Land for garden beds 

For any gardener and gardener, the question of the quality of the land in his beds and flower beds is the most burning issue. Both those who started farming their land from scratch and others who have inherited cultivated land for many years are equally concerned about how to arrange and maintain the fertility of their land. Indeed, without special care, the land very quickly overgrows with weeds and it is already difficult to grow something on it. But, on the other hand, care can be so intense that in a few years, even on the best land initially, yields will fall, and it will be harder and harder to take care of it.

This article will consider the main so-called difficult types of soils in Our Country. The main options for arranging beds on various types of land will be described.

Good land for plants – what is it

Of course, for each type of plant, including garden plants, ideas about the ideal land may differ somewhat. Some like it lighter, others like it heavier. Some prefer a slightly alkaline reaction of the environment, give acidic peatlands to others. But still, for most horticultural crops there are more or less general average land requirements, without which they will either not grow at all, or the yields will be minimal.

So, what are the main properties that the earth should be characterized in order for plants to develop well and delight you with their productivity.

• Sufficient breathability. Often it means loose earth, but this is not always the case. Sometimes a good land with lots of air capillaries can look comparatively dense, but that’s only at first glance.

  

• Moisture permeability and moisture capacity. Ideally, the earth should simultaneously conduct moisture well and retain some of it, so that moisture is retained inside the soil layer in any weather and at any temperature.
• Neutral reaction of the environment. Since the vast majority of lands in Our Country are rather acidic, only a limited set of crops can grow on them. Most garden plants need a neutral or slightly alkaline environment. In any case, it is better to start from a neutral environment initially, and then, as individual crops with specific requirements are grown, adjust the reaction of the environment in the right direction.

  

• The saturation of the earth with nutrients is desirable in a form that is easily digestible for plants. This can be achieved using both mineral and organic fertilizers. But, given that future food products will be grown on this land, it is better to give preference to organic. Moreover, it acts softer and more long-term than mineral fertilizers.

The fastest solution to a problem

Unfortunately, not all gardeners can boast that they have land in their beds in the garden or in the garden that has all of the above properties. Otherwise, they would hardly be interested in the topic of this article. And there is a whole army of newcomers who have just received the land and, in general, do not know what to do with it, and whether anything cultural will grow on it. Therefore, the creation of suitable land for beds is more than an urgent problem for most gardeners.

For those who are desperate to grow anything satisfactory on their land, or who have just purchased uncultivated land, the most convenient and quickest option seems to be to buy and bring one or more machines of fertile soil to the site. Then carefully scatter this earth throughout the site or form ready-made beds from it or even fill it with the so-called high beds, and grow whatever your heart desires. Apart from the high financial cost, this option seems to have no disadvantages.

Indeed, the composition of fertile land, which is offered for sale by many specialized companies, is quite attractive: 50% peat, 30% black soil and 20% sand. But even if this composition is fully observed, then the newly brought land will have enough resources for growth for a maximum of several years. Then you still need to do something with it. Not to mention that if you just scatter it around the site, it will quickly mix with the original earth, it will quickly be occupied by weeds and everything will return to normal.

But the main problem, perhaps, is that anything can be in the composition of this so-called fertile soil. The so-called chernozem can be dug out from a neighboring lawn and turn out to be ordinary marshy land, often acquiring a black color. Even if the chernozem was brought from the southern regions, it could be taken from fully developed industrial fields, fertilized for many years with shock doses of chemicals. Peat may be raised and not completely decomposed with an acidic reaction.

Therefore, this option can work quite well only if you find a reliable supplier and backfill not the entire territory of the garden, but only high beds specially erected for this purpose.

High beds

Now high beds or boxes are in fashion. For many owners of small plots of land from 6 to 20 acres, they really are the solution to many problems. This is a neat view of the garden, and a small laboriousness in the further care of them, and, most importantly, a good and rapid growth of almost all cultivated plants in these structures. That’s just to make such beds – this is not an easy job, although it pays off quickly enough – already in the current season.

Raised beds can be of different sizes. There are so-called boxes, their height usually does not exceed 10-20 cm, and they are made of their wide boards or slate. However, it is not forbidden to use any improvised materials, as long as they keep the shape of the beds. More capital structures are erected from bricks, stones, blocks or concrete. They are usually larger in height – they can reach 50 or even 70 cm. Coarse organic material is placed at the very bottom of such beds – rotten boards, logs, hemp. The “softer” material is placed a little higher – branches, wood chips, bark, all this is flavored with a thick layer of manure, it can even be half-decomposed, and watered abundantly. Then any organic material, such as hay, straw, sawdust, mowed grass, is laid in layers and overlaid with humus. It is advisable to sprinkle or spill each layer of 5 cm with any complex of beneficial microorganisms. Now there are many of them for sale. Baikal, Shining, Emochki and so on. The topmost layer in the bed, about 7-8 cm thick at least, consists of compost or earth mixed with humus. For boxes that are small in height, there can be about two or three layers, for high ones – more than a dozen.

There is no need to mix them, everything will be done for you by microorganisms that will settle in such a bed and will constantly maintain the most favorable conditions for plant growth in it. All you need to do is to regularly top up with a mixture of earth and compost or even clean compost.

Options for arranging beds on what is

For most gardeners, the option to purchase land is impossible, due to the high cost of the material or because of the large areas of the garden and vegetable garden. What can be advised in such cases?

In fact, there are no bad lands. On any of them, you can grow very good yields of even the most capricious crops. Just for this you need to take into account the features of those lands that you got, and turn their shortcomings into virtues. And, of course, use the knowledge prompted by nature itself.

First of all, you need to understand the difference between humus and compost.

Manure is completely decomposed manure. Accordingly, if you do not have a cow, or at least chickens, then you will have to buy it.

Compost is a collection of all kinds of organic residues, primarily vegetable, flavored with waste from your table. It completely turns into humus only after a year or two. With the use of compost ripening accelerators, this process can be accelerated several times.

sandy lands

One of the best for growing any plants, because they have the following advantages:

• Accumulate heat;
• Breathable;
• Create a favorable environment for the development of roots;
• They retain moisture well with a large layer thickness.

The main disadvantage of sandy lands is the poverty of nutrients and their easy washing out of it.

Accordingly, the main technique for improving sandy lands is the regular application of fertilizers, preferably organic. And you can use both humus and compost. But compost for use on sandy lands is preferable because it is not yet fully decomposed plant residues. This means that when organic matter is washed out of the sand, it will constantly come in the right quantities from the compost that continues to decompose.

Another technique for improving sandy lands is to add some clay to them to improve the adhesion of soil particles.

Wetlands

This is a fairly common type of land, which is heavy loam or clay in combination with a high level of groundwater.

This is a difficult type of land, and gardeners prefer to make high ridges with bulk earth on them, assuming that nothing more can be done with them. In principle, this is one of the correct approaches, especially if we mean trees and shrubs that need a large layer of breathable earth. For ordinary garden plants, there are other ways.

It will be useful to install drainage ditches, which will lower the groundwater level by a few centimeters and the earth will dry out slightly.

It is desirable to prepare such lands for planting in the fall, then during the winter they will have time to ripen and all harmful emissions will evaporate. It is necessary to dig them very shallowly, a maximum of 10 cm. Be sure to apply ash on the soil surface after digging, since these lands are usually highly acidic. Applying plenty of organic matter will also help the soil mature faster in the spring. But mineral fertilizers can only harm in this situation.

In spring, the earth is no longer dug up, but simply loosened along with plant residues from sown green manure. This land is already quite suitable for beds. Although good crops can begin to be harvested only a couple of years after the constant introduction of organic materials, ash and growing green manure in the vacated beds.

Earth on permafrost

Only a rather meager assortment of vegetables grows on these lands, primarily due to the lack of heat. Therefore, the most common method in these conditions is soil insulation. To do this, a trench with a depth of at least 50-70 cm is dug at the site of the future bed. Any heat-insulating materials are laid at the bottom of the trench: from logs and boards to empty closed plastic bottles. From above, the trench is filled with a mixture of earth, humus and compost.

So, in order to significantly improve the land for beds on your site, you must:

• Regularly grow green manure on your site to obtain a large amount of organic matter for compost and beds.
• Form compost heaps annually for regular replenishment of high and regular beds.
• Constantly mulch the ground in the beds with a layer of cut grass or straw.

Conclusion

If you follow all the above recommendations, your garden bed will soon satisfy all the most sophisticated requirements of the most capricious crops, wherever you are.