Rapid Development Of The Garden Area. Part 2

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

Read part 1. ← Rapid development of the garden plot

A quick vegetable garden. Part 2

Potatoes

Potatoes, seedlings

When growing potatoes on turf, the most promising option is planting tubers on growing hills, which allows you to get a small number of tubers already in the first year and at the same time form a certain amount of fertile soil, which will later be required for the formation of ridges.

With this planting option, in the places where you plan to place the tubers, you need to dig small holes in the turf layer. The hole should be of such a size that the roots of the plant can be placed in it for the first time. Pour at least a little forest soil or podzol into these holes, as well as peat and a handful of ash and complex fertilizer. And then plant the sprouted potatoes in the holes and water them.

Gardener's guide

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

As the potato tops grow, instead of the usual hilling (there is nothing to huddle with, since there is simply no soil yet), you will need to fill each potato bush with a layer of leaf litter mixed with a small amount of fertilizer (ideally add a little vermicompost to the litter) and peat. For the last, top layer, a layer of cut grass will work well. As a result, the potatoes should be completely covered, but not with soil, but with an organic mixture replacing it. It should be remembered that the organic layer replacing the soil dries out quickly, so you will have to water the plantings regularly. As a result, by the fall you will have a very real chance to enjoy fresh potatoes.

The advantages of this method are that at the time of planting potatoes, you need a minimum of soil, which is still small on the site. And only gradually - as the plants grow - an increase in the layer will be required, which is already quite realistic, and not due to the soil (it will not be there during the first summer), but due to a variety of organic matter. If you wish, you can collect it gradually - you can collect leaf litter in the neighboring forest, mow the grass in the nearest meadow, etc.

Early cabbage, green crops, onion sets

red cabbage

All of these plants can be grown even with the minimum amount of soil available on tall compost beds formed directly on the turf. Of course, the harvest will be much less than on normal fertile soil, but still it will provide you with the coveted herbs and some onions and cabbage, which is quite enough for cooking in the country.

The technology for preparing compost beds in this case is similar to that used for high compost beds used for squash and pumpkin. The only difference is that the ridge can be lower here (that is, it does not require a lower layer of branches, although it may be present). In addition, holes are not needed, and the top layer should be peat mixed with podzol and vermicompost (when growing cabbage, you will definitely need to add ash to this mixture).

You don't need a film either, because you can't put it here in any way, except that you can close the side fragments of the ridge with a film. True, the absence of a film will require more active watering, but there's nothing you can do about it. In addition, it should be noted that when planting cabbage, it is wiser to put Apion in the holes in the holes (the yield will be noticeably larger) and mulch the surface of the ridges with crushed bark, which will reduce the amount of watering and loosening.

Low-growing tomatoes and bush beans

Tomatoes

With a very strong desire, in the first year of the development of the site, you can even get a small harvest of tomatoes and beans. True, tomatoes can only be undersized, beans - bush, and the number of bushes of these crops is very small, since these plants need a fairly large amount of fertile soil, but there is none, which means you will have to buy ready-made soil mixtures. And, of course, you will grow beans on a shoulder blade, not on grain.

To plant these crops, you will need to form a high compost bed, but not quite the way it was done for zucchini, since the roots of tomatoes and beans should not touch the manure. First, fence the proposed area with old boards or other improvised material - when forming a ridge, keep in mind that you will have to install a portable greenhouse from arcs on it, so the size of the ridge should be determined taking into account the size of the greenhouse.

After that, stack any existing wood waste (chopped branches, chips, bark) directly onto the turf in layers. Next, lay a layer of manure - in this case, it is only needed to heat the ridge - and sprinkle it with sawdust, then lay a layer of peat, and then a layer of leaves sprinkled with lime, or a layer of cut grass, or a layer of turf. If using turf, cover it with a triple layer of newspaper. Then form deep holes and sprinkle the entire surface of the ridge with a layer of peat, but the holes should remain visible.

After that, pour a bag of soil mixture with biohumus purchased in the store into each hole, add a handful of ash and 1 tablespoon of complex mineral fertilizer, then about half a bucket of leafy soil (it can be brought from the forest) or podzol obtained from your site … Mix the entire contents of each well very thoroughly and then plant tomato and / or beans seedlings in them. After planting and watering the plants, mulch the soil around them with crushed bark or leaf litter, install greenhouse arcs and cover it with foil. Such a greenhouse will help protect plants from spring and early summer frosts or too cold nights. In the daytime, the film will need to be completely folded back.

Autumn works

Beans

By autumn, the sod under the compost beds and on the potato plantation will partially rot, because it will spend the whole summer under a thick layer of various organic materials and with regular watering, which means that you will have to dig it up with much less your own labor. In addition, from the organic matter involved in the formation of the ridges, you will be able to obtain a certain amount of compost (albeit not completely decomposed, but this is not particularly important). Of course, fragments of especially large roots will still remain in the sod, as well as the roots of the most harmful weeds such as coltsfoot, wheatgrass, etc., but this will not be the same sod as it was in the spring, and it will be dug up on the order is easier and faster.

If your site is a fairly flat surface, then, having destroyed the impromptu ridges and leveled the surface with a rake, you can proceed to the usual digging. And here there are no special nuances: you dig, remove protruding stones and roots of perennial weeds that clearly do not want to rot. And then, given that your soil layer is still quite small, you again form all the same high ridges - it is quite possible that most of them can already be placed in a permanent place.

If the plot is on a hill, then everything will be much more complicated - you will have to think about terraces and create support walls for the intended terraces. For the first time, you can build temporary support walls with dry masonry from ordinary stones pulled out during the digging process. After that, level the soil on each of the terraces by destroying the beds, and then carry out the usual digging. And then re-form high ridges for planting next season, but on terraces.

In addition, in the fall it will be advisable to prepare planting areas for currants, gooseberries and raspberries, as well as various perennial plants: rhubarb, sorrel, tarragon, etc. To do this, make holes in the dug-up fertile layer - they should be small (up to rocky soil), and on top of them pour hills (the lower layer of hills can be from a variety of organic matter, and the upper one - from soil). Next spring, you can plant purchased plants in the center of each of the hills - you should not do planting in the fall, because on hillocks in winter, plants may well freeze.

Over the next summer, you will have to think about filling the empty space between the mounds with berries and perennial grasses with the emerging organic matter so that by autumn the plants are no longer on the mounds, but on a flat surface. Then, next winter, they will no longer freeze, and when the roots of the plants go beyond the initially formed hills, they will not be waiting for clean air there, but fertile soil that has managed to form from the established organic matter.

If you don't have a special desire to dig up the entire area, then you can spend another year using the improvised compost beds described above, loosening only the top layer on them with a flat cutter and adding new organic matter. In this case, it will be even easier for you to dig up the already practically decomposed sod next year.