2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
For those who refused to use pesticides and mineral fertilizers on their site, replacing them with mixed plantings of vegetables using organic fertilizers, you need to prepare a special bed for them. For those who care about the amount of harvest, they may not waste time reading the article. Mixed planting does not so much increase the amount of the crop as it improves the taste and nutritional properties of vegetables
Compacted subsoil layer
Ordinary beds are usually loosened and fertilized annually to a depth of 30 centimeters. With such soil cultivation at a depth below the 30 cm mark, the soil gradually becomes compacted, ceases to allow air and water to pass through, therefore, it begins to interfere with the growth of roots. The slowdown in root growth reduces the productivity of the plant.
A similar picture will be observed if you decide to build a garden bed on the site of the former path. To avoid this you need to:
1) outline the permanent place of the beds and paths between the beds;
2) the width of the beds should not exceed 1.5 meters, so that you do not have to step on the bed or lie down on it to remove weeds from the middle of the bed;
3) the width of the paths between the beds should be at least 30 centimeters if you have a small area.
Preparing the soil for the beds
1. We remove the sod, for which we cut the sod with a bayonet shovel to a depth of 3-4 centimeters and remove it from the entire surface of future beds. We grind it and take it to the compost heap. If we prepare the beds in the fall, then we embed the crushed turf deeper into the soil of the garden. Until spring, the turf will decompose, turning into a natural fertilizer.
2. We do the layout of the site. We drive in pegs in the corners of the planned beds. To mark the boundaries of the beds, we pull the twine between the pegs.
Digging up the garden:
1) we dig a trench 50 cm wide across the bed to a depth of 30 cm (that is, we get a trench 50 cm wide, 1.5 m long - the width of the bed, 30 cm deep). We put the removed earth on a wheelbarrow or in a large container, trying not to mix the upper and lower layers. We loosen the exposed subsoil layer to a depth of 30 cm. To do this, we stick a pitchfork or a bayonet shovel into the bottom of the trench and, swinging the handle, loosen the ground;
2) we dig the next same trench, transferring the soil from it to the first trench. Again, try not to mix the natural layers. Along the way, we remove the come across roots, larvae of beetles and insects. Loosen the subsoil layer by another 30 cm;
3) with a bed length of 3.5 meters, we will get 7 such trenches. Fill the last trench with soil removed from the first trench. When digging a bed, do not stand with your feet on the already prepared trenches. Do not do this even when the garden is fully prepared.
The process is, of course, time consuming, but by doing it, you will provide yourself with an excellent garden bed with high-quality drainage for two or three years, on which vegetables will be free, and your further work will be minimal.
When is it more expedient to do deep loosening
It is more expedient to do deep loosening in the fall, repeating it after two to three years.
In the spring, you can not dig, but only loosen the soil, add compost, bone meal, wood ash. Mixed planting beds do not require more fertilizer than conventional beds. Therefore, do not overdo it, excess fertilizer will only harm.
If the soil on the site is infertile, you can mix the top layer with sand, organic fertilizers or with good soil imported from the side.
In deep beds with rich soil, plants planted closer to each other inhibit the growth of weeds, creating live mulch with their foliage. Rows of planting in such beds can be placed closer, using a checkerboard arrangement of plants in adjacent rows, or using zigzag rows, in which a plant of one row is located opposite an empty gap in another row. This arrangement allows you to increase the yield per unit area by 2-3 times.
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