A warm bed for an early harvest: DIY methods. Compost: how to turn harm into benefit What to plant in a compost bed for the first year
I hope that someday I will plant on my plot instead of vegetables ornamental plants and I will beautiful paths, but today the main thing for me is to create optimal conditions vegetable plants. I think that I am not alone in this desire. Based on my priorities, I chose the option of maintaining the paths, which is somewhat unusual among gardeners - under mulch.
On my site, the entire area is divided into beds and passages of approximately the same width - a bed plus a passage - 1 meter.
Such permanent markings make it possible to include all crops grown on the site, including potatoes, in crop rotation (bed rotation).
In defense of such a scheme, I will give a simple example. For two years in a row, I counted beans on bushes of bush beans planted in meter-wide beds. The beans were planted in 5 rows. The bushes growing along the edges of the bed sprouted an average of 10 beans (each), but the rows in the center sprouted an average of 3 beans. It can be seen that the difference is huge.
On half-meter beds I plant beans in 3 rows, and the yield on all rows is approximately the same - the same 10 beans per bush.
With such a garden layout, the roots of the overwhelming majority of cultivated plants use the entire area of the passages for nutrition. The extreme rows are especially strong.
Creating conditions for the roots that promote better provision of moisture and nutrition.
As far as possible, I try to cover all paths with various organic matter: straw, leaves, forest litter, weeds, and mown grass. Of course, it sounds very strange to fertilize or mulch paths, and yet it makes sense.
In the spring, while the neighbors are waiting to enter the garden without falling through, I calmly walk along my paths filled with organic matter, without boots - there is no dirt. There was a very striking effect this year. The groundwater rose abnormally high, and you couldn’t step in the vegetable gardens—you’d fall through. Thanks to permanently covered paths, sowing in my garden began in April, and in my neighbors’ garden at the end of May-June.
To quickly warm up the beds with gentle spring sun, you need to open them from the mulch. But at the same time, the soil loses the most important spring moisture. You can, of course, cover the beds with film, but if the area is large, then this is a bit expensive, and bare passages evaporate water very strongly.
In my case, the passages, on the contrary, are reserves of spring moisture and rainwater.
Even during prolonged drought, the soil under the paths is always moist, and the roots of cultivated plants are comfortable there.
The question may arise as to how the tender roots of cultivated plants will penetrate the years of trampled earth of the paths. I’ll answer - it’s easy! And there is nothing strange here. Under the cover of mulch, even in paths, worms live in abundance. Through their efforts, the trampled, dense earth becomes permeated with passages through which atmospheric air enters the ground, and the roots of vegetables easily pass through.
Such moisture reserves allow you to get by with a minimal amount of watering, or without it at all. This is very important to me. On my site, irrigation water (from a well), according to chemical composition far from ideal - too tough. I try to use it as little as possible so as not to salinize the soil. Therefore, I grow most crops using no-irrigation technology, even if this results in a slightly lower yield compared to irrigated beds.
July 2007. Compost paths + mulched beds - plants feel great. It's hard to believe that these beds have never been watered.
In addition to storing moisture, my paths perform another important role- organic matter decomposes on them.
In a constantly moist, well-aerated layer of organic matter, beneficial microorganisms quickly multiply. Souring does not occur due to the worm holes - they act as drainage.
In this sense, the passages become like compost bins. At first glance, it seems that the volume of these containers is insignificant, but let's do the math. The area of the paths in my garden is 50 square meters per hundred square meters. If the organic layer is 10 cm, then the volume of composted material on 5 acres is 25 cubic meters V! And at the same time it does not require a special place at all.
It is advisable to have a thicker layer of organic matter on the paths.
Supporters organic fertilizers very often one thing is not taken into account important point: When composting organic matter in compost heaps, carbon dioxide is wasted, released by bacteria during respiration. But it is very important for the development of plants. There is a direct relationship - the more carbon dioxide, the greater the harvest. Every schoolchild who has carefully read a biology textbook knows this.
When composting on paths, carbon dioxide is released in close proximity to the plants, which increases vegetable yields.
Unlike a compost heap, worms constantly live in the paths.
All processes here take place without increasing the temperature. This process is closer to vermicomposting, which produces higher quality humus.
In our case, there is no need to create special technological worms (California red or “Prospectors”). All processes happen by themselves. The worms only need to create suitable conditions, and they will gather on your site independently and in great numbers. How they find a place convenient to live is completely incomprehensible to me. But the fact remains that a lot of them appear from somewhere.
Ideally, you only need to layer new portions of organic matter on the paths every year. This is what happens in nature. Under these conditions, an ideal community of fungi, microbes, worms and other soil inhabitants is created. Each representative of the “waste processing” soil fraternity is located in its own organic horizon, the most favorable for it, and does its job.
It is impossible to create such ideal (natural) conditions in a garden bed—when planting and harvesting, the structure of the natural “layer cake” is necessarily disrupted. But on the paths - please.
One problem is that you need a lot of organic matter.
For small plot Can this issue be resolved, but what about the big one? We have to look for some techniques that promote the accumulation of mulch. For example, straw decomposes much faster than leaf litter or needles from the forest. Therefore, I try to prepare more of these materials. Sawdust takes even longer to rot. I don’t use them for a simple reason - in our area it’s an expensive pleasure.
Pine bedding
along with small twigs
and cones - a good mulch.
Mulch can and should be grown on your site - use green manure crops.
Often in conversations with the owners of 6 acres, you can hear the lament: “I would plant green manure, but there’s not enough space anyway.” And who forbade the cultivation of green fertilizers in places not occupied by vegetables - in the aisles? Moreover, this can be done simultaneously with the cultivation of cultivated plants.
I sowed crops and scattered green manure seeds along the paths. As the crops grow, so do the green manures. On initial stage development of vegetables while they are still small, grown green manures are beneficial - they serve as a kind of backdrop and create a favorable microclimate.
The main thing here is not to use green fertilizers so that the crops do not shade and become coarse. Trimming green manure at the right time in the loose substrate of paths is not difficult - plants are often not even pruned with a flat cutter, but are pulled out by the roots. Anyone who has had to weed a compost heap will understand what we are talking about - the roots of plants in such conditions are superficial, poorly developed - there is enough nutrition.
There is no need to remove the cut green manure anywhere; let it remain in place. The tops will build up a layer of mulch, albeit slightly. The roots will be very quickly digested by soil inhabitants and will become food for both microbes and fungi, and our plants. If possible, it is better not to cut off the greenery on the paths, but simply sprinkle it with a layer of coarse organic matter.
Phacelia blooms.
You should not be afraid that the plants will break when you walk between the beds; most green manure plants are not afraid of this. The exception is phacelia, which has fragile stems. But this is not a problem for me either.
For movement I use paths through one: I walk along one, and phacelia grows on the next one. The beds are narrow (50 cm) and during any operation you can easily reach the edge of the bed opposite (from the path). I cultivate two adjacent beds from one path. That's all the wisdom.
Sowing the next batch of green manure does not require additional time and effort. Before pruning grown plants, simply scatter the seeds. During pruning, the seeds are embedded in the mulch and germinate there.
Maintaining green manure crops on paths has a disadvantage - green manure has to be cut off more often so as not to interfere with the crops in the beds, and accordingly you need a lot of seeds, you need to buy them or allocate space for growing.
Use of weeds on paths.
Let us recall the experience of V.V. Fokin (the inventor of the flat cutter of the same name) - using the seeds of annual weeds. According to studies, when 90% of all weeds are removed from a site, the yield of their seeds is reduced by only 10%.
Such numbers make the careful gardener simply give up. It turns out that it is impossible to reduce the number of weed seeds. Even if you do not allow a single weed to seed on your territory, seeds will fly in abundance from a neighboring plot or vacant lots. They fly in, but on the paths they only make me happy - a source of mulch and fertilizer.
Everything that has been said about green manure on paths can also be attributed to weeds, except for the drawback - there are no problems with the seeds and there is no need to plant them. But not everything is smooth here either. Unfortunately, the composition of weed seeds that spread independently cannot be regulated.
It is desirable for weeds to appear at the most early dates as soon as the snow melts. This is how cress, chamomile, and spurge sprout before everyone else in our area. These plants emerge 2-3 weeks earlier than spring green manures. It takes time to collect the seeds of these earliest weeds, and not to miss them so that they do not scatter. The solution is simple.
We mow down flowering weeds in vacant lots and lay them out on the paths.
Believe me, the seeds will ripen on cut plants. In early spring, the seeds germinate over several periods. In June, agarica appears generously. At each specific site, you can choose your own set of cultivated and “non-cultivated” green manures. It is only important to prevent harmful perennial weeds - rhizomatous and root shoots - from entering the paths. For example, I use only one type of milkweed, an annual one that reproduces only by seeds.
There is rye on the beds - it’s too early to plant seedlings.
In the aisles, “uncultivated green manure” are weeds.
Surely, some plants on the paths will be incompatible with the crops growing in the beds. The issue of compatibility has not been thoroughly studied. You'll have to observe and draw conclusions yourself. There’s nothing you can do about it; plant growing is a creative process.
On any site there are hard-to-decompose, coarse organic remains: stems of Jerusalem artichoke, sunflower, raspberries, etc.
All this goodness can also be used in compost paths. You just need to take into account that if you just throw the stems on the paths, you will have problems - they greatly interfere with cutting the weeds.
If it is not possible to grind this valuable material, you can use my method.
I just lay everything in a thick layer between the fenced beds and add some finer material on top. A thick, dense layer prevents weeds from germinating - light does not pass through. Over the summer, all this wealth is trampled into crumbs and becomes rotten. Grinding occurs without the expenditure of our time and effort.
The hassle of creating mulch on paths will probably seem unnecessary to many. Well, that's everyone's business.
But the fertility of the earth is restored and grows when we return the same amount of organic matter to the earth as we took from it.
It would be better if we contribute more. There are many examples of this.
Experienced from Krasnoyarsk Territory I.P. Zamyatkin receives up to two tons of potato tubers per hundred square meters (up to 8 kg per bush) without adding any organic or mineral fertilizers. Member of the Omsk Potato Growers Club R. M. Chintsov receives 400 kg of early ripening potatoes from one hundred square meters at the end of June (!). And by autumn he takes another 200 kg of tubers from the same hundred square meters.
For those who decide to maintain paths under mulch, advice: if there is not enough organic matter, then it’s better to make one “ compost path"with a mulch thickness of 10 cm than 10 paths with a thickness of organic matter of 1 cm. A very thin layer of mulch will not give an effect.
If organics are on at the moment very little, then you can use the “walking heaps method”.
It consists in the following. I form piles of cut weeds 10-15 cm high and leave them on the path. Weeds are sprouting on the rest of the path. When they grow to a critical size, I trample some of them and move piles on them. In the place where there was a heap, a spot clear of weeds remains. I trim the remaining uncovered weeds and use them to increase the piles. Then everything repeats.
The ideal option for this method is when the piles cover half the area of the tracks. Then the grown plants are completely covered in heaps and quickly decompose under them. In the clean areas left after moving the heaps, weeds sprout again. There is no need to cut anything, just move the piles. At the same time, the decomposition of organic matter (and, accordingly, the release of carbon dioxide, which is important for us), takes place, and the energy of the sun is used to accumulate mulch and weed control is reduced to a minimum.
Part of the ground near the rhubarb bushes is covered with a layer of potato tops as mulch, and weeds grow on the rest. Nothing should be thrown away. Potato tops will come in handy in a “lazy corner” - in a plot with perennials.
The pile has been moved to the weeds. Where there was a pile there is a clean place and an opportunity for weeds or green manure to grow, accumulating organic matter.
But weeding out weeds and trimmed green manure alone is not enough; you will still have to add aged organic matter. The fact is that young plants decompose very quickly, and, when dried, they lose a lot in volume.
For example: I covered the bed with a continuous layer of phacelia (cut at a height of 15 cm) 10 cm thick, and after 2 weeks all that was left of this layer were pathetic blades of grass, unable to even slightly cover the ground. The same layer of mulch, but consisting of rye stalks, at the beginning of heading, decreased by only half. But the volume of forest litter has decreased by about 20%, and even then only due to compaction.
It should be noted that it makes sense to use “walking heaps” only as a compromise. In the future, you need to find a way to mulch the entire surface.
Best regards, Oleg Telepov,
Omsk Potato Growers Club
To create favorable conditions For the normal development of plants in the garden and garden, you need to constantly improve the soil and try not to deplete it with organic and mineral fertilizers. Often, inexperienced gardeners completely remove all the weeds and all the “supposedly” unnecessary organic matter from the beds and paths. But this cannot be done. As a last resort, if the vegetation is infected with diseases or pests, then, of course, you need to get rid of it.
Preparing compost directly on the beds is the fastest and most convenient way saturate the soil useful substances. You can notice that in nature no one ever removes vegetation, and a kind of litter of fallen leaves, dried grass, and twigs creates the most necessary microclimate on the soil surface for the growth of new plants.
If you do not remove vegetation on garden beds, in the garden, then in such litter a symbiosis is formed - a community of beneficial microbes, fungi, worms, which help the green mass decompose faster, and that in turn creates an optimal humidity regime and saturates cultivated plants with nutrients.
All plant residues from the garden (weeds before the inflorescences ripen) are suitable for preparing compost, and you can also use cut grass, sawdust, straw, leaves, and forest litter. All these plant residues are scattered along the paths and between the rows where the cultivated plants are planted. In this way, the covered ground always remains moist, since there is no direct contact sun rays. This mulch retains moisture for a long time, especially after rains or watering.
In the spring, when it’s time to sow all kinds of plant seeds, then you can also sow green manure in the spaces between the rows. In this way, compost will be prepared directly on the beds. Young green manure plants will serve as a curtain to protect cultivated plants from the hot sun and erode moisture from the soil. When the green manure grows, they need to be cut or uprooted and placed in rows and on paths. Or, if you have coarse organic matter, for example, crushed corn trunks, Jerusalem artichoke, twigs, then put them directly on the green manure. After a while, you will trample down the row spacing and paths with such a layer a little, and rotting processes will begin to occur there. 
When preparing compost directly on the beds, the following green manures are used:
Legumes - clover, chickpeas, wicca, sainfoin, peas, annual lupine, beans, beans, soybeans, alfalfa, sweet clover, lentils, goat's rue, chinna, saradella, field peas, cowpeas (cowpeas).
Cereals - fescue, timothy, ryegrass, bentgrass, non-spreading wheatgrass, black grass, cocksfoot, wheat, triticale, rye, Sudan grass, peisa, sweet and bread sorghum, spring oats and barley.
Cruciferous vegetables - winter rapeseed, winter and spring rapeseed, white mustard, blue mustard and oilseed radish.
Other families include buckwheat, amaranth, phacelia, and mallow.
If you have sowed the rows and paths with green manure, then you can safely walk on them without fear of breaking them, except for the phacelia, since it has brittle stems. During the spring and summer, green manure can be sown several times. It doesn’t require a lot of effort; you just sow on top of beds with already growing green manure.
But you shouldn’t limit yourself to green manure alone, as they lose mass when they dry out. Then, if possible, be sure to add straw, forest litter, sawdust to the beds, and rye stalks cut at the beginning of heading are especially good.
Preparing compost directly on the beds is also good because you don’t need to carry it and spread it - everything is already here and ready for “use”. And the carbon dioxide that is released in the compost is immediately absorbed by the leaves of cultivated plants, which increases their productivity.
In large compost piles the temperature constantly rises, which earthworms do not like. In our case, where there may be a 5-10 cm layer of compost on the beds, worms live normally and process the soil so that the humus is even better than with Californian worms, which you need to buy.
If you don’t want to grow green manure for compost, since they require repeated sowing, then, when they grow, you need to cut them off so as not to interfere with other plants, then it’s easier to use ordinary weeds that grow in every garden if you don’t weed it out every day. Then leave the weeds on the paths and between the rows. And when they grow to the point where they will soon produce seeds, then they can be uprooted and placed there.
If you think that preparing compost directly in the beds requires a lot of labor and time, then you are mistaken.) It is much easier to maintain the fertility of the soil “on the job” - right in the beds. And to get good harvest, we must put more into the earth than we took from it - this is the law of nature. If you stick to it, you will always have an excellent, rich harvest, some of which you can even sell.
Compost preparation video:
Lesson from Galina Kizima.
Year one
Next summer, lay a compost heap in place of any vegetable bed or directly on virgin soil, especially if you have clay soil.
She should be in the sun.
The width of the heap is 80-100 cm, the height should also be 80-100 cm by the end of summer, but the length should be what the future bed should be or how much material there is enough to lay it.
It can be covered with decorative plantings so as not to become an eyesore.
You will start filling it from one edge, gradually increasing in length and height.
On next year start laying a new compost heap next to it, and plant pumpkins or zucchini on the first one.
You can also use it for cucumbers.
To prevent heat and moisture from leaving the heap, it should be covered with an old film - black or white, but spunbond or lutrasil are not suitable for this purpose.
This must be done before the snow melts, otherwise the pile may dry out by the time of sowing.
Before sowing, remove the film and make holes in the heap about the size of a three-liter jar.
Then you fill them halfway with fertile soil, add a teaspoon of AVA powder fraction to each, water well and sow the seeds.
Then cover the pile again with film.
As soon as the seedlings reach the film, cut holes in it and release them outside.
If there is a danger of frost, then the plants need to be covered with lutrasil on top.
This is where your work ends. No more watering or feeding of the plants is required.
Under the film and powerful foliage of pumpkin crops, the compost will mature in one season.
At the end of summer, cut off the fruiting above-ground part and transfer it to the new compost pile that you created over the summer.
Leave the remains of the root system in place. The worms will eat them.
Year two
On next year, having made additional holes in the film and adding a dessert spoon of calcium nitrate and half a teaspoon of AVA fertilizer into each of them, plant seedlings of any cabbage, except for Chinese cabbage and kohlrabi.
It will be necessary to feed cabbage in the second half of summer only with microelements (unless you add AVA during planting).
It is best to do one or two feedings on the leaves, using any of the preparations: “Florist” or “Uniflor-bud” (4 teaspoons per 10 liters of water).
You will only need to water if the weather is hot and dry. Water needs to be poured into the holes in the film under the root, and in very hot weather early in the morning you will have to pour the cabbage directly over the leaves cold water from the well.
In autumn, the covering leaves of cabbage and its roots (if there is no clubroot) should be left in the garden bed.
The film will have to be removed, leaving it only on the sides of the bed.
Year three
Next year, pumpkin crops will move to a new compost heap, cabbage will move to their place, and instead you can plant grown early potato tubers or onions on turnips in the garden bed.
Then you can plant beets, which will have to be watered once with the solution. table salt(1 cup per 1 liter of water) to feed with sodium when it has 5-6 leaves.
Beets can also be planted along with cabbage along the edge of the garden bed. She loves to grow on the edge and is friends with cabbage crops.
It’s a good idea to plant celery at the ends of the cabbage bed.
And rows of onions can be alternated with rows of carrots. But you can also sow a bed of carrots after onions.
Once again, I draw your attention to the fact that as soon as you have removed the film, only the crop is removed from the bed, and all other parts of the plant are left on the bed and in the soil.
Moreover, in the fall they also throw leaves or weeded weeds on top.
Year four
Another year the bed can be used for lettuce, dill, and parsley. These crops do not need fertilizing or watering.
Lazy bed or Crop rotation on a compost heap
Next year early spring there you can sow radishes, and after harvesting them at the beginning of summer, plant strawberry tendrils.
Strawberries need to be planted thicker than usual, that is, they need to be planted in the middle of the bed in one row at a distance of 15-20 m from each other.
When planting, add one-third of a teaspoon of AVA granular fertilizer to each hole, then you will not need any more fertilizing for three years.
To avoid having to do weeding, roll out a roll of paper glued together from several layers of newspaper on both sides of the strawberries.
When the strawberries produce tendrils, make holes in the newspaper to allow them to take root and leave them to overwinter.
In the spring, there will be practically no newspapers left, but there will be no room for weeds to grow, since the strawberries will take up all the free space.
Don't do anything to the plantation.
It does not need to be fed or watered except in very hot and dry weather in spring and early summer.
The fertilizer will last her for three years, and under a continuous canopy of her own leaves she will retain moisture in the soil.
I emphasize again, you don’t need to do anything, let the strawberries grow on their own.
After three to four years, the berry harvest will begin to decline.
When you collect it, simply mow the plants themselves with a scythe, or even better with a Fokin flat cutter, going 2-3 cm deep into the soil.
Leave the leaves in the garden bed and start adding compost to this area.
This whole scheme should be used on sand.
Only under the compost on the sand you need to lay roofing material or old film in several layers to nutrients didn't go through the sand.
If you have perfectly acceptable soil, its fertility will gradually be restored or improved over time if you sow the vacated bed with white mustard each year in late summer and leave all the plant residues after harvesting on it, rather than dragging them into the compost.
Then in the spring, just slightly dig up the soil to a depth of 5 cm and immediately sow the bed with seeds of cultivated plants.
Crop rotation can be left the same as on a compost heap, but before planting each crop, you should add a little “Bogorodskaya Zemlya” and a third of a teaspoon of the powder fraction of AVA fertilizer into the hole.
What kind of “Bogorodskaya Zemlya” is this? This is soil saturated with beneficial microorganisms.
After all, soil fertility is determined by the number of microorganisms living in it.
Most of them die in winter in the top layer of soil.
Some part, of course, will survive and begin to reproduce, but they will reach the required numbers only by the end of the season.
If you take a bag of such soil in the fall before frost and put it in the cellar, the microorganisms will be perfectly preserved and multiply over the winter.
It is especially good to take such soil from rotted compost.
The soil needs to be populated with beneficial microorganisms, and to feed them, systematically add surface layer unrotted organic matter, in particular, the green mass of mown grass or weeds.
The famous gardener Ryabov L.A. agrees with Kizima G., except for one point:
“Instead of the mineral fertilizers mentioned by G. Kizima, it is much better to breed soil animals, for example, by watering the bed with solutions of EM preparations “Shining” or other beneficial soil microorganisms
They will give the plants everything they need for growth and abundant fruiting, and will return fertility to the soil."
Techniques and Ideas organic farming persistently capture the minds of advanced farmers.
