Compost - Fertility Factory

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

Two crops in one season

In the article "How to make high-quality compost" I described in detail how I get every year two cubic meters of fertile soil from the compost, which I then use in a greenhouse for cucumbers, peppers, add in the fall under roses, hydrangeas, under berry bushes and under other plants, if necessary …

I know that gardeners who practice in clubs use the resulting compost as clean, nutrient-rich soil, and the composts themselves use the composts to grow various crops.

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Green crops, radishes and seedlings

I have a crossbar above the composting sections (and mine consists of four sections). I put a film on it - and the greenhouse is ready. The earliest sowing in this makeshift greenhouse I spend in the third decade of April, but most often - in the middle of this month. There is still snow around, and the soil in the section that I filled with weeds in the previous season has already thawed to a depth of 5-7 cm, and is quite ready for sowing.

Seeds of watercress, mustard, aster, leek, celery, lettuce and head lettuce, cilantro and, of course, radish germinate well under the film. After the winter, the soil is wet there, there is no need to water the seedlings. It is only necessary, in addition to the film thrown over the crossbar, to additionally cover all crops with transparent film or lutrasil - directly on the soil.

If you don't have such crossbars on the compost heap, you can put arcs on it and also cover it with foil. And you will have your early greenhouse. After sowing seeds under the film, you can not look for a week - there will be enough moisture for the seedlings. The second section can be used to grow cabbage seedlings, and you can also take out the boxes with chrysanthemums from the cellar and put them right in the boxes in the same section on the compost. In such a greenhouse, the bushes of this beautiful plant will be neither hot nor cold, and they will not interfere with anyone. The third section can be sown with radishes, and some green crops can be placed around the edges.

After the emergence of seedlings under the film in the compost, of course, the crops will need to be weeded, loosened, watered. This is a real vegetable garden, only you do not need to bend to the ground on it, since the height of the sections is waist-deep. While the first shoots are developing, at this time I sow zucchini and pumpkins for seedlings.

By the time of disembarkation, I will need seedlings at the age of 20-25 days, sometimes I also plant monthly seedlings. It is necessary to calculate everything so that by the time this seedling is planted in the compost it does not fall under return frosts, which occur before June 10, and we have them up to -5 … -6 ° С. At least, this has happened more than once.

I grow seedlings of squash and pumpkin in pots in a greenhouse. Sometimes the seedlings grow vigorous, the lower leaves are very large, and to make it easier for it to take root on the compost, I cut these leaves. Then I water the soil in the compost well and loosen it. I make holes for zucchini and pumpkins and water them again. I also water the seedlings well the day before and only then plant them on compost. At the same time, I deepen it to the first leaf and water it again abundantly so that the water can hardly seep down.

I don’t feed the planted seedlings and I don’t put fertilizers into the holes. When the water is all gone, I sprinkle loose earth around the seedlings, as if mulching the plantings. And I will not water or feed my pumpkin crops for the whole season. I'm just weeding. By the way, there are almost no weeds on compost.

Inside the "greenhouse" I cover the planted pumpkin and zucchini seedlings with lutrasil in 2-3 layers (17 g / m2), and on top with a film. Usually there is a little frost at night, and the sun during the day, the seedlings are hot, but under lutrasil it is good for her, she does not need to take it off for the day. When the frost passes, I take off the lutrasil, water the seedlings. By this time, the plants are already quite large.

The film can be rolled up on one side, and on the other side I hold the film for several more days so that the wind does not ruffle the seedlings. A lot rises on dill compost. This is self-seeding, since at the end of each season I leave its umbrellas for seeds on the compost. They, of course, are sown on the ground. By the way, dill and cilantro seeds ripen on compost any summer.

I usually leave cilantro somewhere in a corner, tie it up like a sheaf so that pumpkin plants don't drown it out. Dill grows tall, powerful, it proudly towers over the pumpkin. By June 1, the radish is usually harvested on the compost. There were seasons when it selectively matured even by May 9th. This was when there was an early, even spring, and the compost thawed faster. The radish on the compost turns out to be juicy, does not shoot, and the leaf rosette is small.

Asters on compost can be grown without picking, or you can pick them out right there in the compost bin. I plant leek seedlings without picking right into the garden. I also plant celery seedlings without picking in the garden. You can do the same with cabbage seedlings. I remove everything that is ripe on the compost by June 1, but something else is growing.

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Growing pumpkins

Pumpkins are divided into three types: nutmeg, large-fruited, hard-bore. There are also decorative pumpkins.

The most heat-demanding butternut squash. Everyone remembers: last summer was rainy, there was little sun, therefore, I think that in the area where our dacha is, hardly anyone has succeeded. It is in the southern regions that they tie well and ripen. And I got these pumpkins on compost, but only in warm summer. I can say that this summer will be roughly similar to last year, so there is no point in sowing butternut pumpkin seeds. But on the compost in any summer, hard-bore pumpkins (a variety of this type are zucchini) and large-fruited.

For 22 years at my dacha, I have tried many varieties and types of pumpkin crops. Now such searches are no longer interesting to me, because sometimes you sow such things that you won't see the harvest. Now I chose a large-fruited pumpkin of the Kroshka variety. It sets fruits and matures on compost any summer. However, it turned out that not everyone succeeds, although this variety is unpretentious. Why doesn't it work?

I think the main reason is that you sowed its seeds late, and from this the seedlings fall later on a long daylight hours, and the plant forms only male flowers for a long time. And such daylight hours fall on us during the white nights. In addition, if a cold, rainy June happens, the soil quickly cools down, since pumpkins do not grow on compost, but on my compost it does not cool down. And other gardeners often pour only a few leaves into the holes in the garden bed, add a little humus - and pumpkin grow. And she's a southerner, what will she get the heat from?

Here the pumpkin hesitates with the setting of fruits, sometimes it forms them only at the end of July, and then the gardeners complain that they have not ripened, but rotted. In 2012, it rained everything, but pumpkin and zucchini on compost were good. I gathered an excellent harvest, and around the neighbors only zucchini grew, and even those sometimes rotted. True, some zucchini also perished in my past summer: the fruit will set, grow a little, and then the tip rots.

It is not enough just to grow a pumpkin, it is necessary for it to mature, and in our lowland on August 16, even frosts often occur down to -2 … -3 ° C, and then the heat returns again. Therefore, I opted for the Kroshka variety, which is unpretentious and tolerates temperature extremes, and forms fruits from 1 to 5 kilograms. There is a lot of carotene in them. I heard that even the Japanese bought this variety from the Semko company.

Dahlias

Sometimes I use a composting machine for growing dahlias. When everything that is sown has risen, and the soil is still warming up, I bury the tubers of dahlias in the corners of the compost. They are warm and light there, and they do not bother anyone. When it’s time to plant the dahlias in the ground, I use a pitchfork to hook the overgrown bush and so I carry it on the pitchfork to the hole where it will grow. Last year, I left one dahlia plant on the compost, it bloomed there many flowers until the very frost. To prevent the dahlia from being blown down by the wind, I tied the flower to a wooden support, so the pumpkin tried to climb this support all the time, covering the dahlia with its large leaves. This struggle continued until I cut out all the leaves near the dahlia.

Create healthy soil

Luiza Nilovna Klimtseva

Several years ago, "experts" in organic farming appeared. It is necessary, according to their "science", to mow the weeds and immediately leave them in the beds. They make fun of me openly and behind my back for dragging buckets of weeds into the compost, and they should, they say, leave them in the garden as mulch. What is woodlice mulch? She will give so many seeds that nothing can be removed the next year. And in rainy weather, slugs breed well there.

Once a woman invited me to look at her apple trees. And all over the site weeds, it was she who decided not to weed them out, but to mow them. The rains prevented her from mowing them in time. As I looked around, I felt sick: everything that grew: dim, clover, nettles, phloxes, strawberries - everything was covered with snails, every leaf was in holes, there was a crunch on the paths when walking. So I decided that I would still be doing organic in the classic style.

With this method of creating a clean, rich soil, it is easy to fulfill the main commandment of the farmer - the soil must contain nutrients that are needed for plants and fruits. Each plant, each weed belongs to some planet, which means that this plant transmits information to the soil during decomposition. Therefore, I deliberately add medicinal chamomile and odorous chamomile, dimple, wheatgrass, mother and stepmother, red clover, tansy, wood lice, horsetail, dandelion to the compost.

Dandelion flowers bloom for several days. As soon as they close completely, I pick them off along with the leaves and insist in the water. If there is aphid, then I spray the plants with this solution, and pour the rest into the compost. Immediately after collecting nettle, I send it to the compost or make an infusion from it, which I then also pour into the compost. When I insist on slurry, the rest of it is always sent from the tank to the compost. The greenhouse on our site has already served its term and has begun to collapse. I am many years old, and it makes no sense to build a new shelter.

Cucumbers are also good on composting. The biofuel layer there is up to 80 cm, there will be enough heat, I will cover them on top with a film. In the cold summer, the harvest will probably be less than in the hot season, but this does not matter to me. The harvest will still be, you just have to pick up the varieties. And tomatoes are also obtained in the open field, now there is already a large selection of varieties and hybrids for this growing method. This is how our composter helps to get two harvests of green, early-maturing crops, seedlings, zucchini and pumpkins in one season.