Lettuce

Lettuce( common) refers to annual plants of the family of astroids. There are leaf, semi-starched and cabbage varieties of ordinary salad. Under natural conditions, a Valerian grows, or a field salad. It is edible, has an unpleasant taste, but gives a small rosette of leaves. Leaf grades of salads have more tender leaves, rather than semi-oats or kochannye, but they are not transportable, very fragile and heavily polluted by soil during irrigation and harvesting. Cabbage and semi-baked

salads are polluted little, have denser and larger leaves, transport is better. Salads have a variety of color and shape.

Grades of semi-salad lettuce: Northern blush( not only tasty, but also very beautiful), Grand Rapid, Blizzard, Azarat. Cabbage: The Queen of Ice, King of May. Pirate, Commander.

Pass the lettuce according to the scheme: 10 x 10 cm - sheet varieties, 20 x 20 cm - semi-oval, 30 x 30 cm - head. The optimum temperature of growth and development of salad is 16-18 degrees. He prefers a loose, organically rich, nutritious, moist soil. Acidic soils, dense clays or loams, hot weather does not suit him. Agronorm at the salad is only 8. That is, this culture does not require additional feeding. Balance 25: 13: 62. This plant is extremely fond of potassium, so the soil before planting should be well seasoned with a potassium fertilizer that does not contain chlorine. To do this, take 3 tbsp.spoonfuls of potassium per 10 liters of water and pour this solution on 5 linear meters of area allocated for salad, or add 1 -2 cups of ash per square foot of planting area and loosen the ashes in the top layer of the soil. The plant extracts nitrogen from the soil and accumulates in the form of nitrates, so it should not be fed with nitrogen fertilizers, infusion of weeds or manure.

Salad requires regular irrigation, so that the top layer of the soil is constantly slightly moist, and at the same time, it is impossible to pour too much salad with water, otherwise you can not avoid diseases. Do not forget that the salad is light-loving. However, with the onset of a long day of light, and in the Northwest - white nights - the planting of salad should be covered with newspapers or dark lutrasilom from 7 pm, otherwise the plants will quickly release a flower arrow. Salad, like all plants, first accumulates nutrients in the leaves to use them for fruiting. Cabbage and semi-baked salads do not form heads and do not let out the flower arrows until they grow 7-8 leaves. If the salad is "undressed" all the time, removing the lower leaves, then it will again and again build up the leaves, so as to put in the pantry nutrients in them, and the arrow will not be released. Therefore, always remove the lower leaves, even if you do not need them, then you do not have to cover the salad to shorten the light day.

Healing properties of the salad have been known for a long time. It contains lactucine, which calms the nervous system, improves sleep, lowers blood pressure. In addition, there is a lot of potassium in the salad, in its leaves there are almost all vitamins, organic acids that prevent the deposition of salts in the joints;pectins and folic acid, which normalize the work of the gastrointestinal tract, promote the excretion of cholesterol from the body, participate in the work of the hematopoietic organs. Salad improves metabolism. So, if you are irritated - eat a leaf of lettuce, if you have a bad dream - eat at night a salad instead of drinking valerian or taking sleeping pills.

Salad has an unpleasant taste, so in the dishes prepared from it add more spicy seasoning( mayonnaise, citric acid or lemon juice) or sharper or sour green plants( sorrel, rhubarb).

In the spring-summer period, you can recommend such additives for ordinary salad: sorrel, rhubarb, young nettle leaves( they must be scalded with boiling water beforehand), dandelion leaves( they must be held in salt water for 10-15 minutes), spinach, radish, cress-salat, green onion, borage, lobster, steep egg.

You can add lemon, red tomatoes, Bulgarian pepper, vegetable physalis, radish, leaves of plantain, borage, leaves of mother-and-stepmother, mint, lobster, steep egg in the autumn-winter period. All additives are taken in small quantities, one sheet each.