When to sow lettuce, arugula, spinach. Cultivation and care

Fresh and crispy lettuce leaves throughout the year on your table is simple and easy. Lettuce is an annual vegetable plant that grows quickly and is used fresh. Lettuce does not take up much space, and in the smallest garden, or even in flowerpots, you can plant several heads of lettuce.

Lettuce, as a plant that is completely unpretentious, can grow in any soil and does not require special knowledge to obtain a rich harvest.

Types of puff lettuce:

By planting several varieties of lettuce, you can diversify this vegetable on your own table.

• Cabbage lettuce – round like cabbage, with wide-spreading smooth leaves. It grows very quickly and does not require special care.
• Iceberg lettuce- crispy lettuce, forms a large head of rolled leaves, crispy in taste.
• Romaine lettuce – the leaves are crispy, elongated, grow vertically upwards. It ripens longer than other varieties of salads and requires frequent watering.
• Curly lettuce is a salad with a lot of curly leaves without a core.

Recently, salads such as: arugula, corn lettuce, watercress, frillis lettuce, lettuce have been very popular.

Different in shape and color and taste, these annual fast-growing vegetables are mainly used fresh.

Growing lettuce leaves

To harvest lettuce throughout the year, it is necessary to sow seeds (spring, autumn, winter) every 2 weeks, in summer every week.

Soil for growing lettuce

For growing lettuce in the open field, nutritious soils with drainage, which contain mineral impurities, are best suited. The soil should not be too acidic, but well moistened. It is good to plant lettuce on the sunny side where there are no drafts, in warmth it will ripen faster.

Spring sowing of lettuce in open ground

The place for sowing lettuce seeds needs to be dug up and organic and mineral fertilizers added, leveled, recesses made – you can sow lettuce seeds.

To sow lettuce seeds in open ground, make furrows (oblong holes) 2 cm deep at a distance of 20 cm from each other. Sow seeds rarely, lettuce grows very slowly with high density, if you sow seedlings, you can do it thicker.

Tip: Sow seeds at different times so that you get a harvest from early spring to mid-summer and until frost. Pick the grown seedlings (plant 1 plant at a time) at a distance of 5-10 cm, from each other. Water the seedlings regularly, weed and move the soil.

Read also our article “Sowing seeds for seedlings”

To obtain a rich harvest of plants, you need to loosen the soil in a timely manner, remove weeds, and water regularly. During a period of drought without watering, lettuce is not tied into heads, its leaves become rough, bitter, and it blooms. On dense crops – lettuce heads cannot form, plants bloom early.

Sowing lettuce seeds for seedlings

Lettuce seedlings can be bought at the market or sown by yourself.

Lettuce seeds are sown in small cups, pots or special greenhouses filled with compost or soil for seedlings. You need to sow seeds 2 seeds in one hole (recess) and water carefully. Cover the sown seeds with foil or a lid for a mini-greenhouse. How to make a mini greenhouse?

In a few days, the seeds will germinate and cotyledons will appear. From those two germinated seeds, choose a weaker plant and cut it below the cotyledon leaves, we don’t need it. Ventilate the greenhouse daily ( leave it open for a few hours a day) so that the plants gradually get used to the environment. When the plants grow up and 3-4 true leaves appear, they can be transplanted into pots or open ground.

For a small vegetable garden, joint planting of garden crops in the same garden is suitable. Lettuce is planted between previously planted vegetables or herbs that grow much slower than lettuce. Compatibility of garden crops! Annual crop rotation in the garden!

Growing lettuce on the windowsill

In order for the lettuce grown on the windowsill to give a rich harvest, you need to choose the right place, container, soil and seeds. Any boxes, pots are suitable for salad; The height of the poured soil must be at least 10 cm. The soil should be nutritious: soddy land, humus, sand (2:2:1). After filling the container with soil, it must be tamped and watered with warm water, then make depressions up to 1.5 cm, sow seeds at a distance of up to 5 cm from each other, sprinkle the seeds with earth, water again, it remains to wait for germination. The best place to grow lettuce on the windowsill will be the Southern windowsills (additional light is needed in winter). Lettuce seedlings need high humidity, so spray them twice a day with warm water.

Salad care

Caring for lettuce is very easy: it does not need to be fed (if you have used nutritious soil). The main care is sufficient (1 time in 2 days) watering, and then it will grow rapidly, and after 30 days it will be possible to treat family and friends with a self-grown salad.

Loosening the soil, watering and weeding lettuce

To obtain high yields, plants need timely loosening of the soil, destruction of weeds and watering. During a period of drought, without watering, lettuce does not tie heads, its leaves become rough, bitter, and the flower stem is thrown out. On crops that are not thinned out in a timely manner, heads cannot form, plants bloom early.

Growing lettuce before winter

You can grow lettuce in autumn or winter in greenhouses. Of course, you will have to make a little more effort, choose specially bred varieties. To harvest from early summer to autumn, start sowing lettuce from mid-spring and continue sowing, at intervals of two weeks, until mid-summer. Then a stable harvest of lettuce is ensured from early summer to mid-autumn.

For autumn harvests, choose frost-resistant varieties. Plant them in open ground no later than the first week of August. In early autumn, when the plants get stronger, transplant them into a greenhouse.

If you do not transplant the plants into a greenhouse, then you should thin them out and cover them in early autumn. While it is sunny and warm outside, the shelter is removed, and closed at night. The salad will yield a crop in late autumn.

If lettuce is grown in winter greenhouses, then the seeds are sown in early or mid-autumn, and the crop is harvested in winter and until spring.