How to grow bitter vegetable? A detailed explanation of the latest planting methods

Many of us today may never have seen real bitter vegetable. Especially from the post-90s generation onward, basically no one recognizes it, yet it is indeed a vegetable that the previous generation knew very well and remembered deeply. However, in recent years bitter vegetable has slowly entered our circles of life and become one of the very popular seasonal vegetables, appearing in restaurants large and small. So today, follow Qinnong Web to learn how to grow bitter vegetable.

1. Timing

To be honest, since bitter vegetable is also a type of wild grass, its vitality is especially vigorous and it can adapt to all seasons, but its growth varies somewhat from season to season. So it is best to choose July or August each year for planting. In this season its vital signs are at their most normal, and by the time the temperature turns cold it can already be harvested long before. But if sowing is too late, the weather changes are relatively large and it cannot adapt all at once, so the growth is relatively poor and both yield and quality become very unsatisfactory.

2. Sowing

If you are a lazy sower, you can just choose direct seeding, and bitter vegetable will still grow that way, only it will grow rather messy and later be inconvenient to manage and harvest. So generally we use the drill method: first make rows of small furrows and beds in the prepared ground, then scatter the seeds evenly over the beds, then cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil, and finally cover the surface with a layer of plastic film or straw, which can keep the field temperature and help the bitter vegetable seeds germinate. The most important thing is to be sure to wet the soil before sowing.

3. Fertilizing

We can fertilize bitter vegetable according to how fertile the planting site is and how the bitter vegetable is growing. If the planting site has fairly sufficient nutrients, then we only need to wait until the bitter vegetable seedlings grow to about 5 cm and give one topdressing of urea or manure and urine water. But if the soil is relatively poor, we need to fertilize at least twice: once after the seedlings emerge, and then once more when the seedlings grow to about 10 cm. Next, we need to observe whether the bitter vegetable seedlings are relatively thin and weak and look as if they have no vitality; in this case we also need to fertilize, because this is a sign of oxygen deficiency.

4. Water

Because the season in which bitter vegetable is planted has very unstable rainfall, sometimes there is continuous rain and sometimes it does not rain for a long time, so in order to make bitter vegetable grow better and increase its yield, even though its vitality is relatively tenacious, we still have requirements for field water management. When the bitter vegetable seedlings have just emerged, we generally use sprinkler irrigation, because the young seedlings are relatively fragile and sprinkler irrigation will not harm them. Then when the bitter vegetable is growing most vigorously, one more watering is needed, which can maintain the moisture of the bitter vegetable and make it look tender and juicy.

5. Weeding

Weeding bitter vegetable is rather troublesome, because even at its best the bitter vegetable plant is not very large and is about the same size as the weeds, making weeding very hard to manage. So generally before sowing we deep-plow the field once and clean out the weed roots in the field, and only then sow. Although some weeds will still not be completely removed, this still has a great effect. Next, when the weeds grow to a certain size, we can only pull the weeds out of the field by hand. That is why weeding is something many people are unwilling to do, and why the method of spraying paraquat on the field to kill weeds before planting has appeared.