How to Grow Bitter Lettuce? A Detailed Guide to Bitter Lettuce Cultivation Techniques

SummarySowing: late July to mid-August is the most suitable time. Soil: loose soil, apply a good base fertilizer, and water the soil thoroughly before sowing; after sowing, cover with plastic film to keep warm. Watering: after the seedlings emerge, uncover the film promptly and sprinkle water to keep the soil moist, which can better promote root growth. Fertilizing: during the growing period, top-dress promptly and clear weeds.

Bitter lettuce is a plant in the Asteraceae family. It can be eaten fresh or used medicinally. People today pay more and more attention to their health, and food therapy is a good way to boost the body's resistance, so the demand for purely natural healthful ingredients like bitter lettuce is growing. Next, let us learn about its cultivation techniques together.

How to Grow Bitter Lettuce

Bitter lettuce is a perennial wild vegetable. It has high nutritional value and a slightly bitter taste. Bitter lettuce has low requirements for its growing environment, is cold-tolerant and drought-tolerant, and is suitable for planting in many regions. However, it still needs sufficient water and moist soil to grow well and have a more crisp and tender quality.

For growing bitter lettuce, you can start with seeds the first time; after harvesting, as long as the temperature is suitable, you can leave the roots to overwinter, and the next year they can sprout and turn green directly. If you want to bring it to market earlier and avoid disasters such as freezing, you can also cover it with a shed for the winter. Before it turns green the next year, you only need to loosen the soil and apply fertilizer well, and the bitter lettuce will grow up nicely.

Bitter Lettuce Cultivation Techniques

Bitter lettuce is highly adaptable, and we can see it everywhere along roadsides and in fields. Bitter lettuce can also be cultivated artificially, generally in greenhouses. When grown in greenhouses, bitter lettuce comes to market more than a month earlier than when grown in the open, and the yield is about 2000 jin per mu, so the growing returns are still quite high. Below is a detailed introduction to bitter lettuce cultivation techniques:

1. The sowing time for greenhouse-cultivated bitter lettuce is late July to mid-August, when the climate and temperature are just right. If too early, the temperature is too hot; if too late, the temperature is too low, and bitter lettuce seedlings have poor drought and cold resistance, which leads to low yield.

2. Before sowing, the soil needs to be loosened, a good base fertilizer applied, and the soil watered thoroughly before sowing begins; after sowing, it needs to be covered with plastic film to keep warm.

3. After bitter lettuce seeds sprout, uncover the film promptly and sprinkle water to keep the soil moist, which can better promote root growth.

4. During the growth of bitter lettuce, pay attention to timely top-dressing, and also be careful to pull out weeds at any time.

Bitter lettuce has a slightly bitter taste. Before making a cold salad, we need to blanch it in water first to remove some of the bitterness, then dress it with seasonings; that way the taste will be better.