6. Fruit, Leaf and Root Vegetable Guidelines
A) Lettuce - Surface Composting Technique
Lettuce is a very popular salad leaf crop that is particularly high in Vitamin A. Lettuce comes in many cultivars with lots of colourful varieties.
Lettuce has ideal growth temperatures between 5-15°C. Although they have a preference for cooler temperatures, they can tolerate hotter temperatures up to 30°C. Plant lettuce from spring through autumn months.
Layout
If you are planting on field scale, then prepare double rows 20cm apart to allow enough space for access. In a small home garden, widen the surface compost band to 45cm and plant three rows 20cm apart to make best use of your limited space.
Lay Strings for Planting Band
Place a top string or measuring rope from one 75cm permanent peg to its adjoining peg on the opposite side. Next place temporary pegs 25cm down from the permanent pegs and place another string there to establish the surface composting band. Make sure both the ropes are taut and straight by lifting and dropping them.
Remove God’s Blanket
Move God’s Blanket downslope of the 25cm planting band, to ensure none of it gets buried. If you bury the blanket which has not yet decomposed, it can cause the soil to go through a negative nitrogen period and reduce crop yield.
Soil Fracturing
Push the fork 30cm deep and pull it backwards a little, until you see the soil loosen or fracture. Remove any stones or rocks that you feel with the fork, but don’t be tempted to lift or turn the soil, you should be merely fracturing it. Keep on repeating this every 10cm along the row line.
Correcting Acidic Soils
To correct acidic soils in the 25cm wide band, evenly sprinkle one handful of woodash/bonemeal per meter.
Surface Composting
Lettuce are light feeders so place a 2cm layer of surface compost on top of the 25cm wide band. It is not necessary to work the compost in to the soil. This system of surface composting is following exactly what the Lord of all Creation has shown us since the beginning of all time, where He designed for plants to feed from the top.
God’s Blanket
Ensure the blanket is at 100% cover and 2.5cm thick to suppress weed growth and conserve moisture.
Seedlings
Lettuce are best planted from seedlings, giving a quick and easy homogenous stand. Use a dibble stick with a depth marker on it, twisting it through the blanket and pressing it into the surface compost band to the required depth. Push these holes in at 20cm between plants and 20cm between rows in a diamond arrangement.
You must ensure the seedling roots are not bent into a J shape which will adversely affect the plants growth, so make sure the dibble stick hole depth is sufficient, but not too deep either. If the hole is too deep it will cause there to be an air space under the roots which is also not desirable. To ensure you don’t have that, hold the seedling in place and press with the dibble stick or your fingers at an angle, pressing the compost gently around the seedling roots. This ensures the seedling roots have no bend and ensures that there are no airspaces around the root zone.
Harvest
Lettuce have many different varieties and growth patterns. Some are harvested as baby leaf, others as large leaves throughout a growing cycle and others as heads.
B) Lettuce- Manure Technique
Lettuce is a very popular salad leaf crop that is particularly high in Vitamin A. Lettuce comes in many cultivars with lots of colourful varieties.
Lettuce has ideal growth temperatures between 5-15oC. Although they have a preference for cooler temperatures, they can tolerate hotter temperatures up to 30oC. Plant lettuce from spring through autumn months.
Layout
If you are planting on field scale, then prepare double rows 20cm apart to allow enough space for access. In a small home garden, simply widen the basin to 45cm and plant three rows 20cm apart to make best use of your limited space.
Lay Strings for Shallow Planting Basin
Place a top string or measuring rope from one 75cm permanent peg to its adjoining peg on the opposite side. Next place temporary pegs 25cm down from the permanent pegs and place another string there to establish the shallow planting basin. Make sure both the ropes are taut and straight by lifting and dropping them.
Remove God’s Blanket
Move God’s Blanket 10cm downslope of the planting basin to expose the soil.
Soil Fracturing
Push the fork 30cm deep and pull it backwards a little, until you see the soil loosen or fracture. Remove any stones or rocks that you feel with the fork, but don’t be tempted to lift or turn the soil, you should be merely fracturing it. Keep on repeating this every 10cm along the row line.
Preparing Shallow Basins
Due to the closeness of the 20cm row intervals, it is very difficult to dig furrows for these narrow row crops. Instead, prepare a shallow basin by digging out 5cm of soil between the 25cm strings and placing it downslope.
Correcting Acidic Soils
To correct acidic soils in the 25cm wide basin, evenly sprinkle one handful of woodash/bonemeal per meter.
Manure Inputs
Skim a 1cm layer of manure into the bottom of this shallow basin and rake it in lightly. Cover the manure with soil making it level once again.
God’s Blanket
Ensure the blanket is at 100% cover and 2.5cm thick to suppress weed growth and conserve moisture.
Seedlings
Lettuce are best planted from seedlings, giving a quick and easy homogenous stand. Use a dibble stick with a depth marker on it, twisting it through the blanket and pressing it into the prepared basin to the required depth. Push these holes in at 20cm between plants and 20cm between rows in a diamond arrangement.
You must ensure the seedling roots are not bent into a J shape which will adversely affect the plants growth, so make sure the dibble stick hole depth is sufficient, but not too deep. If the hole is too deep, it will cause there to be an air space under the roots which is also not desirable. To ensure you don’t have that, hold the seedling in place and press with the dibble stick or your fingers at an angle, pressing the soil gently around the seedling roots. This ensures the seedling roots have no bend and ensures that there are no airspaces around the root zone.
Harvest
Lettuce have many different varieties and growth patterns. Some are harvested as baby leaf, others as large leaves throughout a growing cycle and others as heads.
