Perfect sowing for a rich harvest

Shorten the cultivation time with seedlings

If you have not yet sown any lettuce in June, you can shorten the time to harvest by bringing young plants from the garden center. When planting, consider the following points so that the small plants develop well:

• When buying, look for strong seedlings with stain-free, crisp leaves.
• The wind must be able to blow through lettuce: Set it only deep enough so that the roots are covered with a thin layer of substrate.
• The planting distance is about 30 centimeters for lettuce and lettuce. Endive and radicchio, on the other hand, should be planted around 40 centimeters apart.
• Since it can get quite warm during the day in June, you should put the plants in the ground in the morning or evening.
• Unfortunately, snails just love young lettuce plants. Therefore pour on individually. Since the soil between the seedlings remains dry, the reptiles avoid the freshly set lettuce.

Sow salads

You can sow salads until late summer, so it's not too late for the green vitamin bombs. Sown directly in the bed, salads form more and deeper roots. As a result, they do not shoot as quickly and develop inflorescences. They also need less watering. Since salads no longer germinate above 20 degrees, you should provide some shade on hot days or a cool phase for them sowing Select.

Cultivate salads in the bucket

You can also grow salads in buckets on the balcony or terrace, provided they are placed in a light spot. The planter does not have to be very large, as only a few lettuce plants form deep roots. There is space for several heads of lettuce in a balcony box. Here, too, the following applies: Do not fall below a planting distance of 25 - 30 centimeters.

Additionally fertilize you don't have to, because the nutrients contained in the substrate are sufficient. However, you should keep the salads evenly moist throughout the entire cultivation period and water them regularly. But do not overdo it, otherwise there is a risk of root rot.

Which variety is suitable?

Due to the large number of new breeds for a wide variety of requirements, this question cannot be answered generally. Get detailed advice from specialist retailers. Old varieties such as sugar loaf or the almost forgotten dandelion salad, with its slightly bitter aroma, are a taste sensation.

What diseases and pests are threatened?

Unfortunately, salads are occasionally used by:

• Wrong mildew or
• Lettuce rot

infested. Resistant new varieties are a good alternative if you have ever struggled with these diseases in the vegetable patch.

Snails that graze the entire lettuce in no time can be kept away by snail fences. Consistently collect animals in the bed. If you have the opportunity to expose them far enough away from the house, you should not kill the reptiles for ecological reasons. Slug pellets with the active ingredient iron-III-phosphate are approved for organic cultivation and work very well.

If aphids are very bad for lettuce, you should choose resistant new varieties. Rinsing with water is also helpful, as the animals washed down on the ground can no longer reach the lettuce plants.

Earthworms and rootworms are the larvae of various butterfly and butterfly species that lay their eggs on the leaves of the lettuce. First, the animals eat above ground and then migrate into the ground, where they can cause massive damage to the root system. The butterflies can be kept away from the heads of lettuce by means of cultivated nets without having to interfere with the natural structure.