Lettuce

General information: Annual plant. Its name was given for a peculiar taste of milky juice containing a specific substance, lactucine. In culture it is known since ancient times. It was grown by the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. The homeland of lettuce is a Mediterranean country. In Europe it appeared in the middle of the XVI century, in Russia it began to be grown from the XVII century.

There are three varieties of lettuce - leaf, head and rumen.

Sheet forms a rosette of leaves, which is used for food.

Headed salad in the first stages also gives a rosette of leaves, and then knots a loose head. Romain forms a head of ovoid or oval shape.

Requirements: salad is a plant of a long day. Especially demanding for light is the cabbage varieties: if they are too thick, they do not tie the heads. Salad refers to cold-resistant crops. Particularly resistant to low grade temperatures, in which the leaves are pigmented.

Salad is demanding for fertility and soil moisture. When there is a lack of moisture in hot weather, plants are prematurely thrown out by peduncles. But the salad also tolerates an increased concentration of soil solution poorly. Lettuce is cultivated on light loamy or sandy-loamy, fertile, unoxidized soils, placing after crops, under which organic fertilizers are introduced - cucumber, tomato, cabbage, early potatoes. Mineral fertilizers under it give at the rate of 15-20 g / m2 of ammonium nitrate, 20-30 - superphosphate, 10-15 g / m2 potassium salt. Most of the superphosphate is closed in the fall during digging, and 1/3 - together with ammonium nitrate in the spring processing of the soil. Sour soils periodically liming. If organic fertilizers were not given for the previous crop, the introduction of compost or overgrown manure( 3-5 g / m2) under the salad contributes to a significant increase in yield.

Ingredients: a salad is called a vitamins storage room, since the leaves contain almost all known vitamins and especially a lot of group B, PP, K, E, carotene. It is rich in salts of calcium, potassium, iron and organic acids. It also contains protein substances( 1.2-2.5%), sugars( 0.4-1.2%), fiber, trace elements - copper, boron, iodine, as well as folic acid.

Cultivation: leafy salad varieties are grown by sowing directly into the soil. Do this early in the spring, from the middle of April, as soon as

Sorts of

In Russia, the most common are 6 cabbage and 1 leaf lettuce, suitable for growing both in the open ground and under film shelters.

Berlin yellow - mid-ripening( from the emergence of shoots to the formation of the head is 60-75 days);heads are round-oval, large, weighing up to 150 g. diameter 6-12 cm, density is medium. The consistency of the leaves is oily, the leaves are yellow-green, strongly combed. Large-head - medium late( 65-80 days);head is dense, round, weighing 400-500 g. Leaves are light green with wavy openwork edges. Rosette with a diameter of 30-53 cm Curly, Odessa - medium late( 68-75 days);differs decorative due to the strong undulation of the jagged edge of the leaves. The mass of plants is 260-315 grams half-way - up to 200 g. Maysky - medium-term( 43-60 days);round and round-flat, medium-sized and of a size up to 100 g. The leaves are bubble, light-green with reddish pigmentation along the edges of the leaves.

Moscow greenhouse - early ripening( 40 - 50 days).It forms not a head, but rather a large rosette of leaves with a diameter of 22-27 cm. The leaves are pale green with a weak yellowness, tender. Plant weight from 70 to 200 g. Ramesses - mid-ripening( 50-60 days);round heads, weighing up to 140-150 g. Rosette of leaves with a diameter of 25-31 cm. Consistency of leaves is oily. The leaves are green.

Riga - medium-late. Forms semi-dead people weighing up to 690 g. Consistency of leaves is oily, tender.

Varieties of rum - Cannon Ekochani ( medium-ripened, ripens after 55-60 days); Paris green ( late ripening, 67-70 days).

soil will become suitable for processing, and continue to sow until the end of August, sow and under winter, in the first half of November. The sowing is carried out in grooves 1-1.5 cm deep with a distance between them of 15-20 cm. The seeding rate is 3-4 g. Per 10 m2, the number of seeds per 1 m is not more than 30 pieces.

The salad is grown in the same manner as the leaf, sowing in the soil early in the spring or in the first half of July for use in the fall. To get heads, it is sown with row spacing of 30-40 cm. In rows, the plants are first thinned 5-8 cm, then 25-30 cm. The ripening kitten varieties are sown in the soil from the first half of April to the first decade of May, mid-ripening and late- from mid-April to mid-June. Cabbage varieties can not be sown as thickly as leafy varieties, the distance between plants should be: for early-ripening varieties 18-20, for medium-ripening grades - 22-25, for late ripening - 28-30 cm, and between rows - 20, 25 and 30 cm respectively.seedlings for 30-35 days until the end of March - early April. Seeds are sown for seedling houses in boxes or in a greenhouse. With the appearance of the first sheet, the temperature is maintained at 10-12 ° C and the plants are not shaded. Dive the seedlings in peat pots measuring 3x3.6x6 or 8x8 cm. You can sow 2-3 seeds at a time in pots, in order to then decay and leave one stronger plant. The pots are placed in boxes or directly on the ridges in a film greenhouse and kept at a moderate temperature: during the day 16-18 ° C, at night 10-11 ° C.In the room on the windowsill, too, you can drive out a good salad dressing, splitting it into pots( 5x5 cm) or into boxes at the same distance. Plant the seedlings so that the root neck is slightly below the soil level. Too deeply planted plants can rot.

Care: loosening of the soil, watering and top dressing. In dry weather, plants are regularly watered at a rate of about 20 liters / m2 per week. Do it in the morning, so that the leaves dry. During the period of intensive formation of the rosette, and at the beginning of the formation, the heads are watered less often and only along furrows.

When growing a home salad, care consists of timely moderate watering at room temperature, soil loosening and good ventilation.

Harvesting: from 1 m2, 1-2 kg of cabbage salad of early ripening varieties are collected, medium-ripened and late-2.5-3 kg. To clean the salad is better in the evening or early in the morning, choosing with the roots, brushing the soil and putting it in a box or in a basket. Harvest the heads when they become sufficiently dense. Willingness to clean is determined by gently pressing on them with the back of the palm. They shoot them selectively, as soon as they keep pace. Cut with 2-3 prikachannymi leaves and a stumpy length of 1 - 1.5 cm, stacked in 2-3 layers: the bottom - a stump down, then - up, etc. They last more than 3 weeks at a temperature of 0-1 ° C and air humidity 96-98 %. It is especially good to keep them in plastic bags at the bottom of the refrigerator.

Usage: in I write lettuce is used before the formation of plants in the stem, since with its sweeping leaves get a bitter taste. They are usually consumed fresh in combination with other vegetables;leaves can also be boiled, stewed and fried.

The medicinal properties of lettuce have long been known and very appreciated. Pectin and folic acid help to improve digestion, remove cholesterol from the body, prevent the occurrence of atherosclerosis. Low calorie allows you to use it for obesity.

Vitamin PP activates the action of insulin, so lettuce is included in diet food for diabetics.

Salad juice is used as a remedy for chronic gastritis and peptic ulcer. The infusion of fresh leaves has a calming and even hypnotic effect, removes high blood pressure. The salad is rich and the centrin, warning the appearance of fragility of the walls of blood vessels. Its ability to give a therapeutic effect in scurvy, bowel flaccidity and constipation has been established.