Plant, care and harvest your own lentils

If you like lentils, why not plant them on your balcony or terrace? Yeah, it is possible and it is easy. We have been taught so much that food is bought that we ignore how easy it is to grow a few servings of delicious food in any space. Growing food helps us improve our relationship with food. You will also see that your lentils taste better.

In its wild form, lentils originally grew in the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. But now they are planted in numerous countries. exist a wide variety of lentils that you can plant. For example, you can choose between yellow lentils, green lentils, or red lentils. Other well-known types are the pardina lentil and the beluga lentil. Whatever it is, you should give preference to the purchase of organic seeds.

How to grow lentils in your own garden

If you want to plant lentils in your garden, you must pay attention to some tips beforehand. This is how you make sure that the cultivation is really successful and that the lentil plants grow quickly:

Location: it is best to choose a warm and sunny spot in your garden for lentils. Drought and the scorching sun are not a problem for these undemanding legumes.Floor: you can plant lentils even where other vegetables no longer thrive. Because the lentil grows better in calcareous soils. Garden soil that is too rich in nutrients is less suitable for legumes, as they are quickly attacked by fungi.Crop rotation and mixed cultivation: You should always grow lentils in mixed crops with cereals, as the plants have weak stems that bend easily. Suitable mixed crops are, for example, oats or millet. They serve the lentil plants as a natural support to which they can cling.When to plant: Lentil seeds can germinate at about four degrees Celsius. The ideal time to sow lentils is therefore in spring, between the end of April and the beginning of May. Then you can expect harvest in mid to late summer.

Growing lentils in bed

Firstclears the future location of the bob of weeds and loosen the soil well.make little grooves to plant about 20 centimeters apart.Insert lentil seeds and mixed crop seeds about four centimeters on the ground. Keep a distance of two inches between each seed. Finally, water lightly the seeds.

Proper Lentil Care

It is an undemanding plant that hardly needs care after planting. Therefore, you can also plant lentils if you are a beginning gardener. The following tips can help you get the most bountiful crop of lentils possible in summer:

Irrigation: You can plant lentils in very sunny and dry places. The occasional rainwater that falls is sufficient for them as a source of liquid. When the lentil pods form, you can support the plant with moderate amounts of water.Fertilization: Lentils produce their own nitrogen and therefore do not need any additional fertilizer.Weeding: They are relatively uncompetitive and therefore favor the overgrowth of fast-growing weeds. This is why you should regularly weed the bed so that the lentil plant has enough space.Harvest: Depending on when you planted the lentils, the first lentils will be ripe from mid to late August. Ripe lentils are distinguished by discolored pods and hard kernels. After harvesting, the plant is pruned to the ground.

Planting lentils in a pot

The procedure for planting potted lentils is very simple, but this does not mean that we do not have to take into account some very important and crucial aspects in the process.

The first thing is choose the time of year well where we will do the planting. We must make sure that if the winters are very cold we will have to sow in spring, while if the winters are rainy, but not so cold, we can plant three months before.

Once we are ready to sow and have chosen the best seeds, we do the following:

We prepare a mixture of equal parts of humus and fertile soil. We sow the seed in our pot at least 1 cm deep. We water a little, ensuring good drainage of the soil. We cover the soil with a sheet of newspaper. on the balcony, terrace or near a window. When the paper dries, we moisten it again. The seeds should germinate in 6 and 10 days.