Features of growing lettuce - rules of planting and care, measures to combat diseases and pests

Lettuce is sometimes also called onion, but this culture has nothing to do with the onion family. Planting this culture has a particular feature.

Probably, the name appeared due to the fact that if you hold this salad on the garden a little longer, it acquires a characteristic bitterness.

In the article we will consider in detail the lettuce, see the photo, how it grows, find out what are the features of its cultivation and methods of dealing with diseases and pests.

What varieties are best grown?

Leafy

• Raspberry ball;
• Levistro;
• Constance;
• Concord;
• Record;
• Little;
• Anthony;
• Rubett;
• Green;
• Coral;
• Red Coral;
• Grenada;
• Kucheryavets Odessa;
• Lollo Blonda;
• Lollo Rossa;
• Lollo Bionda;
• Lollo Gorbi.

Cabbages

• Etti;
• Olzhich;
• Godard;
• Major;
• Senator;
• Laravera;
• Romain.

Is it possible to combine several varieties together?

It is possible to combine varieties in the same bed, provided that the distance necessary for the development of plants is maintained, since the thickening of the plantings does not tolerate lettuce.

A photo

You will see in the photo how lettuce grows:

How to plant in open ground?

Seedlings from sowing boxes are planted in mid-May, before it is better not to move it, because the plant will not tolerate freezing temperatures possible at this time. In the summer sow late varieties resistant to rifle.

Re-leafy salads are sown in 15-20 days, headed - three times: in spring, in the beginning of June and in the middle of July. The seeds are sown in early spring. Young shoots are able to withstand temperatures up to -2, and grown and strong to -5.

How to prepare the soil and what to buy?

The soil for sowing lettuce should not be acidic. Neutral or alkaline is preferred. The acidity of the soil can be corrected by adding lime or dolomite flour to it, at the rate of two to two hundred fifty grams per square meter.

To improve fertility in the fall, it is necessary to disperse rotted compost or manure at the rate of one or two buckets per square meter. The best soil composition is a mixture of turf land, humus and sand, another option is garden soil, coconut fiber and biohumus. You can buy ready-made composition - suitable land for vegetable crops. The cost of a five-liter package of soil in Moscow varies from 52 to 72 rubles, depending on the manufacturer, in St. Petersburg from 50 to 63 rubles.

Pebbles, expanded clay, broken bricks or small pebbles are used as drainage for room plantings.

Sowing seeds

The seeds of the lettuce are small, dark. You can collect them yourself or buy in the store. Seed must be sortedby removing all the damaged seeds and process. For disinfection they should be placed for 15-20 minutes in water at a temperature of fifty degrees. After that, the seeds for three minutes kept in cold water, and then removed and dried.

Sowing occurs as follows:

1. Land before sowing need to moisten and loosen.
2. Form a bed.
3. For short-growing varieties, the interval between plants should be at least 20 cm, for tall ones at least 30 cm.
4. Seeds are immersed to a depth of 1-2 cm.
5. Fall asleep ground.
6. The first watering is carried out in two days.

From seedlings

Less popular, compared to seed, landing method. The first difficulty is in choosing the sowing date, since low temperatures for the salad are disastrous, but the seedlings need to be moved to open ground at two weeks of age. therefore sowing should be done two weeks before the moment when the positive temperature is supposed to be established.

The second difficulty is that the salad does not tolerate transplants. Therefore, the following landing pattern will be optimal:

1. Seeds for seedlings need to sow in a peat pot or cube.
2. Sprout the sprouts and fertilize in a week with a liquid complex fertilizer.
3. Tempered seedlings - to adapt the shoots to the open air.
4. After two weeks, the plant should visually look like a small bundle of leaves - it means it's time to move it to open ground.

How is this done at home?

Lettuce is quite possible to grow at home, both in summer and in winter. It is not necessary to take up the cultivation of the cabbage forms - they are very capricious. The most suitable variety for indoor cultivation is Batavia.

Lettuce is very picky about light, so the pots of plants are best placed on the windowsill on the south or south-east side. In winter, you need to organize additional lighting.

The landing process is as follows.:

1. As a container for planting it is best to choose a plastic pot with a volume of one to two liters and a depth of 10-35 centimeters with the obligatory presence of drainage holes.
2. Disinfect the soil with a weak solution of potassium permanganate and fill the pot, not getting to the edges 2.5 - 3 cm.
3. In the soil make a groove, five millimeters deep, the distance between the rows should be ten centimeters.
4. In the groove place the seeds and sprinkle with a small amount of earth. Slightly compacted.
5. The pot is covered with a package to create greenhouse conditions and put in a dark place.
6. When sprouts appear, the bag is removed and transferred to the landing on the windowsill.

How fast is growing at home and in the open field?

The culture is early maturing, so in order to constantly have greens when growing at home, the lettuce must be planted once every two weeks. In open ground, plants reach maturity a month after planting seeds.

How to care?

• If the planting of lettuce will be thickened, it will not be possible to harvest a good crop, the culture needs thinning. Do it twice. The first week after the appearance of the first shoots, leaving a distance between them 1-2 centimeters, the second time after the formation of two true leaves, the distance between young plants should be 4-5 centimeters.
• Watering should be abundant, with insufficient moisture plant the arrow. But too it is not necessary to moisten the soil too much - it will lead to the decay of the lower leaves and roots.
• When growing at home, indoor air and leaves are sprayed with water from a spray bottle.
• Top dressing bring once in two weeks. Suitable fertilizer for indoor plants. The use of nitrogen fertilizers is limited, lettuce can accumulate nitrates. You can also make compost.
• The plant is light-loving, therefore, when the room content in the autumn-winter period will require dosvechivanie fluorescent lamps, which must be placed at a height of 50-60 centimeters from the plant and include 2-5 hours. In total, daylight hours should last twelve to fifteen hours.
• The temperature must be maintained at +15 degrees, the salad prefers coolness, the increase in temperature leads to the drying up of the tips of the leaves and provokes rifling.

When to harvest?

Lettuce very quickly grows greens, from leaf varieties, you can harvest in ten days after the plant began to actively develop. When harvesting, either they are uprooted or the individual outer leaves are torn off. After four weeks, the plant begins to shoot, it is removed and sowing is carried out again at this place.

Lettuce heading is considered ready for use after the head is formed. You can determine this by pressing on its middle, if it is dense - the salad is ready to eat. Harvesting is preferably carried out in the morning and it is not recommended to do it after watering.

Diseases and pests

• Perinosporosis - Also referred to as downy mildew. The most dangerous is the defeat of young plants. On the lower leaves, on their upper sides, yellow specks of irregular shape are formed. Gradually they grow and take on a brown shade, merge and the leaves begin to die off. The disease is fungal, so on the underside of the leaves you can see the spores of the fungus-pathogen, looking like a loose white plaque.

  Control measures include the removal of all affected plants and the treatment of plantings with biological products. If the defeat is not strong, you can resort to popular recipes, for example, sprinkle plants with garlic infusion or tea leaves.

• Septoria. A fungal disease that affects the leaves, seeds, and testes. Manifested in the form of brownish spots of irregular shape. The fight against the disease is carried out with the help of fungicidal drugs.
• Bacterial spotting. The disease is caused by phytopathogenic bacteria. Often occurs when thickened landings. Manifested in the form of watery spots, which eventually turn brown and grow. Sheet dries and dies. The fight is carried out with preparations containing copper and Bordeaux mixture.
• Phytoplasmic diseases. The causative agents of the disease are fungi, the plant stops growing, the variety does not reveal the potential. You can fight with the help of fungicidal drugs.
• Viral diseases. Mottled and wrinkled leaves. The disease is transmitted by aphids and nematodes. The fight is carried out with insecticides.

Pests

• Stem Salad Aphid - feeds on the sap of the leaves, as a result of which they twist and lettuce stops growing. Fight against pests with tomato leaf tincture mixed with soap.
• Slugs - eat the plant, so that it dies. You can fight them with the help of traps from pieces of boards. Slugs crawl under them and they can be collected.

How to protect against diseases and pests?

• Observe cultivation agrotechnology.
• To choose the right variety, focusing on the region and climatic conditions.
• When growing seedlings, biofungicides can be applied at the stage of mixing the soil.
• Lettuce predecessors should not be carriers of disease.

Growing lettuce in the open field, and in the indoor environment, a very exciting event. The quick ripening of the crop and simple agrotechnology will allow even a beginning gardener to get excellent results.

Watch the video: How Food Can Prevent Disease with Dr. Joel Fuhrman Spring Garden Tour (April 2024).