7 Types Of Salad For Your Garden. The Best Varieties. Sowing, Cultivation And Care. Description, Photo - Page 7 Of 8

6. Field salad

Field lettuce, also known as valerianella, root, marsh lettuce, or rapunzel, is a miniature plant that develops as small, scattered rosettes of rounded teardrop-shaped, dark, glossy leaves. This is one of the most delicate and light salads, with a charming nutty aroma and a spicy, tart taste.

Uses of field salad in cooking

Field salad is tasty on its own with any dressing, but also suitable for complex dishes. It goes well with vegetables, poultry, smoked meats.

Sowing dates for field lettuce

Seeds are sown before winter or from mid-April (if the weather permits - even earlier) until the end of August, for seedlings - from the end of March.

The necessary conditions

Field lettuce needs good lighting and drained soils, does not tolerate stagnant moisture, but at the same time it is not too picky about soil fertility and can grow successfully in almost any garden soil. Valerianella can withstand frosts down to -15 ° C, so it can be sown early enough in open ground.

Sowing field lettuce into soil

Field lettuce is capable of growing as a biennial. The optimal technology for its cultivation is considered pre-winter sowing, which is carried out in mid-September. It allows you to harvest greens by mid-spring. The seeds are sown in prepared beds, which are protected for the winter with mulch - straw, compost, leaves, non-woven material.

For harvesting in May and in summer, crops in greenhouses and open ground are carried out using the same technology. For field lettuce, thickened crops with double thinning are recommended (first at a distance of 2-3 cm, and then at a distance of 10-15 cm, optimal for these plants). Sowing depth is about 1 cm.

Growing field lettuce through seedlings

Seeds of field lettuce are sown at the end of March, to a depth of no more than 0.5 cm. Seeds should germinate in a warm place, then the seedlings are grown at low temperatures from 12 to 15 ° C until 2-3 leaves appear with a single dive. It is better to conduct it directly into the greenhouse and the greenhouse, at a distance of about 5 cm between the plants, and not into boxes. Lettuce is transferred to the ground, planting at a distance of 10-15 cm between plants from the end of April, as soon as the weather permits.

The specifics of caring for field salad

Caring for field lettuce comes down to loosening the soil and row spacings, which must be carried out every 1.5 weeks, timely removal of weeds and careful watering, which must be carried out so that water does not fall on the leaves or diffused honey.

Harvesting and storage

For field lettuce, partial collection of greens can be carried out from the second week after planting in the soil or from the second thinning. Most valerianella reaches technical maturity in a month and a half after sowing. The collection must be carried out before flowering, because the plants that have released flower stalks are unsuitable for human consumption. Field salad is stored after cutting for no more than 3 days.

The best varieties of field lettuce

"Impromptu" specially adapted to the conditions of the middle zone and two decorative forms - dark and yellow-leaved

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