How to get a good salad harvest
The salad is eaten all over the world. Because of its beneficial properties, it is used in the preparation of many dietary meals. The salad is unpretentious to the composition of the soil, and its seedlings can withstand short frosts, so it can be planted in early May. There are more than 100 varieties of this unpretentious plant. The salad is leafy, cabbage, half-cabbage and asparagus. Another rare subspecies of salad is distinguished - salad - ramen. The most common subspecies of lettuce are head and leaf lettuce. Among these subspecies there are varieties with green, red, and purple leaves. Lettuce leaves are smooth or bubbly.
Temperature regime
The color of the lettuce changes depending on the temperature conditions. If the weather is hot, lettuce leaves can change their color, so instead of bright red lettuce you get a plant with green leaves. The color of the lettuce becomes brighter towards autumn when the air temperature drops.
Lettuce is a cold-resistant culture, its seeds germinate at a temperature of +4ABOUTC - +6ABOUTС, but the most favorable temperature for the growth of lettuce leaves is from +15ABOUTFrom to +20ABOUTFROM.
Planting site and soil composition
To get a good harvest of lettuce, it is necessary to choose the right planting site and select the appropriate soil composition. The salad bed should be in a sunny place. This plant prefers fertile soils with a slightly acidic or neutral acid-base balance.
If the soil on your site is too acidic, in the fall, add dolomite flour for digging at the rate of one matchbox per 1 m2 planting salad. Also apply rotted cow manure to the furrows when sowing.
Furrows are made along the entire perimeter of the ridge. The distance between the furrows should be 12 cm. In order for the seeds to sprout, they are sown to a depth of no more than 1 cm. Before planting, the soil must be well loosened. Lettuce seeds are very small, so they are mixed with sand for sowing convenience. At the stage when the salad will form two true leaves, it must be thinned out. The second thinning is done when the lettuce has formed four true leaves.
Watering of leafy lettuce varieties is carried out by the irrigation method. Cabbage varieties are watered only at the root. Together with watering once a week, they make nitrogen fertilizersto increase the yield of lettuce. After harvesting, the remnants of the root system are removed and new seeds are sown.