growing lettuce seedlings is becoming widespread, in which cassettes with cell sizes of 2.5 x 2.5 cm, 3 x 3 cm, 4 x 4 cm or b x b cm are used.

This method using polymer cassettes provides two options: firstly, picking seedlings into cassettes from a school; secondly, direct sowing of seeds into cells. The advantage of the cassette growing method is the possibility of obtaining an early harvest, as well as guaranteeing the planned density of plant seeds, which allows you to obtain more seedlings with equal area. For example, when growing seedlings indoors, you can get from 1 m2 to 300 plants. If you use cassettes with 224 cells, then you can get 800 plants from such an area, since four such cassettes can be installed per 1 m2.

There are additional advantages of the cassette method of growing lettuce seedlings. The germination rate of seeds planted in cassettes is significantly higher than those sown in the greenhouse soil. When planting, some of the seedlings grown in the greenhouse are lost, while when grown in cassettes, all plants are preserved, which halves the cost of seeds.

Cassettes with sown seeds are installed for germination in a room where it is possible to maintain the air temperature at 21-22°C and humidity within 85-90%.

Seeds germinate in cassettes no later than 2-3 days. This technology Growing lettuce makes it possible to regulate plant growth. This property is especially important in those conditions when the seedlings are ready for planting, and the conditions in the open ground do not yet meet its needs. By growing seedlings in cassettes, you can temporarily stop their growth and keep the plants in this state without harming them enough long time until open ground conditions return to normal.

Plants transplanted into open ground from cassettes develop evenly and grow quickly, since their root system is kept intact. The heads of this lettuce are the same size and weight. The harvest volume from seedlings from cassettes is usually 15-20% higher than that of plants grown by other methods.

Sowing lettuce seeds in cassettes

Seeds for growing lettuce seedlings are sown directly into polymer cassettes, which are pre-filled with a ready-made peat substrate that has a suitable level of acidity and is enriched with fertilizers. You will need very little substrate. The cassettes are filled, watered abundantly, and one or several seeds are sown in each cup. The cassettes are then covered with film to prevent excess moisture evaporation. After the seeds germinate, you can remove the film.

Can you tell me when to plant lettuce in open ground? I found several packets of seeds. Is it possible to sow them now next to tomatoes?

Lettuce is a crop that can be grown in the garden almost all year round. It is not afraid of the cold, loves the sun and water, and the seeds germinate quickly, which allows you to feast on fresh leaves from early spring until frost.

Sowing time

Early lettuce varieties should be sown in open ground starting in April. At this time, the earth has already warmed up enough for them to germinate quickly. Late and mid-season species are planted a month later - in May, and until the second ten days of June.

The peculiarities of lettuce ripening include the predominance of a bitter taste while the bush grows a stem. Then the leaves become inedible.

Where is the best place to plant?

Lettuce grows well in almost any soil, excluding clay, but more lush bushes are obtained when grown in loose and nutritious soil. To do this, dig up the designated area deeply in the fall, after adding humus (for each square meter per bucket).

Immediately before spring sowing, also feed the soil with mineral fertilizers, per square meter of soil:

1 tsp. potassium sulfate;
2 tsp. superphosphate;
2 tsp. Mortar.

It is better to divide the beds for salad into sunny place, avoiding shading. Lettuce grows well after cucumbers and potatoes. In the summer, you can do combined plantings with tomatoes, onions or radishes.

How to plant?

In the loosened and fertilized area, make shallow grooves (up to 1 cm) and place the seeds in them. Since the bushes grow quite lush, you will need to make the row spacing up to 20 cm.

For greater convenience, small seeds can be mixed with sand.

Water the seeded bed well. When sowing in early spring, it is recommended to cover it with film to speed up germination.

How to care?

When all the seeds have sprouted and the seedlings have grown a little, they should be thinned out, leaving between the bushes:

from 6 cm – for leaf lettuce;
from 10 cm – for cabbage varieties.

It is necessary to water the plantings once a week, and even less often when the heads of cabbage begin to set. After each watering, loosen the soil so that it does not form a crust.

As for fertilizing, provided that fertilizers are applied before planting, nothing else needs to be added to the beds. The only exceptions are head varieties of lettuce, which take longer to ripen than leaf varieties. They should be watered once or herbs.