There’s nothing better than making your own salad bowl with lettuce from
your own garden. Good thing is lettuce is so easy to grow. Last few years I’ve
been growing lettuce from seeds and also from seedling which I get from my grandma
every year. Since it grows fast it’s one of my favorite to grow (it takes some
45-80 days, depending on type, to grow from seeds to salad) and you have lot of
different varieties to choose from. Most common type of lettuces are head, leaf
and romaine/cos lettuce and you have few main cultivar (romaine, crisphead,
butterhead, summercrisp, leaf) in which you can find many varieties. I'll just quickly introduce you with some of
them. Romaine lettuce you can usually find in salads and sandwiches, leaf is
also commonly used in salads and crisphead (you may know it by name iceberg) is
most popular in USA. Butterhead is one of my favorite since it have tender
texture and sweet taste and summercrisp is lettuce type that is between leaf
and crisphead types. Leaf lettuce comes in red and green color.
This year I
planted some butterhead, green leaf and crisphead types as they are most common
in my kitchen. Good time to start planting your lettuce seeds is early spring
(May is ok too) and you can plant them in your garden or in pot. What I did
this year, since I'm using raised beds, I took my lettuce seeds and sprinkled
them around one part of my garden. I also made that part into some kind of
greenhouse so my seeds can grow faster.
Since lettuce produces shallow roots
you don’t need to put your seeds too deep and they should be only lightly
covered with soil. Lettuce germinates best with a little light so you can also
just leave your seeds on the surface and not cover it with soil. Choose part of
your garden with plenty of sun. You can see how my seedling looks after some
two weeks since I put them into the ground. When they grow out some more (they
need to have two sets of true leaves) I'll have to transplant them to some more
spacey part of my garden. At the same time when I planted my lettuce seeds I also
transplanted some lettuce seedling I got from my grandma. You can see on photos
what that true leaves means (plants need to have some bigger leaves).
What I did is, I took seedlings, made holes
in the ground and planted seedlings into each hole. After you transplanted
them, water it well. One thing you should keep in mind before transplanting
lettuce seedlings – soak the area where you want to plant them and give water
some 10-15 mins to percolate before transplanting. If you're planing on growing some organic
lettuce, like iceberg plant them some 30 cm apart and single leaf lettuce
should be some 10 cm apart. Good thing about lettuce is that you can have it
throughout the season – just plant some seeds every 2-3 weeks.
What else should
you know about planting lettuce? They like water. Especially during hot
weather, so keep that in mind and water your lettuce well. Plant itself will
tell you when it needs water – if the leaves are wilting just sprinkle them
with water, no matter if its heat of the day. Also, if you are planting few
different varieties, you should keep them at least 3 meters apart so you can
prevent cross-pollination. When you harvest your lettuce, best time for that
would be early in the morning. Good thing about lettuce is that it’s usually,
pests free. Snails and slugs like to eat their leaves but you get rid of them
using beer traps. Just pour beer into some shallow saucer – it will attract slugs
and they will drown it beer. You can also make light permanganate solution and
wash your garden tools in it. It will keep slugs away. One more thing is attracted
by lettuce – aphids. If you notice them on your lettuce, mix one cup of any
type of vegetable oil with 3 cups of warm water and add half a teaspoon of dish
washing liquid. Spray mixture on your lettuce and aphids should suffocate. You
can also try with garlic solution - crush 6-10
garlic cloves and let them sit in water for a few days, then spray the solution
on leaves and other areas of plants that are infected with aphids. Also, good
thing is companion planting – plant garlic, onions, chives and mint around your
lettuce (same thing is with tomatoes), aphids don’t like those plants so they
should keep out of your lettuce too. If you’re companion planting plant your
lettuce close to asparagus, beets, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, corn, cucumbers,
eggplant, onions, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, strawberries, sunflowers and
tomatoes and keep it away of broccoli.
For the end, few photos from my garden from yesterday
●●●
Nema ništa bolje od zelene salate iz vlastitog vrta, a dobra
stvar je da ju je jako lako uzgojiti. Zadnjih nekoliko godina uzgajam zelenu
salatu iz sjemena, ali i putem presadnica koje redovno dobivam od bake. Budući
da raste brzo salata mi je jedna od dražih stvari u vrtu (uzgoj iz sjemena
traje nekih 45 do 80 dana , ovisno o vrsti), a za odabir imate puno različitih
sorti. Najčešća vrsta salate su kristalka, puterica i rimska salata, a one
imaju nekoliko glavnih sorta (rimska,glavatica, puterica , kristalka , list ili
hrastov list), a u svakoj sorti možete pronaći brojne vrste. Na brzinu ću vas
upoznati s nekima od njih.Rimsku salatu možete naći u salatama i sendvičima,
list također, a glavatica (možda ju znate pod imenom iceberg) je jako popularna
u SAD-u. Puterica je jedan od mojih favorita, jer ima nježnu teksturu i
slatkastog je okusa, kristalka je vrsta između lista i kristalke. Hrastov list
dolazi u crvenoj i zelenoj boji. Ove godine zasadila sam putericu, hrastov list
i glavaticu, jer se one najčešće nađu u mojoj kuhinji. Dobro vrijeme za početak
sadnje sjemena zelene salate je rano proljeće (svibanj je ok također), a možete
ju posaditi u vrtu ili posudama. Ja sam, obzirom da ove godine imam podignute
gredice, uzela sjeme salate i posula ga po jednom dijelu vrta. Taj sam dio
pretvorila u neku vrstu staklenika tako da sjeme može brže rasti. Obzirom da
salata ima plitko korijenje, sjeme ne morate staviti preduboko i treba ga samo
lagano prekriti zemljom. Kako salata klija najbolje uz prisustvo malo svjetla,
možete ga ostaviti na površini, a ne pokriti s tlom. Odaberite dio vrta s puno
sunca.
Na fotkama možete vidjeti kako izgledaju moje sadnice, nakon nekih dva
tjedna od sjetve. Kada još malo isklijaju (moraju imati dva seta „pravih“
listova), morat ću ih presaditi u prostraniji dio vrta. Istog dana kada sam
posijala sjeme salate, zasadila sam i sadnice koje sam dobila od bake. Na fotkama
možete vidjeti što su to zapravo „pravi listovi“ (biljke bi morale imati
nekoliko većih listova). Ono što sam ja napravila je da sam uzela sadnice,
napravila rupe u zemlji i u svaku od njih posadila po jednu sadnicu salate.
Nakon što ih je salata presađena, sve treba dobro zaliti. Imajte na umu jednu
stvar kada sadite zelenu salatu - područje na kojem ćete ju posaditi dobro
natopite vodom i ostavite 10-15 minuta kako bi se voda dobro ocijedila s
površine. Ako želite organski uzgajati salatu, imajte na umu razmak – kod
glavatica on mora biti 30ak centimetara dok list možete uzgajati i na
udaljenosti od 10-ak centimetara. Dobra stvar kod salate je da ju možete imati
tijekom cijele sezone - samo posijte sjeme svakih 2 – 3 tjedna .
Što još
trebate znati o sadnji zelene salate? Ona voli vodu. Pogotovo za vrijeme vrućih
dana, pa imajte to na umu i dobro ju zalijevajte. Sama biljka reći će vam kada
treba vodu - ako se lišće „poklopilo“ slobodno ju pošpricajte s vodom, bez
obzira i ako je jako vruće. Isto tako , ako ste se odlučili sadnju nekoliko
različitih vrsti, trebali bi ih držati na udaljenosti od najmanje 3 metra, kako
bi spriječili unakrsno oprašivanje. Najbolje vrijeme za branje salate je jutro,
a dobra stvar je da je ona najčešće slobodna od štetnika. Puževi vole jesti
lišće, ali njih se možete riješiti uz pomoć pivskih zamki. Samo ulijte pivo u
plitki tanjurić - to će ih privući i puževi će se utopiti u pivu. Također
možete napraviti i laganu otopinu hipermangana u kojoj ćete prati svoj vrtni
alat. To bi trebalo zadržati puževe podalje od vašeg vrta. Salata privlači još
jednog napasnika – lisne uši. Ako ste ih primijetiti na vašoj salati,
pomiješajte jednu šalicu bilo koje vrste biljnog ulja s 3 šalice tople vode i
dodajte pola žličice tekućine za pranje posuđa. Smjesu raspršite po salati i
lisne bi se uši trebale ugušiti. Također možete probati i s otopinom češnjaka -
razdrobite 6-10 češnja češnjaka i ostavite ih nekoliko dana u posudi s vodom, a
zatim tekućinu raspršite po lišću i drugim zaraženim dijelovima biljke. Također
, dobra stvar je i zajednička sadnja - oko salate (isto djeluje i kod rajčice)
posadite češnjak, luk, vlasac i metvicu, lisne uši ne vole te biljke i ne bi se
trebale zadržavati oko vaše salate. Ako prakticirate zajedničku sadnju, zelenu
salatu smjestite blizu šparoga, repe, prokulica, kupusa, mrkve, kukuruza,
krastavaca, patlidžana, luka, graška, krumpira , rotkvica, špinata, jagoda,
suncokreta i rajčice i držati ju podalje od brokule .
Za kraj, par jučerašnjih slika iz mog vrta
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