How to grow lettuce. Growing leaf lettuce from seeds at home, greenhouse and open field when to plant

Tell me when to plant lettuce in open ground? Found a few packets of seeds. Is it possible to sow them now next to the tomatoes?

Lettuce is a crop that can be grown in the garden almost all year round. He 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 the very frost.

Sowing time

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

The peculiarities of lettuce ripening include the predominance of bitter taste during the growth of the stem by the bush. Then the leaves become inedible.

Where is the best place to plant?

Lettuce grows well in almost any soil, except clay, but more lush bushes are obtained when grown in loose and nutritious soil. To do this, dig deep into the allotted area in the fall, after adding humus (for each square meter in a bucket).

Immediately before spring sowing, feed the soil also with mineral fertilizers, based on one square of soil:

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

It is better to break the beds for lettuce in a sunny place, avoiding shading. Lettuce grows well after cucumbers and potatoes. In the summer, you can make combined plantings with tomatoes, onions or radishes.

How to plant?

On a loosened and fertilized area, make shallow grooves (up to 1 cm) and put 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 planted bed well. For early spring sowing, it is recommended to cover it with a film to speed up germination.

How to care?

When all the seeds sprout and the seedlings grow a little, they should be thinned out, leaving between the bushes:

• from 6 cm - for lettuce;
• from 10 cm - for headed varieties.

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

As for top dressing, then, subject to the preplant application of fertilizers, nothing else needs to be added to the beds. The only exceptions are head lettuce varieties, which ripen longer than leaf ones. They should be watered once.

Leaf lettuce or lettuce is a storehouse of vitamins and the fastest production that can be obtained from seeds. Useful and tasty greens can please yourself all year round, growing on the windowsill in winter and in the open field during the warm season.

In a greenhouse, these periods are significantly extended, and if it is possible to heat the greenhouse, lettuce is grown all year round. The technology of growing lettuce is simple, but it requires simple techniques to get a good harvest.

Growing lettuce in a greenhouse in winter and early spring

Required temperature

Leaf lettuce is resistant to cold. It can be grown in a greenhouse from early spring, and if it is heated, grow it even in winter. Seeds can hatch at a temperature of 5-6 °C, young sprouts can withstand temperatures as low as -2 °C. For good growth and development, the optimum air temperature is 20 ° C.

Choose cold hardy varieties.

Soil preparation

Prepare the soil in the fall. Carefully dig, feed. For each m² add 40 g of superphosphate, 15 g of potassium chloride. The introduction of organic matter (rotted manure) helps to equalize the level of acidity to neutral or slightly acidic. Also add slaked lime if the soil is acidic.

When and how to sow

Level the area. Start planting when the temperature inside the greenhouse at night does not fall below 0 ° C (in an unheated greenhouse, this is around mid-late March).

• Make rows 10 cm apart.
• The seeding depth should be 1-2 cm.
• The weather is changeable, so if there is a threat of severe frosts, mulch the soil with fine humus.

The growing process will take about 1 month.

How to care

When shoots appear, they should definitely be thinned out, especially if you grow products for sale: heavily thickened plantings will give less quality greenery, the leaves will be small and pale.

How to break through and is it necessary to dive?

Lettuce growing from seeds when to plant and how to care

• Leave a distance between plants of 15-20 cm minimum to get large leaf rosettes.
• Many people practice lettuce picking, the plants are really accepted and soon give a good harvest. However, it should be noted that you are wasting a couple of weeks of precious time.
• It is much easier, faster and more profitable to immediately sow the required area and simply break through the extra seedlings than to engage in unproductive picking.

How to water

Not often (1-2 times a week), but plentifully. Use cool water, but it should not get on the leaves. Stagnation of water creates a favorable environment for the emergence of diseases.

Remove weeds as needed, regularly loosen the soil between rows.

How to feed

Necessary for good growth. During the growing season, apply a mixture of potassium chloride and ammonium nitrate 2 times: half a tablespoon of each fertilizer per 10 liters of water, but no later than a month before harvesting, so that the products are safe and environmentally friendly.

Conditions for growing lettuce outdoors

In summer, leaf lettuce can be grown outdoors. To get fresh greens until the fall, sow every 14 days.

Choose varieties by maturity: early, medium, late. Information about the timing of sowing and harvesting is indicated on the package with seeds. Each variety has its own characteristics: strictly follow the recommendations of breeders on sowing dates so that instead of a green crop, you do not get arrows with flower stalks.

For leaf lettuce, a place in light shade is preferable: the greens will turn out to be very tender and juicy.

Site preparation is carried out similarly to a greenhouse: autumn digging, fertilization.

When to plant leaf lettuce seeds outdoors

Sowing dates

You can start sowing lettuce from mid-April, when night temperatures do not drop below zero degrees, the threat of short-term frosts is allowed, but not more than 1-2 ° C below zero. Loosen the prepared area, break up large lumps and lumps.

predecessors

Desirable crop precursors are peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes. It gets along well next to beans, radishes, radishes, cucumbers, onions, the latter will repel aphids - the main pest of lettuce.

How to sow

• To make grooves about 1-2 cm deep.
• Sow less frequently, preferably leaving 1-1.5 cm between seeds
• The distance between rows is 15-20 cm.
• Level the soil, water well.
• To speed up germination for the first few days, cover the crops with a film.

Follow standard care procedures (similar to greenhouses): water, loosen the soil, remove weeds. When the plants have emerged, thin them out several times, leaving a distance of 15-20 cm in the row.

How to sow lettuce in spring in open ground, look at the video:

Planting lettuce with seeds in the ground is the simplest task that even children can entrust. This will be a good first plant growing experience, especially when it comes time to harvest young succulent leaves.

Growing leaf lettuce at home in winter on the windowsill

To get juicy greenery in winter, you can arrange a vegetable garden on the windowsill or covered balcony. Growing leaf lettuce indoors is not difficult, even inexperienced gardeners can handle it.

Preparation of soil and containers for sowing

Tanks are required deep - about 35 cm.

You can buy potting soil at the store or make your own. Take the land from the site, add rotted manure, peat, mix in equal proportions. Use nitrophoska and urea as fertilizer.

Be sure to lay a drainage layer at the bottom of the container (expanded clay, small pebbles, walnut shells can be used).

How to sow

• Deepen the seeds by 1-1.5 cm, keep a distance of 15 cm between rows.
• After sowing, carefully sprinkle the furrows with earth, moisten the crops with a spray gun and cover with a film.
• Shoots will appear soon, remove the film.

For good plant development, thin out dense plantings to a minimum distance of 8-10 cm between plants.

How to care

Abundantly a couple of times a week. In room conditions, the air is too dry - daily spraying from a spray bottle will be required.

Loosening is carried out from the fourth week of growth: the fragile roots of young plants are easily damaged.

The length of daylight hours in winter is short, it must be extended for salad at least up to 12 hours, so artificial lighting is required.

How to sow and grow lettuce on the windowsill, look at the video:

This appetizer is made from the most common ingredients. For this, you don’t even need to spend money, because the fruits of your labors from the beds are used. Cooking does not take much time, but you need to wait for the vegetables to give juice, this is about 2-4 hours. Now they will become soft, and it will not be difficult to put them in dishes, in addition, they will become smaller and more will fit in them and the finished meal will not lose in volume.

Cucumber salad

Vegetable oil is an integral part of this workpiece, it is better to choose unrefined. If you categorically cannot stand the aroma of the oil and consider it not tasty, give preference to cold-pressed olive oil.

A cucumber appetizer goes well in addition to meat or fish dishes, meatballs and, of course, mashed potatoes.

The total cooking time will be 4 hours. The recipe is for conservation.

Required Ingredients:

• Fresh cucumbers - 1 kg;
• Onion - 1 kg;
• Sunflower oil (not refined or olive) - 65 ml;
• Black peppercorns - 2 tsp;
• Apple cider vinegar - 30 ml;
• Chili pepper - to taste;
• Cloves - to taste;
• Sugar - 15 g;
• Salt - 20 g.

Salad preparation step by step

You need to start by preparing the cans so that they do not burst or explode. Wash the glass container clean and rinse with clean water. Heat the oven to 110ᵒC and place the dishes in it, leave it inside until it cools down.

You need to start with the preparation of cans

We soak whole cucumbers in clean filtered water for about 120 minutes, after which we wash them and cut them off on both sides.

Soak cucumbers in filtered water

We pass the washed and trimmed products through a vegetable cutter, this is necessary to get pieces of the same size and thickness.

There is nothing easier than growing lettuce in your own land. This plant is popular among summer residents, because leaf lettuce is unpretentious, grows quickly and does not need everyday care.

Eating fresh salad has a positive effect on the state of the whole organism as a whole. In this article we will tell you how to grow lettuce in your garden.

When to plant lettuce

Leaf lettuce is fairly cold hardy, so the best time to plant is early spring. It can be sown in April, when the soil warms up to +4 - +5 degrees. Do not worry if the temperature suddenly drops to -4 degrees: the seedlings will tolerate such a temperature well.

The most favorable temperature for growth and rapid growth is +15 - +20 degrees. When the air warms up to +25 degrees, the plant can go into the arrow and begin to bloom.

What soil and what place is suitable for lettuce

It is worth considering that leaf lettuce loves the sun and moisture. Therefore, open sunny areas are suitable for its cultivation in spring. By the way, if you did not have time to sow the lettuce in early spring, then in the summer you can also plant it, only in a shaded place. The abundance of the sun will not do him any good.

The soil

Most of all, lettuce loves loose soil rich in organic matter and trace elements. In general, lettuce grows on almost any soil: on sand, on loam, on black soil. He does not like only heavy clay and acidic soils.

Garden preparation

It is necessary to prepare a bed for growing lettuce in the fall. The earth needs to be loosened and fertilized with compost or manure.

How to plant lettuce

The most suitable varieties intended for planting in open ground are Ballet, Kricet, Riga, Odessa Kucheryavets.

Lettuce should be sown in well loosened soil. The grooves should be at a distance of 15-20 cm from each other, no deeper than 2-3 cm.

Sprinkle the grooves with seeds at a distance of 2 cm from each other, if it turns out more often, then it's okay - then you still need to thin out the salad. We pour water and cover with earth. Shoots will appear in about a week.

plant care

The first week after planting, the seeds need to be watered 2-3 times a week. After the first 4 leaves of the lettuce appear, it will be necessary to thin it out so that the plants are at a distance of 7 cm from each other.

Mature plants need to be watered almost every day in dry weather, preferably in the morning or evening. It is necessary to loosen 1 time per week. This completes the care.

It is worth noting that it is the salad that is plucked at their summer cottage that is most useful than the one that was bought in the store, since the latter almost certainly underwent heat treatment.

Agronomists have bred a dozen types of lettuce: watercress, leaf lettuce, Iceberg, Romano, Lettuce, head lettuce - the most famous of them, but the list is far from limited to them. Some types of this vegetable have a very long ripening period or such a developed root system that it is not possible to grow them on a windowsill, but many others may well grow at home. The principles of caring for this vegetable in the garden and on the windowsill are similar and very simple.

Growing in a greenhouse

Most of the varieties have a rather short ripening period, so they can grow in the garden, in the open field or in greenhouses, without planting seedlings and pre-treatment of seeds. This vegetable is very unpretentious, some of its varieties even grow in the garden like weeds, so pre-treatment of the soil for sowing seeds is also not required. But, nevertheless, the lettuce crop will be larger, and the plants themselves will be much healthier and stronger if you perform a few simple steps before planting.

The place for growing lettuce should be sunny, so that the soil warms up well and the plant does not stretch in height. Salads planted in the shade contain much less vitamins and nutrients, and the taste of the vegetable will be below average.

Cold-resistant varieties can grow from mid-April.

The soil is warm enough by this time, and the seeds will grow quickly and actively, and the crop can be harvested in one and a half to two months.

It is not recommended to grow lettuce on the same bed for several seasons in a row. It is advisable to choose the soil fertilized from last year, and nutrient soil. If manure or humus was introduced into the garden a year earlier or before winter, then the soil is ideal for growing this crop, but manure should not be used immediately before sowing seeds. It is much more efficient to add mineral fertilizer, superphosphate or potassium salt to the soil.

Nitrogen is bad for lettuce! Nitrates from the soil pass into the leaves of the plant, and it becomes not useful for people to eat them.

Too acidic soils are not suitable for planting a vegetable, so before planting seeds, bone meal or lime is added to the soil. It is necessary to dig up the earth in the garden to a depth of 20-30 cm, make grooves in the soil at a distance of 15 cm from each other, and water well. Lettuce seeds can be planted both densely, pouring into the ground in a continuous stream, and planting one grain at a time, leaving a gap between plants of about 5-7 cm.

The space between plants depends on the variety. Leaf lettuce, spinach and arugula can be planted very close to each other, but head lettuce requires more space between plants.

After planting, lettuce seeds are covered with a layer of soil about 1 cm thick. If the planting was carried out in April or the vegetable was planted before winter in open ground, then it is advisable to cover the plantings with covering material, and they need to be watered much less. When growing lettuce in a greenhouse, such precautions are not necessary, since the temperature of both the earth and the air in greenhouses is usually higher than outside, and the vegetables feel quite comfortable.

Watering the salad is quite rare, especially if the vegetable was planted in early spring. The soil at this time is still very damp, and excessive watering will only damage young plants.

In summer, when the air temperature rises, watering is needed more often, but it is still not worth pouring the salad: the plant will need watering 1-2 times a week.

Vegetables do not need fertilizing. In exceptional cases, if a vegetable grows on poor soil, then you can feed the seedlings with either a special fertilizer for lettuce, or a mixture of phosphorus and potassium.

Green leaves can be harvested after 6-8 weeks, and the leaves remain on the plant for another month.

Growing at home in the garden

How to grow lettuce in the garden or in a greenhouse in the garden? This is possible only in the warm season. But this does not mean that this delicious vegetable will have to be abandoned for the entire cold season. It is quite possible to grow leaf lettuce at home, for example, on a windowsill.

Growing lettuce on a windowsill is even easier than growing it in a greenhouse or garden. To do this, you need soil that is suitable for acidity and nutrient content, pots of the right size and UV lamps for rainy days.

Lettuce seeds for growing on the window, you can take the following:

• Odessa;
• Lollo Ross;
• Red Creed;
• Snowflake;
• Excitement;
• Ballet;
• Emerald lace.

And other varieties. If the windows face the north side and there is little sun in the apartment, then you should pay attention to varieties that can grow in the shade, for example, Ballet or Emerald Lace.

To grow lettuce on a windowsill, you will need a deep container, pots about 25 cm high and pallets for them. Head lettuce grown in the garden is larger and has a deeper root system, so the container for it should be even deeper - about 40 cm high.

There is a tricky way to grow on a windowsill without pots. To do this, you need a dense plastic bag, which is filled with soil to the required volume and in which several small holes are pierced on the sides. A bag of soil is placed on a pallet, and lettuce seeds are planted in the ground. Air will flow through the holes in the bag to the roots, and excess moisture will come out.

It is better to take a special substrate for a bed on the windowsill, suitable for vegetable seedlings, but you can mix it yourself. For this you will need:

• Soil from the garden, black soil or forest land - 2 parts;
• Peat - 1 part;
• Compost or humus - 1 part;
• Sand - 1 kg per bucket;
• Ash - 1 kg per bucket;
• Mineral fertilizer - 1 tablespoon.

All components are mixed and poured into a pot. Planting lettuce seeds at home is done in the same way as planting them on a garden bed: grooves are drawn in the ground at a small distance from each other, and seeds are planted in them. In order for the sprouts to appear earlier, the seed pot is removed to a warm place and covered with a film.

Now in stores you can find micro-greenhouses, covers made of glass or covering material specifically for growing plants at home.

Young shoots should be watered very carefully so as not to wash out the roots. Many gardeners even prefer to spray plants with a spray bottle instead of watering, or put a pot with drainage holes in a pan filled with water.

Leaf lettuce at home ripens for about two months, and head lettuce takes a little longer. The rate of ripening of the crop and its taste are highly dependent on the length of daylight hours and the amount of sunlight that the plant receives. If the daylight hours last less than 12 hours, and the sun's rays are rarely shown, then the salad is recommended to be illuminated with ultraviolet lamps or fluorescent lamps.

Growing in hydroponics

Growing lettuce hydroponically is a relatively new way of growing lettuce. It appeared as an alternative to the beds, and due to its simplicity and accessibility, it has almost supplanted them.

Growing hydroponically usually requires a special greenhouse in which the plants will grow without soil, and where the same level of temperature and humidity will be constantly maintained. The construction of such a greenhouse is costly, but it also has many advantages: the plants get everything they need from the nutrient solution, which goes directly to the roots. A plant that receives all the necessary nutrients in this way does not develop a root system at all, but directs all its strength into the leaves. In addition, the composition of the nutrient fluid is stable and has everything necessary for the growth and development of the plant. Therefore, vegetables grown in hydroponics always ripen earlier, but have more nutrients and vitamins.

What do you need to grow lettuce in the garden?

Cultivation of lettuce in hydroponics is justified if large volumes of the finished product are needed all year round. For the sake of home consumption, it makes no sense to start such a greenhouse with beds. But you can grow vegetables hydroponically in the summer, outdoors, or on a windowsill.

To do this, lettuce seedlings are grown on a nutrient substrate. When the seedlings develop a root system, young plants are transplanted onto a sheet of foam or into special hydroponic pots, and the leaf is lowered into a pan with nutrient liquid.

Lettuce is one of the easiest vegetables to grow. It not only ripens quickly and grows almost everywhere, on any soil, but also contains a lot of nutrients and vitamins that are needed in early spring.