How To Create A Warm Garden Bed

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Warm beds are a guarantee of harvest

In anticipation of the new season, most summer residents and gardeners are already thinking about how to create favorable conditions for plants for growth and development and thereby increase yields. However, solving this problem in our climatic conditions is not at all easy, because even with good solar heating of the soil, in the spring it carries cold from it, coming from below, like from a refrigerator; plant roots chill, and plants themselves refuse to live. In order to avoid this and to be able to plant seedlings and sow seeds earlier, and therefore get more significant yields, you should, first of all, weigh the existing experience well.

As practice shows, today there are four different methods for warming beds, which differ significantly in their effectiveness:

• laying in the subsoil layer of sheet insulating materials (roofing felt, roofing felt, slate, polystyrene, plastic film);
• laying pipes in the subsoil with water circulation from the heating system;
• loop-like placement in the subsoil layer of the thermal electric cable;
• the creation of raised and high beds with a subsoil layer, consisting of a variety of organic options.

At the same time, as experience shows, in the first case, the soil is deprived of the ability to "breathe", the roots of plants cannot go deep, and, having reached isolation and being in conditions of excessive moisture, they often undergo and die.

In the second and third cases, considerable financial costs and the mandatory presence of the owner on the site are required for the safe operation of these systems, and the latter are applicable only in stationary greenhouses.

The most effective and promising fourth method of heating the soil, which not only has a set of advantages over all others, but in addition to the main goal, allows you to get full compost over time. Unfortunately, due to the shortage and high cost of manure caused by a sharp reduction in the number of livestock in the Leningrad Region, the vast majority of summer residents and gardeners in recent years have been forced to abandon the creation of beds on such organic matter. The replacement of manure with a mixture of peat with garden or field soil, practiced by individual owners of plots, did not justify itself due to the formation of foci of permafrost in the created beds, their long thawing in the spring and the delay in planting seedlings and sowing seeds. Frameless beds with slopes on the sides (ridges, heaps, embankments, etc.) also did not justify themselves in their shape,- due to the loss of nutrients and moisture, due to the creeping of weeds from the aisles and uneven heating by the sun, as well as semicircular and trapezoidal beds - due to an increase in their usable area by 1.3-1.5 times.

And yet I managed to create a high warm bed on my site(see figure), devoid of all the indicated disadvantages. Instead of manure, it contains inside itself, instead of manure, complex organic matter, consisting of gardening components: at the bottom - large lumpy waste (rotten remains of a tree, stumps, roots, twigs, branches, plant stems and pieces of old clothes and shoes), in the middle - small lumpy waste (chopped pieces of brushwood, cardboard and paper, tops, grass and foliage, as well as wood chips, shavings and sawdust, sprinkled with lime and ash and spilled instead of manure with green grass slurry with feces or mineral fertilizers). On top of this organic matter, which has a height of about 45 cm, a fertile layer was created, which is necessary for planting seedlings or seeds of heat-loving crops, consisting of a mixture of compost (60%) and garden soil. At the same time, to prevent the loss of fertilizers and moisture, the nutrient layer has a special bed for plants and half-collars along the edges. Unlike ordinary beds, the new high bed has a wooden frame (made of slab), which is lined with plastic wrap for additional protection from cold and wood decay. If the summer resident or gardener does not have materials for the frame, then it is quite possible to make it from turf, poles, pieces of slate and scraps of wood.

My experience with using a high warm bed has shown that thanks to these features, it is not only devoid of the disadvantages of all previous beds, but also has very important advantages over them:

• allows you to do without manure and slurry and dispose of all organic waste generated on the site;
• has uniform heating from below and from above, freezes less, thaws earlier and makes it possible to plant and sow 2-3 weeks earlier;
• retains fertilizers and moisture well and practically eliminates their loss;
• has good looseness, moisture and air permeability and requires only loosening with a pitchfork in the spring instead of digging;
• significantly reduces the likelihood of the appearance of weeds, pests and diseases of grown crops;
• provides a reliable and strong attachment to the frame of any arcs and simplifies pulling and removing the film;
• facilitates plant care, as it has an optimal height from the passage to the top;
• after the expiration of the period of use (about 6 years), it provides obtaining from 1 m² of area to 2.5 m³ of full-fledged compost.

In conclusion, I note that on such a high warm bed, very favorable conditions have been created for the growth and development of plants, and this allows you to increase the yield, for example, zucchini, squash and eggplants, judging from personal experience, by one and a half times, and all this happens with practically no material and financial costs. I think that when deciding on heating the soil for heat-loving crops, such a bed deserves the attention of gardeners and summer residents.