It's no secret that lettuce leaves, like other crops, have many useful properties and are an integral component of a number of dishes. In this regard, it is not at all surprising that gardeners are constantly looking for new seeds and varieties to plant on their plots. Varieties that grow well outdoors are especially in high demand.

Popular varieties for open ground

Considering the best varieties of lettuce seeds for open ground, special attention should be paid to the following varieties of popular garden greens.

Kucheryavets

Kucheryavets salad refers to crops of medium ripeness. It can be harvested within 70-75 days after planting. Lettuce leaves are light green in color. Their main difference lies in the scalloped edges. Kucheryavets has a rather loose swing, the weight of which can reach 400 grams. The variety should be grown in areas that are well lit and sheltered from the winds. The variety is highly resistant to stem stemming. This salad will perfectly fit into any vegetable garden located in the Moscow region or any other region of the central strip of Russia. In a harsher climate, it will be better to plant the plant at home: on a windowsill or in a greenhouse.

Growing salads in the garden

Iceberg

Considering the types of salads, one cannot but recall the large-sized Iceberg salad. This variety is relatively new. Crop can be harvested 75-90 days after planting. Unlike most other salads, this product is great for long-term storage in the refrigerator. This large salad retains its original appearance and freshness for an average of three weeks. The lettuce grass of this variety is crispy, bubbly, has a bright or light green color and slightly wavy edges. The plant's head of cabbage is quite large - its weight can vary from 300 to 600 grams. The iceberg is best suited for cultivation in spring and summer. It is very resistant to arrow formation. Almost any fertile soil is suitable for planting.

Iceberg lettuce

Gardeners appreciate Iceberg for its slightly sweet and pleasant taste without the slightest hint of bitterness. The leaves of this salad are often used instead of traditional cabbage when making cabbage rolls.

Eurydice

When listing the varieties of lettuce and half-cabbage lettuce, mention should be made of Eurydice. Any gardener and agricultural technician knows this salad very well, since it is quite popular and is used for planting both in open ground and in such a structure as a film greenhouse. It is characterized by a dark red (rather burgundy) color of the leaves. At the same time, the rosette of leaves is rather compact, semi-raised with wavy edges. Its height can be up to 35 centimeters with a diameter of about 30 centimeters. Eurydice has excellent taste. The mass of a mature plant is at least 450 grams, subject to agricultural technology.

Crunchy vitamin

One of the popular varieties of leafy salads is Crispy Vitamin. It is one of the mid-early plants, from which you can start harvesting as early as 39-45 days after the appearance of the first green shoots. The culture is compact.At the same time, the name of the salad speaks for itself - the leaves of the variety are crispy and contain a large amount of vitamins and other useful substances and components. Of particular note is the value of the Crispy Vitamin as a source of carotene.

This leafy variety has an upright rosette. Its average weight is about 200 grams. Among the advantages of the variety, it is necessary to note not only a high yield rate, but also resistance to the formation of arrows, low illumination of the growing area. For planting, not only a seed can be used, but also a pre-expressed seedling.

Variety Crunchy vitamin

Grandee

Continuing to list the varieties of lettuce and head lettuce, it is necessary to separately note the Grand. This is a medium early variety of crops, the harvest of which ripens on average one month after planting the seeds. The rosettes of the variety are also upright. Their height can be from 20 to 30 centimeters with an average diameter of 25 cm. The leaves are light green, not large in size, but they are quite dense and have a beautiful rounded shape with wavy edges. The head of cabbage is open and rather loose.

The Grant variety is characterized by a high yield rate and a low tendency to stem. To achieve the latter, when growing a plant in open soil, the variety should be provided with additional film cover. The average weight of a ripe head of cabbage Grant is about 200 grams.

There are other salads and their varieties that can be found in Russian garden plots. These include Sandwich, Giant, Firebird, Kitezh, Royal, Gourmet, Lolo San, Yeralash, Kolobok, Obzhorka, Robin, Mischievous, Tatsfun, Frillis and many others.

Planting and growing cabbage and leaf lettuce

Of all the varieties of leaf crops, it is the cultivation of leaf and head salad in the conditions of our country that occupies a leading position. The agricultural technology of these types of greens for salads does not differ too much. They grow well both in the open air and in greenhouse conditions. But with the last planting option (with the participation of a film cover), the harvest can be obtained faster.

Any varietal salad is a cold-resistant plant that is demanding on light, which is allowed to be grown during subwinter and early spring sowing. You can plant a crop without fear of low temperatures. Seed material will begin to germinate as soon as the temperature reaches +5 degrees.

Important! Lettuce and its seeds can tolerate frosts down to -4 degrees without damage. The only time the cold can harm the plant is during the head formation.

In general, the optimal temperature for growing any varietal variety of salad is from +15 to +20 degrees. If the temperature during the growing season is lower than the indicated one, the heads of cabbage will grow looser, and if higher, they will grow small, to a large extent lose their juiciness and may even begin to taste bitter.

Planting lettuce

In search of an answer to the question of how to grow a lettuce or lettuce, one must remember that the culture is very susceptible to the moisture of both soil and air, and therefore the choice of soil and growing conditions should be approached especially thoroughly. In arid regions, hydroponics or other efficient irrigation systems are likely to be required to achieve decent results.

Before starting to grow a crop, care should be taken to ensure that the soil in which the varietal salad is to be sown is sufficiently saturated with phosphorus, as well as nitrogen. If these elements are not enough, the culture will grow weak and form a small practically flat head.

Large lettuce and leafy cultivation should be carried out on neutral soils in terms of acidity.Lettuce and its seeds are very sensitive to the concentration of salts in the soil and grow very poorly on acidic soil: the seeds of the seeds germinate slowly, the leaves turn yellow and sometimes become covered with painful and unappetizing spots.

Lettuce is a rather early ripening culture; many gardeners do not feed it. Fertilizing is still worth it. A simple composition of top dressing will help to get excellent greens that will look like a picture and can decorate any recipe: 10 g of urea, 15 g of potassium chloride and 20 g of superphosphate should be poured with 10 liters of water and used to water the plants.

What seeds are suitable for the Moscow region

There are more than a dozen varieties of lettuce seeds. Most of them will feel great in the Moscow region. The only difference is that some varieties can be planted in open ground, while others can be placed in greenhouse conditions. Recently, in the region of Moscow and the Moscow region, the following types of lettuce have been especially in high demand: Bona, Gourmet, Vitamin Leaf and Azart.

If you are just planning to discover the described culture in terms of planting on the site, it makes sense to choose the most easy-to-care and grow variety of salad, the storage of which is of sufficient duration. In general, it can be almost any early or mid-early variety, the description of which can be easily found on the Internet if necessary.

Assorted salad seeds

Planting lettuce seedlings

Having studied all kinds of lettuce leaves and their types, as well as having generally figured out how to grow a crop from seeds, you can give some attention to alternative methods of harvesting. A grain (seed) planted in the ground is by no means the only way to grow a salad. In addition, cultivation can be done from seedlings.

Seedlings lettuce is not planted too often. However, this technique is sometimes practiced to speed up the maturation process of a culture.

On a note. You can prepare seedlings in a pot method with or without a dive.

Growing lettuce seedlings in pot will speed up the harvest time. On average, this way you can easily save from a week to 10 days. If the seedlings are grown with a pick, then initially the seeds are sown in boxes or any other suitable containers. A couple of weeks after pecking the seedlings, the seedlings are dived into individual pots. It is important that the volume of the container for planting each plant is at least 150 milliliters.

You can get seedlings for planting in open ground or a greenhouse without the obligatory dive. Many gardeners consider this method to be the most correct and rational. It takes less time and much less effort. In this case, the sowing of seeds is initially carried out in separate pots, and there is no need for picking as such.

Since the cost of lettuce seeds on the market is not too high, nothing will happen if you sow 2-3 seeds in one pot in case some may not sprout. In this case, the excess plant can be simply removed, leaving a stronger and healthier specimen to grow.

When seedlings appear on the surface, the seedlings should be placed in a bright place and ensure a temperature regime of +20 degrees during the daytime and no more than 10 degrees at night.

When a plant has three to four leaves, the seedlings can be safely planted in the ground.

The seedlings to be planted should ideally not be more than 35 days after the emergence of green shoots. Since the approximate seeds of lettuce for open ground can sprout up to 4 days, it is simply not worth planting plants for seedlings earlier than 40 days before transplanting into open ground. In the middle lane, the optimal time to start seedlings is mid-March.

Important! If the salad is planned to be grown in a greenhouse or greenhouse without using pots, you need to provide for a distance between plants of about 5 centimeters. This should be enough for the normal development of culture and a decent harvest.

If desired, the salad can be grown in the apartment on the windowsill. The most important thing is to provide the culture with sufficient illumination. If there is no bright balcony or loggia, you will have to take care of artificial light. It can be easily organized using LED or fluorescent lamps.

A suitable and ready-to-use primer can be purchased at the store. If you plant a crop in ordinary soil, you will need to use any universal liquid fertilizer at intervals of once a week. But the most important thing is to remember that not a single type of salad favors transplanting, therefore, when planting a plant on a windowsill, it is recommended to select a container for growth. Then the culture will feel comfortable and in one and a half to two months, depending on the variety, it will please with the harvest.