Clay soil is difficult to cultivate; such soil is not fertile and allows the cultivation of limited varieties of garden crops. It is possible to correct the situation, but it will take time and a lot of effort. There are proven methods based on removing excess moisture by changing the topography, applying fertilizers, and growing green manure.

Clay soil

Clay consists of many tiny particles that become highly compacted when exposed to moisture. The monolithic mass allows oxygen and water to pass through itself in small quantities, which is detrimental to most plants. Biological processes are inhibited in clay. Garden crops begin to wither, productivity decreases and many plants die.

Clay soil is considered to be soil that contains up to 80% clay and 20% sand. At home, it is impossible to accurately determine the percentage. An approximate analysis can be done with a simple experiment:

• In the garden, dig a hole half the depth of a spade bayonet. Take a handful of soil with your hand and knead it into dough. If the soil is dry, you need to add a little water.
• Roll out the finished mass into a sausage, then roll up a ring with a diameter of 5 cm.

If the sausage cracks when rolled into a ring, it means the soil is loamy. The absence of cracks indicates increased clay content. In order to grow garden crops on such soil, it needs to be prepared.

Clay soil has negative qualities:

• heaviness;
• conducts heat poorly;
• does not allow oxygen to pass through;
• water stagnates on the surface, which swamps the bed;
• moisture does not reach the roots of the plant well;
• Under the sun, wet clay turns into a crust, the strength of which can be compared to concrete.

All of these negative qualities interfere with the normal biological process necessary for every plant.

It is important to know! The surface of clayey soil up to 15 cm thick may contain a small amount of humus. This is more of a minus than a plus. The problem lies in increased acidity, which has a bad effect on plants.

It is possible to turn clay into fertile soil, but the work is labor-intensive and will take at least three years.

Site preparation

Water and clay form an explosive mixture, which, when hardened, differs little from concrete. Stagnation of moisture in rainy summers threatens the area with waterlogging. Nothing will grow in such a garden. Improvement begins with the arrangement of drainage. The system is designed to remove excess moisture. To figure out whether drainage is needed, conduct a small experiment:

• A hole of about 60 cm is dug in the area. The width of the hole is taken arbitrarily.
• The hole is filled to the top with water and left for a day.

If after the specified time the water is not completely absorbed, the area needs drainage.

Surface drainage

The system involves digging small trenches along the entire perimeter of the site. Moreover, they are dug at a slope so that the water is drained by gravity to a designated place, for example, a ravine.

Dig trenches along paths, along the perimeter of beds, lawns, and recreation areas. Drainage trays covered with gratings are laid around buildings. All surface drainage is connected into one system, which can drain water into wells.

Deep drainage

Heavily flooded areas with high groundwater levels require deep drainage. The principle of the system is the same, only instead of the usual small grooves, perforated pipes - drains - are buried deep in the ground. Mains are usually laid to a depth of 1.2 m. The pipes are connected to storm drainage trays, surface drainage trenches and drainage wells. The distance between drains depends on the depth of their installation and the composition of the soil, but not more than 11 m.

To improve drainage in a heavily flooded area, it is optimal to arrange a combined drainage system, consisting of a surface and deep system.

In addition to arranging drainage, they are improving the relief in the clay area. They try to raise beds, flower beds, and vegetable gardens by adding soil. Water will drain faster from higher ground.

Fertilizer application

Clay soil is infertile. Mineral fertilizers will not help here. Only organic matter will help. Sand will help loosen the soil, and liming can reduce acidity.

Peat with manure

Improving clay soil begins with the addition of manure or peat. Organic matter is added at the rate of 2 buckets per 1 m2 of garden. The earth is dug up to a depth of 12 cm. Over time, earthworms and beneficial microorganisms will breed in this layer. The soil will become loose and moisture and oxygen will begin to penetrate inside.

Attention! Only rotted manure is used, otherwise the roots of the plants will burn. Peat should not have a rusty tint. This indicates large iron impurities that have a bad effect on vegetation. Before adding to the soil, the peat is well ventilated.

Sawdust

Sawdust is considered a good organic matter and perfectly loosens the soil. However, during decay, they pull nitrogen from the soil, reducing its fertility. The problem can be corrected by wetting the sawdust before adding it to the soil with a urea solution. The fertilizer is diluted with water to a concentration of 1.5%.

Advice! Wood chips soaked in pet urine that have been used as bedding work best.

Sawdust is added at the rate of 1 bucket per 1 m2 of garden. The earth is dug up to a depth of 12–15 cm.

Sand with humus

Sand will help loosen clay soil. However, it is not fertile in itself. Sand is added with humus. This needs to be done every fall. The amount of sand depends on what crops will grow in the garden bed. Let’s say that to grow vegetables and flowers, 1 m2 of land is covered with 1 bucket of sand. When growing cabbage, apple trees, and beets, the amount of sand per 1 m2 is reduced to 0.5 buckets. In at least 5 years, the thickness of the fertile layer will reach 18 cm.

Important! Sand with humus must be added annually. The beneficial substances from the humus of the plant will be taken away and must be replenished. The sand will settle within a year. If you do not add a new portion, the soil will again become clayey and heavy.

Soil liming

Liming the soil helps reduce acidity and increase fertility. This is done in the fall once every five years. Slaked lime is added to the soil to reduce acidity, and chalk helps increase fertility, as it contains a lot of calcium. The addition of wood ash, dolomite flour and ground limestone shows good results. The amount of substances applied depends on the composition of the soil. This cannot be done at random. A preliminary analysis is required.

Growing green manure

Annual plants called green manures are well suited to fertilize the soil. They are sown before planting vegetables or after harvesting. Young greens are mowed, but not removed from the garden, but dug up with soil. The most common green manures are:

• Rye. Sow in August after harvesting. Greens can be dug up late in the fall or in the spring before planting.
• Clover. The site cannot be used for planting garden crops for three years. Clover is mowed annually and the green mass is left to lie in the garden. In the third year, the plot is dug up to a depth of 12 cm. The clover roots will also rot and become additional fertilizer.
• Phacelia. Sow in spring after snow melts. At least a month after germination, but three weeks before planting, the green mass is mowed. The garden is dug up to a depth of 15 cm.
• Mustard. White mustard is considered green manure No. 1. It is sown in early spring and mowed when the seedling height reaches 10 cm. It can be sown in August after harvesting vegetables, and mowed in the fall before frost. The soil with green manure is dug up to a depth of 12 cm.

Empty areas of the garden can be planted with ground cover plants. In hot weather, they will prevent overheating of the soil, retain moisture and become an organic fertilizer in the future.

Gardeners adopt the experience of the older generation and often use traditional methods of improving clay soil. Here are a few of them:

• Large clods help improve the structure of the soil. In the fall, the site is not interrupted with a walk-behind tractor, but dug up manually with a shovel. Large clods of earth retain snow in winter and warm up better in spring. Fertility will not increase, but the soil will become more pliable in processing.
• The clayey area cannot be dug deeper than 25 cm. This will not make the soil looser. As the depth increases, the properties of the clay become even more pronounced.
• Using mulch on the beds gives good results. Straw, sawdust, leaves or pine needles are spread on the ground around garden plantings. Mulch prevents rapid evaporation of moisture and the formation of crust on clay soil. The thickness of the mulch depends on the material used and is a maximum of 5 cm. In the fall, it is dug up with soil in the garden bed to obtain organic fertilizer.

Advice! It is easier to dig up clay soil in dry weather. It is difficult to work with wet clay, plus you will end up with lumps that are difficult to break after drying in the sun.

Recently, gardeners have begun to adhere to an innovation that involves partial improvement of the soil. The area with clay soil is not dug up and fertilized, but only the beds where garden crops are supposed to be planted.

If all else fails

If work to improve clay soil is unsuccessful, do not abandon the site. Even on such land you can grow useful crops:

• from flowers you can plant peonies, aconite, Volzhanka;
• among garden crops, many varieties of strawberries, cabbage, salads, and peas take root well;
• Among the fruit crops that grow on clay are currants, plums, cherries, and grapes.

It all depends on the varieties of each crop. Those plants and trees that can withstand a lack of oxygen and high humidity will grow on clay.

Plants should not be tested for survival. The composition of any clay soil can be improved, you just need to put in as much work as possible and be patient.

Happy owners of dacha acres know well that it is impossible to obtain rich land on a plot without effort. This requires a lot of work. But before you begin the transformation, it is important to determine its initial state. This determines which additives to use and in what quantities. How to make the soil loose and fertile will be discussed in our article.

How to make the soil loose and fertile

Ideally, the natural soil from the site can be taken to an agricultural laboratory, where a full analysis will be done. Its results will show exactly how to optimize the soil in your garden. Unfortunately, such testing is not available to most owners. No problem! Some characteristics can be determined independently, for example, mechanical composition. It is responsible for air and moisture content. You can recognize it yourself if you moisten a small amount of earth with water and form a ball out of it. As a result:

• the figurine crumbles, which means the soil is sandy;
• the ball can be rolled into a cord and formed into a ring - the soil is considered clayey.

In the first case, additives are needed to retain moisture. You can loosen heavy soil using coarse sand or bottom peat. Any type of soil will need nutritional supplements; the best ones are organic fertilizers.

Fertilization with manure

Animal waste products contain a full range of substances necessary for plants. This is why adding organic fertilizers makes the soil fertile. Any type of manure – cow, pig or horse – is applied to garden and garden crops. Attention! It is important to follow these rules:

1. Fresh fertilizers can only be applied in the fall to empty areas, where there are no plantings, for example, in a vegetable garden. Manure in this form is an aggressive substance that is dangerous to plants. Therefore, it must be added to the soil in advance, 5–6 months before planting. During this time, it will be converted to a safe state, and nutrients will become available to plants. The additive not only serves as a top dressing, but also acts as a leavening agent for the garden soil.
2. Rotted fertilizers can be used in the spring, during planting.

• horse – 5–6 kg;
• cow - 4–5 kg.

The amount of rotted manure is reduced by half. Pig manure is not recommended to be applied fresh, even in the fall, due to the high content of aggressive nitrogen in ammonia form. The fertilizer must be kept for at least a year until it completely rots. It is better to mix it with horse or cow milk or put it in compost.

Mulching with grass clippings

Can be used from early spring to late autumn. This type of soil fertilization is classified as MDU - slow-acting fertilizers. The use of mulch allows you to:

1. Make the soil loose and soft in the garden and garden.
2. Retain moisture by reducing evaporation.
3. Provide constant feeding thanks to the gradual decomposition of the mulch.

Grass clippings are an effective loosening agent for heavy clay soils.

Planting plants with long roots

Proponents of organic farming recommend improving soil quality with the help of green manure. Plants are sown whose roots contain nodule bacteria that capture and fix nitrogen from the air. Thus, a natural, environmentally friendly fertilizer is obtained. Thanks to the powerful root system, green manure makes the soil crumbly and aerates it. This is especially important for heavy or peaty soils. To improve the structure and fertility of the soil, leguminous plants are most often used, for example, lupine, peas, alfalfa, vetch or beans. Even if your site has fertile soil, it needs to be improved periodically. To make the chernozem loose, it is also sown with green manure. This is more environmentally friendly than adding bulk additives and digging.

Green manure

Improving the soil is not a one-time event. You need to maintain optimal condition regularly. To do this, it is not necessary to purchase expensive fertilizers. You can use plant material that is available at each site:

• mowed lawn grass;
• weeded weeds;
• clipped shoots;
• wilted flowers, etc.

It's essentially garden waste, but can be turned into an effective fertilizer. Experienced gardeners offer useful tips on preparing green fertilizers. Here is one of them:

• a large capacity container, for example a barrel, is filled two-thirds with crushed plant residues;
• fill with water to the top;
• leave for a week and a half, stirring daily.

Before feeding, the resulting concentrated solution is filtered and diluted in a ratio of 1:10.

other methods

To improve the structure of heavy soil, the easiest way is to use coarse-grained washed river sand. To make light soil from medium loam, you will need 21 kg/m2. This is about one and a half buckets with a volume of 10 liters. The sand is evenly distributed over the surface and dug to a depth of 20–25 cm, to the full bayonet of a shovel. When preparing a plant mixture for seedlings, sand is almost always used. It is mixed with peat and compost to obtain a light nutrient substrate. Fertilizers that contain calcium are good leavening agents:

• slaked lime;
• dolomite flour;
• ash.

They are added to acidic soils to neutralize the pH level. Sometimes soil optimization on a site is a lengthy and costly process. It’s easier to take fertile soil from manufacturers who mix all the necessary components in advance.

Whether to improve the soil on the site yourself or add a ready-made mixture is up to everyone to decide for themselves. It depends on your financial capabilities and the amount of work.

We look up to nature

What to do? Of course, to grow, groom, cherish the inhabitants of the soil, and loosen, just loosen the soil so as not to harm them! Instead of a shovel, you will use a Fokin flat cutter. It has a pointed end, so you will use it to make furrows, first along, then across, deepening it into the soil by about 5 cm. Then, with the flat part of the flat cutter, lightly dig up this layer.

If necessary, you can rake it out. By the way, a rake can also be used to loosen the top layer of soil. The best choice for such surface cultivation of the soil is a manual cultivator, which, in addition to wheels loosening the soil, also has a cutting plate.

You can do this work with a sharpened hoe, a Strizh weeder and other devices. There are quite a few of them on sale now. The only requirement for such tools is that they must be very well sharpened. And don't believe in self-sharpening. The tool must be sharpened before each use, then the work will go smoothly. These tools should not be buried deeper than 5 cm into the soil, and they should not mix the layers. You can dig with a regular shovel, but only superficially.

Don't worry about the roots, they will find their way into the deeper layers, penetrating into the microchannels left by the root system of the previous occupants (if you didn't destroy them by digging). So the roots do not need deep digging.

Why is humus needed? Humus is the most valuable component of any soil. It is created by earthworms and soil microorganisms. Therefore, a completely reliable indicator of soil fertility is the number of earthworms living in it. The more there are, the more fertile the soil. The more humus, the darker the color of the soil.

Humus- complex organo-mineral formation. Its main part is humic acids and fulvates.

Humic acids“glue”, like synthetic glue, the smallest lumps of soil into aggregates that do not stick together. Thus, a soil structure is created in which between these units water and air easily penetrate into the soil thickness.

Fulvates carry a negative electrostatic charge on their surface and attract positively charged ions of chemical elements found in the soil solution, in particular nitrogen. That is, they help saturate the soil with minerals.

One square meter of soil 25 cm thick (topsoil) weighs about 250 kg. If there is about 4% humus in the soil, then these 250 kg contain only 10 kg. During the season, plant roots destroy about 200 g of humus from each square meter of arable layer. To restore it, you will need to annually add a bucket (5 kg) of humus per meter of soil surface. If, instead of humus, you add a green mass of green manure, weeds, grass, leaves or other unrotted organic matter, then their amount should be increased three times.

Sometimes the question is asked: Where is it better to add organic matter - to the top layer of soil or to the bottom? It is more economically feasible to apply it to the lower layer of soil. That is, to build up the fertile layer of soil from below. At the depth of the shovel bayonet, 6 times more humus is formed than in the upper layer with the same amount of added organic matter. But digging is only permissible in a layer of 5 cm. What to do?

If your soil is very poor(gray color indicates that the soil contains only 2% humus), the first digging should be done as follows. Mark the bed. To avoid trampling the soil, place a board across the bed, moving it away from the edge to the width of a spade bayonet. Standing on the board, remove the soil and pile it near the end of the bed. Use a pitchfork to loosen the bottom layer. Fill the dug trench with a green mass of weeds or grass clippings and move the board further. Now, without turning over, place the soil removed from the next trench onto the green mass. Loosen the bottom layer in the second trench with a fork, put the green mass into it, move the board even further, and so continue until the end of the bed. When the last trench is filled with green mass, transfer to it the soil that was removed from the very first trench and piled near the end of the bed. The most important thing in such digging is not to turn the soil over. In all subsequent years, you will add green mass of weeds or sawdust, leaves and other organic matter to the surface of the bed. Then it will need to be lightly sprinkled with earth or dug up together with the top layer of soil to a depth of no more than 5 cm. This work is best done in late summer or early autumn, so that by spring most of the organic matter has time to rot.

But what if you have solid clay or heavy loam on your site? Moreover, don’t dig. Books often recommend adding sand and organic matter to clay soils. But anyone who has done this knows that after a season the sand goes deeper, and clay comes to the surface again. You will need to annually add a bucket of sand and a bucket of organic matter to every square meter of soil surface for 12-15 years, until finally the land becomes more or less suitable for a vegetable garden. Scientists' calculations show that to sand just one square meter of clay soils, you will need about 150 kg of sand! And this is only for one square meter! Why do you need such hard labor?

If you have very dense soil, build up the fertile layer on top. That is, put compost on the site of the future bed. So that you are not embarrassed by its unpresentable appearance, fence the beds with some slats, poles and sow peas, nasturtiums or climbing decorative beans in front of them, or plant beans, sunflowers, corn, and cosmos around the perimeter. Only leave a passage on the side you can't see to fill the pile.

So, without humus in agriculture, “neither here nor here.” It will have to be systematically increased, as nature does, by introducing organic matter. Moreover, every year the plants themselves return more to the soil than they take out of it.

The easiest way to grow humus is through a compost heap. To speed up the process of humus formation, you should use live bacteria, which are contained in the preparations "Vozrozhdenie" and "Baikal EM-1". This should be done in mid-summer.

Why does the land become impoverished? This is a frequently observed phenomenon. The soil stops "working". She is “on strike” and her harvests are falling. And then we begin to increase the dose of mineral fertilizers, buy or store manure. But after a while everything “returns to normal.” What's the matter?

Nature does not sow green manure, does not apply manure in such quantities as we do, but from year to year it grows huge forests and meadows, and everything is in order. But the fact is that plants build up organic mass much more than what they remove from the soil by destroying humus. That is, they do not deplete, but on the contrary, increase the fertility of the land. How do they succeed, and why can’t we?

Have you seen nature raking and carrying away, and even burning fallen leaves and dead plants? What are we doing? Not only do we remove the nutrients stored in the fruits from the soil with the harvest. And we don’t return the loot. We also remove fallen leaves and plant debris, interfering with the normal process of humus restoration. Where does it come from if there is no source material? In addition, with endless digging we destroy the natural structure of the soil. And in such soil there are practically no inhabitants. Notice how barren soil looks like gray, lifeless dust.

Usually to improve soil fertility It is recommended to sow the field with green manure or leave it to “walk”, that is, not to sow anything on it. It, of course, will immediately be overgrown with weeds, which, like specially sown green manure, are recommended to be dug up after a year.

Beginning gardeners will ask: What are green manures? These are plants on the roots of which live bacteria that can take nitrogen from the air and accumulate it in the soil. The green above-ground mass, being dug up along with the soil, will introduce into it the organic matter necessary for the life of microorganisms.

Peas, alfalfa, vetch, clover, and lupine can be sown as green manure. It is also recommended to add bacterial preparations AMB, Azotobacterin, Phosphorobacterin, Nitragin. That is, we are invited to populate the field with bacteria. The “walking” field is by no means kept fallow, that is, “naked.” It is populated by plants, and, oddly enough, the tired, depleted soil does not tire further, but is perfectly restored.

Why does it get tired and exhausted in our country, but not in nature? Yes, because she doesn’t dig and doesn’t take anything away from her fields. Everything returns back to the ground, and with high interest. So let's follow nature, take less, give more. How to do it?

Do not remove weeded weeds from the beds, from under bushes and trees, but leave them lying between the rows and under the plantings. Don't worry, they will disappear in a couple of weeks because the worms will drag them down their tunnels into the ground. Until then, they will serve as a mulching material for some time, that is, they will cover open areas on the soil and prevent moisture from evaporating from the surface and preventing the soil structure from collapsing. Do not remove the roots and above-ground parts of plants after harvesting. Leave everything in the garden beds.

If you are afraid of pathogens on these plant residues, then treat the beds directly over them with the drug “Fitosporin”. The live predator bacterium contained in this preparation will “eat” the causative agents of any fungal and bacterial diseases during the fall. It, unlike the bacteria mentioned above, dies not at one degree of frost, but at minus 20 degrees. If the winter turns out to be warm, then it will safely overwinter in the soil and will continue to serve as a nurse in your beds. And if the winter does turn out to be harsh, there is usually a lot of snow, and under this coat she has a great chance of surviving.

Of course, pests that overwinter under plant debris cannot be destroyed in this way, but they can also be dealt with if you take good care of your pets.

So, the reason for the impoverishment of the soil lies in unreasonable land use. If all the time you only remove nutrients from the soil along with the harvest, then there will be nothing left in it. We have to return it someday.

G. Kizima, gardener

While heatedly discussing ways to increase the productivity of certain garden crops, many summer residents lose sight of the fact that all these issues have the same root. And until you deal with it, nothing worthwhile will grow in the garden beds.

Don't push for pity

There is a saying: “A stupid person grows weeds, a smart person grows vegetables, and a wise person grows soil.” These words contain the whole meaning of working in the garden! What do you, dear readers, think? Do you agree with this saying?

And what type of people do you consider yourself to be: stubborn conservatives or curious innovators?

Although, I understand, no one wants to be stupid, probably everyone considers themselves wise. Is this so? How often do I read letters that are filled with complaints about the soil: some complain that their soil is sand, others cry because of clay, and still others generally make “discoveries” such as the fact that, for example, they have loamy black soil. What exactly is this, does anyone know? And all such messages end the same way - nothing grows in the garden, and if it does, it’s very bad.

But, fortunately, there are other messages where people tell how they turned poor land into fertile one. And there are more and more such lucky ones, which is very pleasing. Thanks to them! They are real hard workers. And since we’re talking about soil, how can we not remember about our second bread.

Potatoes are the best indicator of what is going on in the garden. He needs good, loose soil; without it you won’t get normal harvests.

And the one who managed to fulfill this main condition and make friends with potatoes will no longer be able to confuse the rest of the garden crops - which of them will be weird on the fertile land? For example, varietal large-fruited garlic generally grows in me like on a conveyor belt (photo 1). Loose soil is also good for carrots and other root vegetables.

Again, experience with potatoes teaches you to be careful and thoughtful about watering. With them, our second bread yields twice as much. Anyone who underestimates this loses a lot. And any fertilizers and all kinds of growth stimulants are only the third condition for a good harvest.

I don’t think anyone needs to explain why tubers need loose soil. But maybe someone doesn't know? Then, in short: if the soil is light, then the growing tuber effortlessly pushes it apart, and nothing interferes with its uniform growth. So it turns out smooth, depending on the variety, round or oblong, as the breeder “ordered” it. And heavy soil is more difficult to move apart, so the potatoes there are smaller in size and more bizarre in shape.

Voids and dimensions

I have experienced all this wisdom myself. When I bought a small house in the village with a plot of 20 acres, I immediately realized that the former owners did not garden, because there was no soil there, but solid clay. In 2011, I planted 12 varieties of potatoes. Only one survived and gave an excellent harvest - Vineta (originally from Germany). Apparently, there is some kind of indestructible inner strength in him. I still haven’t parted with it: it produces crops in any weather and on any soil, and is resistant to late blight.

That year his tubers were also huge, but not round, as they should be, but lumpy, like cobblestones. This is the result of uncultivated soil. I don’t have photographs from that time, but today Vineta’s tubers are the same as in photo 2. I write so much about him because I am very grateful to him. If it hadn’t yielded a harvest then, I might have given up growing potatoes altogether. Therefore, I advise: if you are new to cultivating this crop, start with Vineta. Well, now I’ll tell you in detail how I improved my soil. By the way, a question: do you know the criteria for assessing its quality? After all, the words “good” or “loose” by themselves mean little.

So, loose soil is when you can stick your hand into it up to the wrist without effort(i.e. approximately to a depth of 15-20 cm). So that. So think about what kind of land you have.

To begin with, I marked out the ridges a meter wide, and my husband fenced them off with boards. It’s already easier: all work to improve fertility now needs to be carried out only in stationary boxes. I made passages between them of 50 cm each. Looking ahead, I will say that later, for the sake of convenience, I changed these dimensions: I made the ridges a little less than 1.5 m wide, and the passages – 70 cm each.

I plant potatoes in boxes in two rows. Believe me, the sparser the holes are placed, the more opportunities the plants will have for normal growth. And only then will they please you, first with strong, powerful stems, and then with large, numerous tubers (if, of course, your variety has not yet degenerated).

Although I don’t strive for records, the past season was generous with achievements. For example, one tuber of the Unica variety grew weighing a little more than a kilogram (photo 3). Someone reading this will say: “That’s all!” I won’t argue, the weight is not prohibitive, but it’s not 150-200 g. After all, there are gardeners who don’t like very large potatoes (though I haven’t personally met such people, but only saw their letters) for fear that there are “giants” inside there may be voids. Well, then they can save time and not read about what I write here - this information is not for them. Although the large tuber potato varieties that I currently grow do not have any voids. And large potatoes just make my soul happy. Imagine, one bush of the same Unica produces 4-5 kilos of tubers, Sonny - about the same, but Galaxy is a little more generous: last year it gave out six kilos (photo 4)!

Yes, it’s a little difficult for me to harvest such a harvest: you dig and dig and wonder when it will end. And the number of varieties, like a snowball, grows and grows, although every year I reject 10. As a result, I don’t even know exactly how many of them I have in use now (last fall I was sent 21 varieties).

Soil improvement experiments

Got distracted again. Let's return to the ground. The first two years I did this: I brought peat, manure, sawdust by car and distributed it all over the ridges, mixing it with clay. The result was ambiguous: the soil did become loose, but by the next season there were no noticeable traces of sawdust and peat. Some monkey work! Although by that time the ground could no longer be called clay, but loam, I realized that this path was a dead end. And the work was terribly hard.

My next experiment was like this. I dug holes the size of a 10-liter bucket in the beds, transferred the excavated soil to another place (for example, to beds made for watermelons and pumpkins), placed fertilizers on the bottom, mixing them with the soil, and on top - a tuber with long etiolated (sprouted in darkness) with sprouts (photo 5), and filled the remaining space with well-decomposed black peat. If desired, it can be replaced with loose compost or soil mixed with sawdust, or finely chopped hay.

This work was also not easy: during the season it was possible to prepare only 13-14 beds in this way. Potatoes grew wonderfully in such pits, the yield was high. But! When I dug up the crop, the peat was still mixed with loam, because in the presence of loose soil, the tubers not only grow to the sides, but also burrow into the depths. And I was forced to improve the technique.

It's very simple, remember. So, first we fence off the place where the bed should be with boards, take out the turf and hammer many small wooden logs into the bottom of the bed. Next, fill the box with loose substrate.

That's all! In the spring, all that remains is to add a little sawdust treated with urea and a little fertilizer for potatoes before planting.

I will add that I do not hill up the plantings, but only mulch them with a 3 cm thick layer of mowed grass (but only after the sprouts have sprouted). Over the summer I add this mulch a couple of times more, and when I dig up the crop, the soil underneath remains loose. Actually, I don’t even dig, I just pull out the tubers with my hands. I take a shovel when the potatoes are deep.

I have to admit that it all looks easy and attractive only in words - making such ridges in reality is very difficult. After all, in practice I replace natural clay with another soil. Consider the amount of work! But everything is done only once, and the result lasts for many, many years. Even if you make at least five such beds in one season, you will already achieve excellent results.

We got our own piece of land more than twenty years ago. My parents got it. It was a former collective farm field, plowed up and down for many years. The first summer it was a sad sight: blocks of earth, turned up by a plow and hard as stone, thickets of weeds.

How to approach this, what to do?
But as they say: “The eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing.”

I had to dig up clods of earth with shovels and uproot weeds. The first year we had to make do with just planting potatoes. No water, no proper care, and so is the harvest. In the fall, the first seedlings were planted and a berry garden was established. There was no experience, they planted it anyhow, and subsequently a lot had to be redone (oh, what would have been the current experience, but at that time, how much effort and labor could have been saved!).

Over time, our site has changed, tasted the first fruits of their labor. Mom’s caring hands literally passed every grain of earth through her; there was not a single empty place, everything around was planted. Mother's viburnum is still growing, blooming profusely in the spring and abundantly strewn with clusters of berries in the fall. Gradually, I also developed an interest in the land, apparently this was passed on from my mother. I was working in the north at the time and was only at home for two weeks, but I tried to spend any free time in the garden.

But my mother passed away. I had to gradually master the wisdom of growing seedlings and caring for plants. I hit a lot of bumps before things started to work out. Experience gradually came, but the feeling of dissatisfaction did not leave me; too much effort was required to get results. There must be some way to avoid spending so much effort to get a harvest. And, it seemed, he was found (as it turned out later, a dead end).

I came across the brochure “Vegetable growing in narrow beds, the method of D. Mittleider.” After reading it, I said to myself: “This is what you need.” Only one and a half hundred square meters of land, of which only a third is cultivated, to provide a family of four with vegetables. I waited impatiently for spring, made beds (45 cm wide, one meter paths), applied mineral fertilizers as indicated, planted seedlings, and sowed seeds. Every week I applied a portion of fertilizer according to the calculations. The harvest turned out to be good. Next year it will be good again. “This is how you need it!” - I thought. But in the third year I feel: something is wrong.

The earth became chalky and turned to dust, the slightest lack of moisture - and it became like a stone, we had to constantly water it, but the earth refused to accept water. The constant application of mineral water caused the soil to become acidic, and large amounts of lime had to be added. Earthworms began to leave the beds. I persistently continued to work according to Mittleider. The earth was dying...

But as they say: “There would be no happiness, but misfortune would help.” Spring 2003, heart attack, work on the ground is out of the question - doctors forbade it. But how can you be separated from your favorite garden? I decided: “I won’t give up!” But that was not the case, I picked up a shovel, dug about a meter and that’s it. I had to plant and sow in undug beds; I just sprinkled humus on top.

It was during this difficult time that I came across Nikolai Kurdyumov’s book “The Smart Garden and the Tricky Vegetable Garden.” I read it and thought: “What the hell is it, I have nothing to lose, maybe it will work out.” And I got down to business.

Well, of course, in the first year, not everything worked out as it should, but “trouble began.” I stopped digging (I wasn’t able to do it anyway), I just loosened it, mulched the soil as much as possible, and began using EM preparations, first Baikal, and then Siyanie.

On the paths that I had previously scraped to a shine, I allowed grass to grow. As it grew, I mowed it down and used it as mulch. “Weeds” were also used, and they turned from enemies into helpers. Their roots penetrate to such depths, take them out and leave behind a lot of nutrients that it would be stupid not to use this to your advantage.

As soon as the opportunity arose, I sowed green manure, whose roots replaced my shovel, and the green mass after pruning served as shelter from the scorching sun, and as it decomposed, also as food for the next generation of plants.

The beds were never empty, perhaps in early spring. The abundance of organic matter has attracted a lot of earthworms, and now the main job of improving the soil lies with them.

Wild herbs also appeared on my site: yarrow, celandine, sweet clover, knotweed. Once I prepared an infusion of nettles, used it, and scattered the remains around the area. Now I have my own nettle growing in several places, I cut it in one place for infusion, next time in another, lo and behold, it has already grown back.

There was even a place for wormwood, I scattered the branches over the cabbage, you don’t like the cruciferous flea beetle, and even the white flea beetle doesn’t like it, but the infusion helps against many pests. And the problems with pests turned out to be solvable.

Healthy, strong plants can fend for themselves. By the way, I began to notice that many insects, which we consider pests, prefer to settle on weeds, if they exist.

In a greenhouse, for example, if garden sow thistle (a thorny plant) grows, then the aphids do not touch my cucumbers. In the thick grass there is a place to hide for my assistants - predatory insects. Lizards and frogs moved in with me. Are pesticides really needed after this?

Gradually the earth began to come to life and it became clear that you can work on the land without extra effort. For six years my land has not known what a shovel is, and every year it gets better and better. Plants hardly get sick, there are fewer and fewer “pests and weeds”, and working in the garden is just a pleasure.

Ildus Khannanov, Ufa