Interesting DIY vegetable garden ideas. New, non-standard ideas for decorating your dacha and garden plot

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This book was written by an amateur gardener for the same amateur gardeners, and therefore is free of scientific terminology and Latin, understandable only to specialists in this field.

Unfortunately, there is still an opinion among them that amateur gardeners are some kind of annoying obstacle to development Agriculture countries, and therefore their requests can be ignored. But it’s no secret that more than 60% of all vegetable and green products and 80% of potatoes in our country are produced in garden plots and in private farms. We do not grow cereals only because our tiny plots of land do not allow us such luxury. But 90% of fruit and berry crops grow precisely on these patches of land. In fact, 16 million household and garden plots almost completely provide their own population with berries and fruits. It is high time to take into account the needs and satisfy the interests of one tenth of the country’s population.

Manufacturers mineral fertilizers, seeds and protective equipment have already begun to take our interests into account (where should they go if the main buyers of their products are currently amateur gardeners!). But experts in the field of agricultural technology are not yet in a hurry to help us, with rare exceptions, and stubbornly continue to write articles and books exclusively for themselves. Perhaps in the near future, the bison of agriculture will descend upon us, mere mortals, not very educated in their field, but very inquisitive and with enormous experience in this very agricultural science, and will finally write popular books for us. In the meantime, the amateur has to fill this gap, and it is quite natural that his amateurish ears sometimes stick out in the text, making the specialist cringe. But what to do. For the sake of the popularity of the presentation, one has to sacrifice scientific accuracy - any popular book should, first of all, be interesting and understandable to the reader. In addition, it must contain useful and reliable information suitable for practical use.

Nowadays, quite a lot of popular literature is published, written by amateurs, the information in which is often contradictory. The question is, who to believe? But you need to trust experience, and therefore my advice to you: when trusting, check! Only as a result personal experience you will be able to create your own land use system on your site, which will satisfy you both from the point of view of physical, mental and financial costs, and in terms of the results obtained.

The state takes special care of consumers of agricultural products: it purchases expensive and far from safe imported fruits and fruits for foreign currency from foreign companies. My dear readers, you, of course, have noticed that beautiful imported agricultural products, reminiscent of synthetic toys, have neither taste nor smell, and can sit for months without spoiling. Even rotting bacteria can’t handle it, it’s so stuffed with pesticides, which are treated up to 18–20 times per season! These products are not only not useful, they are harmful! Before use, it should be soaked for a couple of hours in the “Healthy Garden” preparation in order to remove all these reserves of chemical waste and excess nitrates from the subcutaneous layer of berries, vegetables and fruits. If you do not have this wonderful drug, then at least keep the products, especially green ones, in clean filtered water if you use running water. This is especially important to do in families with small children to protect them from allergies. You can find reliable information about the “Healthy Garden” and “Ecoberin” preparations, which is your personal ecological umbrella, on the Internet or. or directly on the website of the manufacturers of these drugs proroditelstvo.ru

And even better - grow environmentally friendly products for your family on your own six hundred square meters.

Good luck to you, dear readers, in this exciting field! Be bold, experiment boldly, find new approaches and techniques to make work easier on the site and, most importantly, share your experience with others. You can contact me at e-mail:

Galina Aleksandrovna Kizima

Part one

Garden crops

Chapter first

New ideas in land use on six acres

In fact, the new ideas are well-known old truths about natural land management that we took and discarded with the global onslaught of technological progress literally a hundred years ago. Tractors and the deep plowing of the land with the overturning of layers, which they provided, of course, made labor on the land easier, but at the same time caused enormous damage to the soil. They practically destroyed fertile lands on the planet. And it turned out, quite naturally, that no superdoses of mineral fertilizers or even organic matter can significantly increase the productivity of dead lands. They say the land is “tired”, and in order to bring it back to life, the field is given a “day off”, that is, green manure is sown on it and not touched for a couple of years. And here are the miracles! Fertility has been restored! The most better harvests The first 2–3 years provide precisely virgin lands, not plowed by humans.

Have you ever wondered why nature doesn’t plow or fertilize, but its fertility increases, while ours decreases? Yes, because we violated the basic commandment “Do no harm!” So, how do we harm the soil? First of all, by digging up the earth.

Don't dig!

Let's figure out why digging is harmful.

There are at least five reasons, and first of them consists of the following.

We are accustomed to considering the earth to be inorganic matter, that is, nonliving, and we treat it accordingly. And soil is a very complex living organism with its own hierarchical structure, its own laws of coexistence, densely populated by microorganisms and lower animal organisms, such as, for example, earthworms. The top layer of soil, at a depth of approximately 5-20 cm, is inhabited by microfungi and bacteria - aerobes, that is, those lower organisms that require oxygen for their existence. In addition, this layer was chosen by earthworms. In the lower layer, at approximately a depth of 20–40 cm, there are anaerobic bacteria for which oxygen is harmful; they require carbon dioxide. When digging to the depth of a spade bayonet, turning the layer over, we swap these layers, and each type of microorganism finds itself in an unfavorable environment for itself. In this case, most of them die.

It takes at least 2–5 years to restore the broken hierarchy. Soil devoid of microorganisms becomes dead and loses fertility, since this soil fertility is created and maintained by the microorganisms and earthworms inhabiting the earth. And no amount of fertilizer application will help here until its population on each floor is restored.

I'll be honest: I don't like chemistry and use it only in exceptional cases. My element is non-chemical products. I borrowed many of them from friends and then improved them in my own practice. And there is room for improvement, 18 acres of land. There is a garden and a vegetable garden here. I always take notes, I can’t live without it. Here are some tips from my notebook:

"Against leaf-eaters (winter moth, hawthorn) you need to take 100 g of mustard powder per bucket hot water, leave for two days, strain, add water in a 1:1 ratio, and then spray the plants. I have another way. I take 3 kg of ash in a bucket of water, leave it for two days, filter it, dilute it with water in a 1:1 ratio, and then treat the plants.
I destroy the raspberry-strawberry weevil and raspberry beetle in this way. Take 200 g of garlic, grind and leave in 10 liters of water, strain and spray the plants with this solution several times (every 7-10 days).
Against cruciferous flea beetles: boil 1 kg of ash with a small amount of water, leave for 24 hours, add up to 10 liters of water, strain, add 50 g of soap and spray on radishes, turnips and other crops.
Against cabbage whites (caterpillars) you can use potato tops, leaves and stepsons of tomatoes, physalis (chop 1-1.5 kg, leave in water for two days, strain, dilute to 10 liters, add 50 g of soap and spray the plants after 7-10 days). This solution can be used against aphids, strawberry mites, and hawthorn.
Against crimson stem gall midge: cut out diseased shoots and burn them, and then spray the plants with a solution: leave 3 kg of ash in water for two days, add up to 10 liters of water, strain and add 3 g of potassium permanganate. Spray after raspberries bloom.
Against aphids: fresh alder leaves, 2 kg per bucket of water, leave for 24 hours, boil for 30 minutes, strain and spray on plants. The same solution can be used against moles by pouring it into holes.
Against codling moths: pour a glass of apple cider vinegar into a three-liter jar (can be metal), add water, hang it under an apple tree (at a height of 2 meters). Change the solution once a week. Also against the codling moth: apply hunting belts, they can be lubricated with special glue - 20 g vegetable oil, 100 g of resin and 10 g of grease, mix the components, heat and apply to paper, wrap tree trunks. Such belts can also be glued against the flower beetle (before flowering).
To combat many pests you can use infusions:
- 100 g of garlic, 200 g of freshly chopped onions and their husks, infuse in 10 liters of hot water and treat tree trunks and crowns;
- divide 2-3 bulbs into 3-4 parts and hang them on tree trunks to scare them away. It is recommended to tie tree trunks with celandine greens;
- pour half a bucket of raw wormwood herb with water, boil for 10-15 minutes, strain, cool and dilute in 10 liters of water, add 40 g of soap and spray the plants several times after 6-7 days against codling moth caterpillars.
Against apple worm: chop 250 g of roots and 400 g of fresh dandelion leaves and pour in 10 liters of hot water, leave for 24 hours, strain and spray the plants 3 times: when the buds open, after flowering and repeat after 2 weeks. You can also use an infusion of mustard, onion (husk) and garlic (pour 0.5 kg with a bucket of hot water, leave, strain and spray after 5-6 days).
Pour 1/3 bucket of crushed burdock leaves hot water, leave for 3 days, strain and spray the plants 3-4 times at intervals of 6-7 days against many leaf-eating pests.
Against anthracnose of black currants and gooseberries: infuse a solution of mullein 1:10, strain and spray. This spraying also helps against powdery mildew before the buds open (April).
Against the mole cricket: spread piles of fresh manure (horse) around the area, collect the pest in the morning and destroy it. You can grease a glass jar with a small neck with honey and bury it in the ground, when the pest crawls into it, collect it and destroy it. Mole crickets cannot stand the smell of calendula or fresh alder branches stuck into the ground. It is good to plant calendula around the area; it also repels the Colorado potato beetle.

Soda ash 50 g or 100 g drinking + 40 g soap per bucket of water - against powdery mildew and gray rot on grapes, strawberries, plums. Also a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate. Against onion and carrot flies: sprinkle ash, tobacco dust, slaked lime between the rows.
Against powdery mildew of gooseberries, currants, scab on apple and pear trees: spray in the fall after harvest and in the spring before buds open with a urea solution (500 g per bucket of water), as well as a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate, and in the spring, before the buds open, pour over the bushes hot water.
Against flower beetle (before flowering): mustard solution + ash and potassium permanganate, spray after 6-7 days. During the flowering period, spread a film around the trees and shake off the pests in the morning and destroy them.
Against gray rot of strawberries: spray with mullein solution 1:1 (before flowering). Before flower stalks appear, spray the plants with a pink solution of potassium permanganate (1 teaspoon per bucket of water), repeat after setting the berries (2 teaspoons per bucket of water), or with an ash-soap solution (boil 1 kg of ash in 1 liter of water and then dilute to 10 liters , leave for a day and add 40 drops of iodine).
Against strawberry mites: pour hot water over the plants (52-54°). You can plant tomatoes in the rows of strawberries at a distance of 80-90 cm - they repel pests.
Slugs. Place dishes with beer or kvass at ground level between the rows. During the night, the pest, drinking the solution, swells; it is collected and destroyed. You can lay out wet rags at night, burdock leaves, rhubarb leaves, boards where slugs accumulate. Collect them and destroy them.
The following infusion can be used against many pests: chop 4 kg of tomato shoots and leaves in a bucket of water, leave for 4 hours, boil for 30 minutes, cool and pour into a container, store the solution for a long time. Before use, dilute 2 times, add 40 g of soap and spray the plants.
After flowering fruit trees and berry crops, against copperheads, moths, and codling moths, it is good to fumigate the garden with tobacco smoke: near the trees, in good, calm weather, in the evening, place piles of straw or garbage, pour 2-3 kg of tobacco dust on top and set it on fire.
It is also possible to combat the flower beetle and other pests before flowering (May - June) by fumigating trees and bushes with smoke from the combustion of waste woolen fabrics, rubber products (galoshes, etc.), using a smoker.
Currant kidney mite- in April, compact the soil under currant and gooseberry bushes and cover with film, roofing felt, roofing felt, add soil and remove after flowering and formation of ovaries. Inside the bushes you can lay out branches of red and black elderberry, collect and destroy the affected buds.
The wireworm prefers acidic soils, so the first remedy is to sprinkle it with ash and lime. It is useful to treat the area with potassium permanganate (2 g per 10 liters of water), water the soil before planting potatoes, and also add ash.
Against mice: cover tree trunks with dry stems of cilantro, peppermint, black root, and burdock leaves. Sprinkle mustard around the house and barn in the fall.
Gall aphid on red and white currants: harvesting and burning affected leaves.
Collect yarrow at the beginning of flowering, infuse 200 g of dry branches in a bucket of water, add 40 g of soap, strain and spray the plants against aphids, copperheads, spider mites, and caterpillars.
Against scale insects: 150-200 g of chopped garlic, 40 g of soap per bucket of water, wash the leaves after 7-10 days.
To prevent damage to the roots of radishes, carrots, and onions, sprinkle tobacco dust mixed with lime, sand with naphthalene, and add ash along the rows.
Spider mite: 100 g garlic, 40 g soap. Spray every other week, 4-5 times per season, you can also use an infusion of orange peels with soap.
Infusion of pine needles (pine concentrate) + wormwood, pharmaceutical chamomile with the addition of soap - against all garden pests. Treat: before flowering, during the period of swelling of the buds, when the ovary appears.
Greenhouse whitefly affects everything green plants(small pest, white wings). In a greenhouse, a few days before planting, you need to remove all green plants and wait 2-3 days (the whitefly will die). Draw on the walls of the greenhouse yellow paint squares measuring 20x20 cm. After drying, cover them with Vaseline or grease. The pest flies into squares, sticks and dies. You can use fumigation of the greenhouse with tobacco dust smoke. Or make a so-called trap out of cardboard, coat it with drying oil, wrap the plants in this trap, shake it several times, the whitefly will fly up and stick.
It is also good to combine the cultivation of plants that repel pests: plant basil, celery, garlic with cabbage crops - they repel the cabbage cutworm. Calendula - many pests. Onion-fragrant herbs, garlic, parsnips - weevils, carrot flies, mites, wireworms. Onion - aphids, fleas. Tansy - many pests; plant between bushes. Coriander (cilantro) - seeds and dried stems repel mice and woodlice. Beans, peas, beans - moles, wireworms. Marigolds (tagetes) cleanse the soil of nematodes. Chrysanthemum leaves and stems buried in the ground repel mole crickets.
Row beds vegetable crops can be planted with onions.
The main thing is to constantly monitor the garden, the vegetable garden, and each bed." .!

New ideas for a DIY garden are always held in high esteem. Almost every owner land plot who wants to improve his land spends a lot of time looking for suitable options for landscaping. Some summer residents do not think about how to make their plot more beautiful; they spend more time and effort trying to achieve a rich harvest, using every piece of available space. Others, on the contrary, do not think about obtaining vegetables and fruits from their land, believing that it can only be beneficial in an aesthetic sense, allowing themselves to relax and unwind in contemplation of the arranged beauty. There may be a third option, involving beautiful arrangement flower beds and beds, adding spectacular touches to the decoration of the garden or vegetable garden.

Garden decoration

You don't need much to decorate your space. It is enough to have a good imagination and inexpensive materials. There are some win-win decor options, including:

decoration of the facade of the house;
installation of statues on the site;
creating a small reservoir;
use of stones;
creating a fence.

As for the house, most often land owners do not pay due attention to this element of the country house environment, which is completely unjustified. Beautiful decoration at home catches the eye much faster than the decoration of a garden or vegetable garden. There are many decoration options. Budget-friendly ideas include hanging pots of flowers under windows, painting shutters and walls, stretching netting over a wall and seeding its base. climbing plants. High-quality façade finishing is considered more expensive.

A dacha is a place of rest, but not permanent residence, so there is no need to spend money on expensive Construction Materials To decorate it, a little finishing and a couple of colorful touches are enough. Statues are an excellent decorative element. In this case, 2 financial options are possible different options. If funds allow, you can purchase expensive marble statues or products made from other materials. More suitable and affordable option- this is the independent creation of statues from scrap materials. Models made from wood are popular among country sculptures. You can use various saw cuts, hemp and other parts of wood. The aesthetics of garden elements directly depends on the imagination and experience of the creator. Naturally, a lot depends on his professionalism, so you should practice a little before creating your masterpiece.

A small pond will help decorate the garden. You can create it by bursting metal or plastic barrel, an old bathroom, or just any container in the ground. You can simply place this container on the ground without deepening it. Filling it with water, decorating the banks with stones or ornamental plants decorating the surface of the water aquatic plants, you can achieve the creation of a nice pond in the garden, whose arrangement will be close to natural. Caring for a homemade pond has several features. It is necessary to constantly change the water in it to avoid the appearance of unpleasant odor and mold. Moreover, in the sultry sunny weather You will need to periodically add water to the required level.

With the help of stones you can achieve completeness landscape design cottage or garden, making it more neat and original. You can lay out a path of small cobblestones, make a stone edging of beds or flower beds, use them to create a rose garden or alpine slide. Large stones placed around the area also look attractive. But it shouldn’t be a chaotic pile-up; you need to know when to stop everything.

Another quite popular way to decorate a plot of land is to create and install a fence. It will look most justified if the design of the rest of the space is made in a rustic style.

Wattle can be used as an edging of beds or flower beds, as a partition for different zones plot.

How to use flowers for decoration?

Except various items You can use colorful flowers to decorate your garden or vegetable garden. decorative flowers. It wouldn't hurt to arrange beautiful flower bed, choosing the right plant varieties and their range, or an alpine hill, which, if properly arranged, can become a key element in the design of the site, attracting all eyes to itself. You can create something of your own, unique and inimitable. If the owner of the site has no idea how to plant plants in an original way, and hiring landscape designer can't afford it, you can use a couple ready-made ideas using flowers in garden decoration.

Creating a flower stream is a non-standard and interesting way flowerbed arrangement. The fit looks like a jug, bowl or some other container from which “flows” floral carpet. Creating such a landscape element requires minimal costs; you just need to purchase a suitable container. And these costs can be avoided if the right item is stored in the shed.

For planting, it is recommended to use seedlings rather than seeds. This is due to the unpredictability of seed behavior. Some may not sprout at all, some of them may be carried away by insects. The choice is up to the gardener himself, but to be sure, it is better to use ready-made seedlings, whose behavior will not bring unpleasant surprises. The process of creating a stream is as follows:

1 Prepare the soil, loosen the soil that will be used for planting.
2 Remove weeds, level thoroughly, water generously.
3 Mark out places for planting and plant seedlings.
4 Water the plantings generously

A variety of plants are used to create a flower stream. Low annuals will great solution in the manufacture of such a flower bed. The choice of varieties that can be used for this purpose is huge. Perennials, as well as bulbous flowers, which may include daffodils, glaminis, cyclamens, primroses, pansies, daisies are also suitable for planting. Ground cover flowers: , carpet phlox, brunnera, ranunculus anemone, fragrant violet, cinquefoil - perfect solution for such a flower bed. Choice ground cover plant depends on the conditions in which the flowerbed will be located. When choosing this type of plant for arranging a stream, you must remember that due to the characteristics of their growth, it will be necessary to periodically trim its boundaries, removing flowers that have escaped from the general mass. Otherwise, caring for such a flower bed is no different from caring for an ordinary flower garden.

Second life for old things

In addition to using various tricks with flowers and landscape elements, you can use ordinary things in the decoration of your garden that have been collecting dust in the barn for a long time or are ready to be thrown away. The following will be useful in design:

plastic and glass bottles;
clay and plastic flower pots;
shoes and clothes that have become unusable;
old garden tools;
birdhouses and waterers for birds;
remains of building materials;
faulty equipment, cars, bicycles.

Any old and unnecessary trash with skillful hands can be played up so that it becomes the main attraction summer cottage, which you can later be proud of in front of your guests. But it is important not to overdo it with details, since using many, albeit wonderful, details can lead to the fact that the garden will look tasteless and cluttered.

Land owners can make their dacha not only a place of work for harvesting, but also a place of relaxation. With a certain amount of imagination, you can wonderfully combine beauty and benefit. After a long and tedious hilling of potatoes or picking cherries under the scorching summer sun, it will be pleasant to sit in the shade of the trees, contemplating the small pond or flowerbed that you have created.

And a little about secrets...

Have you ever experienced unbearable joint pain? And you know firsthand what it is:

inability to move easily and comfortably;
discomfort when going up and down stairs;
unpleasant crunching, clicking not of your own accord;
pain during or after exercise;
inflammation in the joints and swelling;
causeless and sometimes unbearable aching pain in the joints...

Now answer the question: are you satisfied with this? Can such pain be tolerated? How much money have you already wasted on ineffective treatment? That's right - it's time to end this! Do you agree? That is why we decided to publish an exclusive interview with Professor Dikul, in which he revealed the secrets of getting rid of joint pain, arthritis and arthrosis.

Why shouldn't you weed? After all, if you systematically weed, then there will be no weeds either.
The difference is that by cutting off the growing point underground or mowing aboveground part, you cause the same stem to grow again. One. And as soon as you dig up or pull out a weed, renewal buds will immediately awaken on all the fragments of the root system remaining in the soil, and this will provoke the growth of a whole horde of weeds instead of just one. It's very easy to check. Dig up and water one dandelion plant in the spring, and cut another one nearby. After a couple of weeks, look and you will see that one plant has appeared again in the place of the cut plant, and many in the place of the torn one. This is another way for survival that Mother Nature has given to her children. They are renewed from the slightest part of the root or rhizome remaining in the ground.
Well, okay, we have learned how to fight perennial rhizomatous weeds. What about weed seeds in vegetable beds? There’s no way to do this without weeding!
But no. It turns out that they can be greatly crowded out in garden beds. In any case, you can do without tedious hours of weeding. To do this, you just need to grow weeds in the beds in advance.
In the spring, when you arrive at your site, preferably before the last snow melts, you scatter ash or peat directly over the snow onto the beds to slightly blacken their surface. Then cover the beds with pieces of old film and place them on top of the poles so that the film does not lift up or be carried away by the wind. In spring, the sun is hot and under the film layer the blackened snow on the beds will quickly melt, the surface layer of soil will warm up, and weeds will quickly sprout from it. This will happen in about 10-12 days. If after two weeks you visit your site and see that the weeds have sprung up, remove the film and loosen upper layer soil and leave the beds open for a day. Young weed seedlings will die.
Weeds are most vulnerable at the stage when they have only two cotyledon leaves. At this moment they have only a weak hair of the central root, and if they are simply loosened right now, they will die. But once they have real leaves, fighting them becomes tedious. Firstly, they have already formed lateral branches of the root, which means that as soon as you weed the beds and remove the weeds, new ones will immediately appear from all the scraps of roots. Secondly, if you leave the weeded plants in the garden, then after the first rain in the next 2-3 days the weeds will take root and continue to grow as if nothing had happened. Therefore, weeds in the beds should be destroyed as early as possible.
After you have loosened the first shoots of weeds, a day later you cover the beds again with film and calmly leave for another 1-2 weeks. Arriving at the site for the second time, you will again see weed shoots under the film. These seeds sprouted from deeper layers of soil. Repeat the same operation again. After a day, you can sow the seeds in beds freed from weeds. But at the same time, you must understand that such a bed should not be dug up before sowing! Otherwise, you will again carry weed seeds from the lower layers of the soil to the top layer, and they will sprout safely.
The fact is that throughout the entire thickness of the soil there are weed seeds. They are stored in a deep layer, like money in a bank. But as soon as these seeds reach the top layer, they immediately begin to germinate. The trick is that the length of the subcotyledonous knee (the distance from the root collar to the cotyledons) does not exceed 7 cm, so they do not emerge from a lower layer of soil, but simply lie there and wait for years for their chance.
The work of pre-growing weeds in the garden is small and not at all difficult. It just needs to be done on time. At least instead of in early spring doing difficult and completely pointless watering of the garden with boiling water. But this simple step of pre-growing weeds in the garden bed will save you from labor-intensive weeding of the beds throughout the season.
If you didn’t have time to do this, you arrived at the site, and that’s all vegetable beds covered with a green carpet of weeds, then take a “Swift” weeder or a Fokina flat cutter – and go ahead! It is necessary to cut off all the weeds from the surface of the beds, going 4–5 cm deep into the soil, and leave the weeds to lie on the bed for a day. After this, use the edge of the board to make furrows, water them well (preferably from a kettle), “salt” the planting furrows with the dust fraction of the wonderful AVA fertilizer (you can get information about this fertilizer on the Internet [email protected] and on the website www. avamarket.com) and sow vegetable and herb seeds. Lightly level the soil of the crops. Compact with a board and cover the beds with old film, secure it. Until germination, the film will retain moisture and heat in the soil. Naturally, as soon as the seedlings appear, the film must be removed and the rows must be loosened to destroy the weed seedlings. Weeds can be left directly in the garden bed if the weather is dry. If you sow long-growing crops (carrots, dill, parsley), then weed seedlings may appear earlier than your crops, and while loosening the weeds, you may accidentally enter the rows with the crops. In such cases, among the seeds of those crops that take a long time to germinate, it is necessary to sow several seeds of a lighthouse crop, which germinate quickly, distributing the seeds throughout the entire row. Radishes, lettuce, and spinach sprout quickly. They mark the rows of crops.
Agree, it is much easier to walk 2-3 times a season with a weeder or a small Fokin flat-cutter among the crops than to weed the beds while standing on your knees for hours. You just need to accustom yourself to some discipline and do this work on time.
The easiest way to get rid of weeds in garden beds is in the fall. As soon as the crops are harvested, immediately cover the beds with light-proof material. Black spunbond or lutrasil are best suited, since such material does not allow light to pass through, but water and air do. You can use black film or special black and white film from Shar, or even just black and white newspapers folded in three layers. You can find out about Shar films on the Internet [email protected].
When planting seedlings in the ground, you can also use black covering material, first spreading it on the bed and securing it. Then you need to make holes in it and plant seedlings in them. In many European countries, the “Swedish bed” has long been used. What it is? This is a specially prepared peat cardboard with the addition of all the necessary macro- and micronutrients. Usually it is cut into strips about 80 cm wide and 3–7 m long, spread on prepared beds and secured. Then they cut out holes for planting seedlings, make holes in them, add everything necessary into them, fill the holes with water and, when it is absorbed into the soil, plant the seedlings. No fertilizing will be required all summer. Only water directly over the shelter, if necessary. During the season, the shelter is completely utilized by soil microorganisms and plant roots, and nothing remains on the beds. Pests living in the soil (for example, cruciferous flea beetle) cannot come to the surface and die, weeds do not sprout, flying pests (all cutworms or vegetable flies) also cannot lay eggs on the soil and therefore do not cause damage, moisture from the soil does not evaporate, so watering is significantly reduced. At one time, “Swedish beds” were sold in our stores.
Is it possible to make something similar yourself? Well, of course! All you have to do is add all the necessary mineral nutrients to the surface layer of the soil. For this, the dust fraction of the AVA fertilizer is most suitable; about one and a half teaspoons are enough for each meter of planting (“salt” the soil surface with it). If the soil is acidic, add additional dolomite, half a glass per meter (or ash, one glass per meter). Lightly dig everything up to a depth of no more than 5 cm. All this should be added to the bed that has been moistened in the evening. After fertilizing, cover the bed with cardboard or newspapers in several layers, secure them to the bed (newspapers can be secured by simply sprinkling them lightly with soil or sand). Make holes at the required distance from each other and plant the seedlings.
So, weeding is the most worst way weed control. And the most ineffective.

Don't water!
As soon as evening came, buckets rattled in the polling stations, pumps whirred, and water began to gurgle. This is a ritual, a punishment. Even in such a super-humid region as the North-West or Far East, again, the Kaliningrad region is there too. Well, the arid regions of Siberia or the South would be nice, but no, this phenomenon is widespread and completely inevitable. But the work is one of the most labor-intensive! Even with a pump.

Let's think, do plants really need that much water? Well, if somehow you need it, then how can you make your work easier?
Let's start with a simple thesis: better water keep it in the soil rather than pour it there endlessly (especially since when watered, plants manage to capture only a third of the water poured under them, and two-thirds evaporate from the surface of the wet soil or go down). Is it possible to do this? It’s easy if you don’t allow moisture to evaporate from the surface of the earth. How does nature do this? And she does not allow the soil to become empty. All free space is now occupied by plants and cover the soil from direct sun rays and dry air. Everything that grows on the surface of the soil prevents wasteful loss of moisture. Plants evaporate water through their leaves tens of times less than the sun and wind evaporate it from bare ground.
From this we should immediately draw a conclusion (well known to everyone, by the way): the soil must be protected from moisture evaporation from its surface.
To do this, the soil surface should be covered. Usually it is suggested to mulch it. There are many things you can use. In America, and even in European countries, for example, mulch is sold that is specially made from waste from the wood processing industry - tree bark. This mulch is considered the best. It does not rot for a long time, and therefore does not change chemical composition top layer of soil. It does not get wet well, and therefore remains dry, but at the same time it is heavy enough for the wind, so it does not spread around the area. In addition, such mulch allows air to pass through well. Due to its dark color, it is well heated by the sun during the day and retains heat for a long time at night. That is, it has a lot of advantages. But the trouble is, our sawmills do not produce it, their owners still imagine that they live in the richest country in the world, and therefore it is easier for them to burn bark than to start producing mulch from it. And what allows them to do this is the colossal profit that wood provides. What’s there to worry about when putting tree bark into production, it’s easier to burn it. I think when we become completely impoverished, we will remember about bark. “The only pity is that we won’t have to live in this wonderful time, neither for me nor for you.”
So rely on the bark, but don’t make a mistake yourself and use what you have at hand. If you have sawdust, let it sit for a year or two and mulch. There is a coniferous forest nearby - collect needles, but do not forget to add ash or dolomite, lime, chalk to them. Use whatever you find in the bins, since the needles strongly acidify the soil. It is good to mulch with high-moor peat; it is only slightly inferior to bark mulch, but it also acidifies the soil, so you will have to add deoxidizers. You can mulch with non-woven covering materials (spunbond, lutrasil and others), but with black ones. You can use sphagnum moss; it is also bactericidal and will also kill harmful bacteria. But keep in mind that the soil under it is always 2–3 degrees colder than uncovered, and 5–10 degrees lower than under a dark shelter, so in cold regions in a greenhouse where heat-loving plants grow, they should not mulch the soil follows. You can use cardboard and even ordinary newspapers, folded in several layers and glued together with tape in a panel. In a greenhouse, the soil can be mulched with torn and crumpled newspapers. In the first, hottest weeks of spring, fallen leaves in autumn serve as mulch. So don’t rake them up in the spring for the sake of beauty and cleanliness. The awakened worms themselves will drag them into their holes and there they will process them into humus, not without the help of overwintered microorganisms. However, plants growing on it also provide good cover for the soil, so it is better to plant gardens. If you have just started to develop your plot, then do not remove all the grass cover, but only where you will build a house, lay paths, plant trees, and so on. Moreover, you should not remove the turf immediately throughout the marking. Take pictures only where you are currently going to build and plant. Under trees and bushes, you need to remove exactly as much as is needed to lay a planting hole or seat.

So, in order to get rid of problems with watering and fertilizing in the garden, you need to show some ingenuity. The simplest thing is to prevent moisture from evaporating from the soil. To do this, the soil should be loosened, or even better, mulched.
You, of course, have noticed that under woodlice the soil is never dry. It is always wet and loose. The same goes for any tinned area. How can you tin the plot if you, without thinking or out of ignorance, removed all the turf and now all you do is water and fight weeds? White clover, bentgrass, cinquefoil, oxalis, and of course any lawn mixtures are suitable. Some of these crops will have to be mowed, but this is not weed control. I’ll tell you straight: even if you have weeds growing everywhere, mowing them regularly will bring the area into an acceptable form. Suppression of weeds will gradually lead to their death, but the grass will only become thicker from mowing, so your lawn from weeds will gradually turn into a lawn of grass; you won’t even need to use Lontrel to destroy dandelions or other weeds on the lawn.
Well, let’s say we mulch the garden or make it grassy (that is, sow green manure under the trees and bushes or arrange a lawn), but what about the beds and greenhouses? Can they not be watered too? There are also some considerations here, confirmed by experience.
Not all cultures are as helpless as we think. All garden crops can be divided into four groups. The first group includes those inhabitants of the beds who do not know how to obtain moisture and spend it uneconomically. These are cabbage, cucumber, lettuce, radishes. The second group includes those plants that do not obtain water well, but spend it sparingly. This group includes peppers, onions and garlic. The third group of plants produces water well, but spends it uneconomically. These plants include rutabaga and beets (if you shortened their central root when transplanting the seedlings). And the fourth, the most numerous and most adaptable group of plants that know how to extract water well and spend it economically. These are tomatoes, carrots, parsley, zucchini, pumpkin, melon, watermelon.
Hence the watering norms. Plants belonging to the first and third groups need regular watering the most. And those in the last group need least moisture. In fact, these plants don’t need to be watered all summer if you take a few steps when planting them in place.
Let's start with tomatoes. If you don’t want to run around with a watering can all summer, then when picking seedlings, under no circumstances cut off the tip of the root - it should grow down and not branch. Before planting seedlings, you need to make a hole, slightly larger than a lump of soil with roots. Add half a teaspoon of dust fraction of AVA fertilizer, a dessert spoon of double granulated superphosphate. Gradually pour 4–5 liters of water into the hole. After this, plant the seedlings, water them, lightly plant them and mulch them well. That's all. No fertilizing or watering will be required all summer long. Except during prolonged cold weather. At temperatures below 12 degrees Celsius for a week, the plant begins to experience severe starvation, since root system does not work, so you should feed the plants by leaves. It is best to use a solution of drugs such as “Florist”, “Aquadon-micro”, “Uniflor-rost” or “Uniflor-bud”. The last one is the most preferable. It is enough to take 4 teaspoons of fertilizer per 10 liters of water and spray the plants in the evening. Absorption takes approximately 4 hours, so it is important that during this time there is no bright sun and rain. Tomatoes have a powerful root system, and it can go to great depths in search of moisture. If you water the tomatoes regularly, then the roots (especially if, when picking, you pinched the tip of the central root, as recommended in the literature) spread widely over the surface and become dependent. As soon as for some reason you cannot water them, when the top layer of soil dries out, the sucking hairs on the roots will dry out, and the tomato may drop its flowers and even ovaries.

You can’t do this with pepper, because it has a shallow root system, and it can drop flowers, buds and ovaries even if the top layer of soil dries out slightly, and therefore you should protect yourself from such an incident. To do this, before transplanting the pepper, you need to make a hole the size of a lump of earth with roots from the seedlings, pour a third of a teaspoon of AVA fertilizer into the hole, add a dessert spoon of any chlorine-free potassium fertilizer, then add half a glass of the prepared hydrogel into the planting hole. After this, plant the seedlings without burying them in the soil below the level at which they grew in the cup, water, squeeze and mulch. That's all for now. It will only require watering once every three weeks in hot weather to replenish the water supply in the hydrogel. In wet or cool weather there is no need to water, but foliar feeding, like tomatoes, will be required, otherwise the pepper will even shed its leaves.

What is hydrogel?
This is a polymer crumb that has the ability to swell in water by more than 250 times and retain water and soil solutions, preventing moisture from evaporating from the surface or going into deeper layers of the earth. Thus, moisture is always present in the root zone, accessible to sucking root hairs. Polymers have the ability to decompose into carbon dioxide and water during oxidation (including combustion), so the use of hydrogel is not harmful ecological environment.
The polymer crumbs should be soaked 2–3 hours before use until jelly (“jelly”) forms. You should not leave it diluted for a long time, since in the air it will begin to decompose into carbon dioxide and water. 1 teaspoon (5 g) per 1.5 liters of water is enough.
When sowing carrots, it is best to mix them with AVA powder. For this, half a glass fine sand take a teaspoon of seeds and a teaspoon of fertilizer. Mix well and sow in the furrows “how to salt”. Naturally, the furrows must be well watered with water from a kettle before sowing. If the spring is dry and there is not enough moisture in the soil, then on the eve of sowing, in the evening you should very well pour water on the entire bed and immediately cover it with film. The moisture under the film will remain and saturate the bed to its entire depth. After sowing, the furrows must be compacted with a board, and the bed must be covered with film to retain heat and moisture in the soil. After emergence of shoots, replace the film with lutrasil or spunbond, which should be removed only for weeding or thinning. It is better to replace weeding by loosening the rows and shaving off weeds if any appear. Moreover, leave the weeds right there, in the spaces between the carrot rows. Usually, with this method of sowing there will be no thickened seedlings, so thinning is practically not required. There will be enough food for the entire season. Watering should be done only in dry weather, directly according to lutrasil, in the evening, and only until a bunch of 4-5 leaves appears. From this moment, the carrots form a root crop, and it ceases to need large quantities moisture, since its central root goes deep into the soil, and there moisture will be found. Under cover, carrots are inaccessible to pests, so there will be no problems with them either. Allow some freedom for the covering material so that the carrot tops can rise to the height they need. You can grow parsley in the same way.
If you plant zucchini or pumpkins on compost heap, which was piled last summer, then you will not have any problems with watering and fertilizing, if, of course, you cover the pile after sowing plastic film, which you will not remove all summer, but only release the plants that have grown to the film upward.

In fact, it should be remembered that melons, watermelons, zucchini and pumpkins came to us from arid regions, so they do not need a lot of moisture. On the contrary, if there is excess moisture in the cell sap, they will not only be poorly stored, but will rot right in the beds. Usually at midday their leaves wilt slightly. This defensive reaction plants against excess evaporation of moisture from the leaves. The next morning they stand as if nothing had happened. However, many gardeners, as soon as they see that the plants have dropped their leaves, immediately grab buckets and watering cans.
Of the plants of the third group, rutabaga needs feeding and watering all summer. But beets can do without watering starting from 5–6 true leaves, since by this moment they also grow a long root that can easily find water at a depth of 2–3 meters. To preserve this root, when transplanting seedlings, do not shorten it, contrary to book advice. In a regular garden bed, it will only need organic feeding and only in the first half of summer, if you add half a teaspoon of AVA powder to each hole when transplanting seedlings. If you constantly mulch the rows with grass clipped from lawns (or weed clippings), then beets will not need organic fertilizing.
Onions and garlic - plants from the second group - need moisture in the first half of summer, when their feathers grow, and in the second half, when they pupate, that is, lay a bulb - moisture is categorically contraindicated for them.
The most labor-intensive work is with the children from the first group. Cabbage and cucumbers are the biggest drinkers, and cabbage is not only a drinker, but also a decent eater. So you have to feed and water the whole season. When planting seedlings in a hole, you need to add a dessert spoon of calcium nitrate, a teaspoon of AVA dust, the same amount of any potassium (cabbage is resistant to chlorine), fill the holes full with water, then plant the seedlings.
However, the matter does not end there. Regular watering in the evening and weekly feeding are needed. You can significantly ease your fate if you plant seedlings on hydrogel, then watering and fertilizing can be combined and done once every two weeks. You can lay a hose with holes along the cabbage rows. Connect the hose to the bottom of the barrel with nutrient solution low concentration. The barrel should stand on a stand so that the bottom is slightly higher than the level of the bed. Nutrient moisture will constantly flow by gravity to the roots of the plants. Your task will be to ensure that the barrel does not empty to the very bottom. It's easier than running with buckets to the cabbage patch. If there is no suitable barrel, place plantings between the rows plastic bottles, in the side surface of which make holes about a third of the bottom of the bottles and bury the bottles into the soil so that all the holes are in the ground. Unscrew the plugs. Pour a weak solution into bottles organic feeding(for example, weed infusion diluted with water 1:5, or manure diluted with water 1:10), add half a teaspoon of the dust fraction of AVA fertilizer. If the solution leaves the bottles too quickly, rotate them several times in the soil to create soil plugs in the holes. About once every 3-4 weeks you will have to pour the nutrient solution into the bottles from an old kettle. That's all the work. It is better to arrange the bottles in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of approximately 70-80 cm from each other.
You can do without mineral supplements and AVA all summer if you use apions– special sachets of “Rastvorin” fertilizer from the Buysky chemical plant. The shell of the bags works on the principle of a membrane, that is, it does not allow the fertilizer to escape from the bag into the soil solution, but gives the roots the opportunity to suck the fertilizer out of the bag as needed. Roots are known to have chemotropism - the ability to determine the place where there is drink and food, and accordingly grow in this direction. They literally entwine the apions. Before planting seedlings, it is enough to dig one packet to the depth of your palm between every four plants, and that’s it. If the soil is well-filled with organic matter, then there is no need to do any fertilizing all summer. Apions are very promising direction in the use of mineral fertilizers. But so far they have one drawback: the shell - the membrane - does not collapse during the season and thereby clogs the soil. You have to pick out this garbage by hand in the fall. More information about the apions can be found on the Internet at the website www. apion.al.ru. With cucumbers the situation is simpler. They can be planted on hydrogel, when planting, add a little dolomite (for the sake of magnesium), a dessert spoon of potassium nitrate and half a teaspoon of the AVA dust fraction. Watering will be reduced to once every three weeks. Combine them with organic feeding (infusion of weeds, green grass, manure). Or you can do the same watering with a nutrient solution through a hose as for cabbage or through plastic bottles, or even better - plant it on a gel and feed it through apions. So it all comes down to planting and watering once every three weeks. Lettuce and radishes just need to be watered, but, alas, regularly. They will do without additional fertilizing, just when sowing seeds immediately in place, “salt” the furrows with the AVA dust fraction. This will be enough for them. Although they are drinkers, they are by no means lovers of good food. How do you know if there is enough moisture in the soil? Take a lump of soil from a depth of about 10 cm and squeeze it in your fist. If moisture seeps through your fingers, the soil moisture is excessive, approximately 80%. If such moisture remains in the soil for about a week, then deeper ditches should be dug between the beds to drain excess water. If, after you have squeezed the soil into a ball, moisture does not appear between your fingers, open your palm. The lump of soil has not disintegrated - the humidity is sufficient, approximately 60%, and nothing needs to be done. Well, if after opening the palm the lump falls apart, then the soil moisture is insufficient, about 40%, and the plantings must be watered urgently. It is better to do this in the evening so that the moisture does not evaporate, but is absorbed. The next morning after watering, lightly loosen the bed - this is much easier than watering again a week later. And the effect will be the same.