What to do so that leaf lettuce does not taste bitter. How to get rid of bitterness in lettuce leaves

Usually, all those failures that haunt us in the garden are caused by ourselves, that is, somewhere we will do something wrong, overlook or even forget to do it. And from this the plant does not receive the care it needs, and therefore their fruits and taste can be completely bad. Here, the lettuce has no fruits, but leaves.

One of the reasons for the bitterness of leaf lettuce is that you watered it poorly (when it was actively growing), that is, there was not enough water for it. This is often why he gets angry.

It is possible that you didn’t make a mistake with watering and watered the salad correctly, but they didn’t remove it during the time. If this is the case, then the lettuce leaves begin to slowly coarsen and bitterness appears again. So only cut the lettuce at the right time if you don't want to eat the bitter leaves. It will take 4-50 days after its sowing and it will need to be cut off. Usually at this time there are already 5 or 7 leaves on the leaf lettuce. It is in this phase that it needs to be cut. In order for the very moment of leaf ripening to come a little later, the garden bed will need to be thinned out. When shoots appear, then all of them should not be left. You should have 5-6 centimeters between adjacent shoots of lettuce. Everything else is just thrown away. When lettuce grows freely like this, it ripens later and, accordingly, the appearance of bitterness can also be postponed.

In addition, it is usually in green lettuce that bitterness appears, so you can experiment with varieties and plant several of them. Also, if the beds with lettuce are constantly lit by the sun, then the appearance of bitterness in the leaves is also quite possible. It is better to shade the beds, or sometimes change the location of these beds.

What to do if the lettuce leaves are still bitter?

It is possible that you have already made some mistakes, and you did not manage to save lettuce leaves from bitterness this year. What to do then? Everything, just throw out the whole crop?

You will always have time to throw away this “inedible” greenery, but you should not rush here. It is quite possible to get rid of this bitterness.

To remove bitterness, cut off all the roots of lettuce leaves. Then the leaves themselves are thoroughly washed and placed in a saucepan. You should already have salted water in this pot. For her, you only need a tablespoon of plain salt per liter of water. In addition to salt, you will need to throw a few ordinary ice cubes into this water, which many people have in molds in the freezer. Wait about half an hour, and then you can get the leaves out of this water. Then we blot them gently with a paper towel, and then dry them for about five minutes. Then you can use these leaves for various dishes.

If you still have enough time before the start of collecting lettuce leaves, and they are already bitter, then you can try to drive all this bitterness away from the leaves themselves, namely into the roots. To achieve this, the bundles are simply placed in an ankh where cold water is first poured. Let them stand there for 2 or even 3 hours. After that, we take out the bunches and, again, cut off all the roots. It would also be better to cut out the stems themselves in the leaves, especially if these stems are thick. So you will generally have only the most delicious and tender parts of the leaves, which will no longer be bitter.

Juicy and crispy salad like to grow on their site, many summer residents. With the right agricultural technology, you can get a good harvest several times a season.

Lettuce is demanding on soil, watering and lighting. Lettuce is planted on loose soft soils, after applying fertilizer. Immediately after the emergence of seedlings, it is necessary to water the lettuce beds every other day, and when the outlet is actively forming, it is necessary to organize abundant watering. Lettuce is best planted in partial shade, in shady areas and under the scorching sun, it will not be able to develop properly, which means it will not be so tasty and healthy. Lettuce also develops poorly in cramped conditions. For full growth between plants, it is necessary to maintain a distance of 15-20 cm. Space is especially important for head salads, so seedlings need to be thinned out.

All types of lettuce are high in fiber, vitamins and minerals. Lettuce is a champion among vegetables in terms of vitamin K content, it also contains vitamins C, A, B vitamins, potassium, magnesium, iron, iodine, zinc. At the same time, the salad is low-calorie: 100 g contains only 12-14 kcal.

There is a wide variety of varieties of salads, all of them are divided into head and leaf. Most varieties have a delicate spicy taste, but salads with bitterness are not uncommon.

Causes of bitterness of lettuce leaves

Sort. Salad varieties: Iceberg, Romaine, Moscow Greenhouse, Ballet, Zabava - crispy, juicy and without bitterness. The leaves of such varieties as: Frisse, Radichio, Lolo Rossa, Arugula, Watercress are slightly bitter.
Age. Young lettuce has a mild taste. Overgrown lettuce has a more pronounced grassy taste, is able to accumulate a small amount of the alkaloid lactucine in its leaves. Its presence can be determined by the milky juice at the break and bitterness in taste. Alkaloids are part of many drugs, and in nature they are found in the family of poppy, nightshade, legumes, ranunculus.
Season. In the spring, even varieties with bitterness will have a pleasant taste. In summer, especially in hot sunny weather, the leaves quickly accumulate bitterness.

Many believe that the cause of bitterness is insufficient watering of the salad. Practice shows that watering is more important for the growth and formation of the plant, and almost does not affect the taste.

What to do if lettuce leaves are bitter

Choose varieties without bitterness.
Under the influence of direct sunlight, lettuce leaves quickly accumulate bitterness, so it is better to place the beds in partial shade or between rows.
A week before harvesting the lettuce, cover the plant with a thick cloth to protect it from the sun. This method will allow you to get rid of the bitterness characteristic of many varieties.
Collect lettuce in the early morning, preferably before sunrise. At this time, the salad has a more delicate taste.
When collecting young lettuce leaves, make sure that the lettuce does not outgrow, does not release arrows. Lettuce can be planted throughout the summer season with an interval of 2-3 weeks, although spring plantings will still be the least bitter.
To get rid of bitterness, you need to hold the leaves, preferably together with the roots, in cold water. For varieties with thin delicate greens, a dry method is suitable: cover the leaves with salt for 15-20 minutes, then rinse.
Eating lettuce with bitter leaves will not harm your health. If you want to soften the bitter taste, mix the leaves with cottage cheese, feta or ricotta, eggs, yogurt or sour cream.

Those who grow lettuce in their area know that sometimes its leaves are bitter. However, this happens not only with salad. A similar problem haunts one of the vegetables most beloved by our gardeners - cucumber. we used to talk too. Now let's deal with the salad. After all, it was not in vain that you raised it, you need to know the reasons why it turned out bitter for you, in order to prevent this later and grow a sweet leaf lettuce.

If the salad is bitter. Main reasons

Usually, all those failures that haunt us are caused by ourselves, that is, somewhere we will do something wrong, overlook or even forget to do it. And from this the plant does not receive the care it needs, and therefore their fruits and taste can be completely bad. Here, the lettuce has no fruits, but leaves.

One of the reasons for the bitterness of leaf lettuce is that you did it badly (when it was actively growing), that is, there was not enough water for it. This is often why he gets angry.

It is possible that you didn’t make a mistake with watering and watered the salad correctly, but they didn’t remove it during the time. If this is the case, then the lettuce leaves begin to slowly coarsen and bitterness appears again. So only cut the lettuce at the right time if you don't want to eat the bitter leaves. It will take 4-50 days after its sowing and it will need to be cut off. Usually at this time there are already 5 or 7 leaves on the leaf lettuce. It is in this phase that it needs to be cut. In order for the very moment of leaf ripening to come a little later, the garden bed will need to be thinned out. When shoots appear, then all of them should not be left. You should have 5-6 centimeters between adjacent shoots of lettuce. Everything else is just thrown away. When lettuce grows freely like this, it ripens later and, accordingly, the appearance of bitterness can also be postponed.

In addition, it is usually in green lettuce that bitterness appears, so you can experiment with varieties and plant several of them. Also, if the beds with lettuce are constantly lit by the sun, then the appearance of bitterness in the leaves is also quite possible. It is better to shade the beds, or sometimes change the location of these beds.

What to do if the lettuce leaves are still bitter?

It is possible that you have already made some mistakes, and you did not manage to save lettuce leaves from bitterness this year. What to do then? Everything, just throw out the whole crop?

You will always have time to throw away this “inedible” greenery, but you should not rush here. It is quite possible to get rid of this bitterness.

To remove bitterness, cut off all the roots of lettuce leaves. Then the leaves themselves are thoroughly washed and placed in a saucepan. You should already have salted water in this one. For her, you only need a tablespoon of plain salt per liter of water. In addition to salt, you will need to throw a few ordinary ones into this water, which many people have in molds, in the freezer. Wait about half an hour, and then you can get the leaves out of this water. Then we blot them gently with a paper towel, and then dry them for about five minutes. Then you can use these leaves for various dishes.

If you still have enough time before the start of collecting lettuce leaves, and they are already bitter, then you can try to drive all this bitterness away from the leaves themselves, namely into the roots. To achieve this, the bundles are simply placed in where cold water is first poured. Let them stand there for 2 or even 3 hours. After that, we take out the bunches and, again, cut off all the roots. It would also be better to cut out the stems themselves in the leaves, especially if these stems are thick. So you will generally have only the most delicious and tender parts of the leaves, which will no longer be bitter.

And so that your mistakes when growing it do not become the cause of the bitterness of the salad, be sure to watch this video. Here you will be told the basic subtleties of its cultivation and care. We look.

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Garden lettuce is a leader among other leafy vegetables. Especially tasty and pleasantly fragrant salad in the spring. But what is a summer barbecue without lettuce, or sandwiches? You can wrap meat, vegetables in a salad and, of course, make all kinds of salad dishes even in summer.
The benefits of salads are a separate issue. The leaves contain a large amount of vitamins: C, K, carotene, B vitamins, as well as a number of minerals: calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, copper, iodine and others.
Leaf lettuce has a beneficial effect on the liver, pancreas, kidneys and cardiovascular system. It will help maintain good vision and can even protect against Alzheimer's disease.
Lettuce contains a lot of fiber and in general, lettuce is a low-calorie product. Therefore, the salad improves the functioning of the metabolism in the body and helps to lose weight.
In addition, lettuce is included in the diet for diabetes, atherosclerosis, stomach ulcers and high blood pressure.
However, overripe leaves acquire a bitter taste and lose their pleasant smell. There are also some varieties of lettuce that are bitter on their own. It is better to grow varieties that have green juice, those with milky juice are usually bitter. Varieties without bitterness include: Frillak, Bacardi, Cricet, Embrys, Remus, Iceberg, Lollo Rossa.
In order for the salad not to be bitter, it is necessary to water it regularly and plentifully. Feeding with a high magnesium fertilizer also helps the lettuce grow sweet without bitterness.
And one more secret: you need to cut the salad not in the heat of the day, but in the early morning or late evening.
If, nevertheless, bitterness is felt, such a salad must be bleached.
To do this, it is placed under an opaque dish - a saucepan, a bucket and left for 3-5-7 days before cooking. During this time, the bitterness completely disappears, and the bleached crispy salad rosette becomes tastier and healthier. You can also remove bitterness from overripe lettuce. Before removing the bitterness of their salad, it must be washed and cut off the roots. After that, the leaves are placed in a deep plate or bowl and filled with cold water.
For the best effect, you can add ice to the bowl and leave everything to stand until the ice melts. After that, the lettuce leaves should be removed and put on a towel so that they dry well. This helps to get rid of half of all the bitterness and give the leaves a fresh taste. In addition, after such processing, lettuce leaves begin to crunch well.
Another way allows you to distill the bitterness from the leaves themselves into the roots. For this you need a glass of water. Lettuce leaves are placed in it with the roots down. So they should stand for at least two hours. After that, the leaves must be removed and cut off everything except the sheets themselves. The roots and stems will be bitter, but the leaves will not.
And yet, we cut the leaves into a salad in advance, and let stand separately for about 15 minutes, and then mix with other ingredients.

Lettuce is an unpretentious culture in care, but at the same time very useful for the human body and contains a large amount of vitamins and minerals. Due to this, various varieties and types of salads in Russian gardens can be found quite often.

But sometimes grown lettuce can be very bitter, and this bitterness is not varietal. Despite the fact that, of course, there are fans of the "spicy" salad, most often this fact upsets the gardener.

What to do in such situations: why are lettuce leaves bitter and how to avoid bitterness during further plantings?

The reasons why bitterness usually appears may be different, but they still have one common characteristic. In all cases, the gardener himself is to blame, who either does not adhere to the rules of agricultural technology and care for lettuce, or did not pick it up in time.

Causes of bitterness in lettuce leaves

Below is a list of possible reasons why lettuce bitterness may appear.

Irregular watering. Just like when growing cucumbers, if watering is too sparing and inconsistent, vegetables eventually acquire a bitter taste. Lettuce during its active growth is enough to water 3 times a week, early in the morning or in the evening. When watering from a watering can in the scorching sun, its leaves may wither.

Cushioned landing. It is clear that sowing vegetables in open ground almost always implies the subsequent thinning of seedlings, because it is quite difficult to place small seeds in accordance with the planting pattern in rows, and the germination of the material is always different. In this regard, when shoots appear, you need to pluck out the extra ones from them, leaving a distance of at least 5 cm between adjacent lettuce seedlings.

Wrong choice of landing site. The fact is that many varieties of lettuce prefer, albeit quite lit places of cultivation, but with the presence of light openwork penumbra. If the salad is lit by the sun throughout the day, then bitterness may appear in its leaves.

Untimely collection of leaves. Depending on the variety chosen, the lettuce ripening time may vary and is usually indicated on the back of the seed bag. When cutting it, you should focus on the number of leaves: there should be about 5 ... 7 pcs. At this age, the leaves are juicy and tender and generally do not have bitterness.

What to do, how to remove bitterness

If, nevertheless, lettuce leaves are bitter, but you don’t want to throw away the crop, then there are several ways that will help you.

If the reason for the appearance of bitterness in the leaves was untimely and irregular watering, then they try the following method of expelling it: several bunches of leaf lettuce are placed in a jar of cold water and left for a couple of hours. After that, the roots are cut again, and thick veins in the leaves can also be cut. The leaves can then be eaten.

Bitter lettuce leaves are harvested, cutting off all the roots, and washed well. A solution of table salt is prepared in a container by adding 1 tbsp to cold water. per 1 liter of water and stir well until it dissolves. After that, it is desirable to add a few ice cubes. The leaves are placed in a container with a solution and wait 30 minutes. Then the lettuce leaves are taken out and dried for 5 ... 7 minutes. Instead of salt, you can use a few drops of table vinegar.

Some people put lettuce leaves in warm water for 20 minutes, but after that they become lethargic and do not crunch. It is better to try to kill the salad bitterness already in the dish by adding a few drops of lemon juice to it, which simply neutralizes the bitter taste of the leaves.

How to prevent lettuce bitterness

In order for the lettuce leaves to be juicy and tasty without unpleasant bitterness, it is enough just to follow the agricultural practices of growing this crop, taking into account the place and planting pattern. Caring for leaf lettuce, although not difficult, but watering should be provided in a timely manner.

By the way, the bitterness in lettuce leaves can also be varietal, so before buying it is important to pay attention to the description of the variety and its characteristics. It is believed that it is the green types of lettuce that are the least bitter and have a delicate taste.

Lettuce is a crop that does not have a limited sowing time. In this regard, it can be planted in small quantities and periodically oversown as needed. So the season for cutting leaves can be extended, and at the same time the entire crop will be eaten on time, which simply will not allow the leaves to have time to harden and acquire bitterness. Thus, following the rules for growing lettuce and choosing the right variety, you can avoid the occurrence of bitterness in its leaves.

But even if some point was missed, and a bitter taste still arose, you should not get upset and throw away the collected leaves - you need to try to get rid of it first using one of the above methods. And already at the next sowing of this crop, take into account all your mistakes and grow a delicious salad.

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