And now, finally, you have arrived on a new piece of land, on your own piece of field-meadow. Of course, there should be a vegetable garden of your dreams here, and you really want the harvests of vegetables and fruits to please you in the very near future. I want to? Let's do it!
Well, how can one not remember here? national history, and not even very ancient times, when the best Komsomol members were eager to plow open the endless Russian expanses and heroically raised virgin soil. You and I will also raise virgin soil, but we will approach this process creatively and with a completely different inspiration.
If you look at a textbook on agriculture, virgin lands are called fallow lands that have not been plowed for more than 20 years, or that have never been touched at all Long hands civilization. You are lucky if your plot is located on such virgin land. The soil here is rested, having accumulated the maximum percentage possible for this area. nutrients. After all, as is known, the soil fertility in a meadow is perennial herbs It only increases over time.
Let's begin to cultivate this land. Under no circumstances listen to random agronomist advisers and do not plow your plot with the help of the nearest village tractor! We will not raise virgin soil in that very historical sense. Let's approach the cultivation of our land carefully, preserving its natural fertility. Wisely distribute your forces and available resources free time. Select a small area that you will be able to take care of, and let's start turning this piece of virgin land into a fertile vegetable garden. Problems most often arise in clayey soils. heavy soils. Let's talk about them.
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Most easy way quickly creating beds. Clear the garden area by removing debris and raking dry grass. Dig the turf to a depth of 15 cm without breaking up any lumps. Leave the pieces of turf and soil to dry. After a few days, shake the sod by hand, using a hand ripper to help. Place the freed rhizomes in compost heap reheat. And the soil in the future garden bed turned out to be free. Pour sand on top (buy a sand machine in advance), humus or peat, or sawdust. And dig it all together thoroughly. After a few days, sprinkle with complex mineral fertilizer and dig again with a pitchfork. That's it - the soil is ready. And you can sow root vegetables and herbs or any other vegetables.
Warm bed for vegetables. If you have a lot of last year’s grass, then do not burn it (it’s valuable organic matter!), but build a warm bed on which the vegetables will ripen faster. Dig a 30 cm deep “trough” under the future bed. First, remove all upper layer sod with a little soil and place aside. Then remove the entire bottom layer of soil and place it on a pre-spread film. At the bottom of the resulting hole, place last year's collected grass, any food waste, and fresh grass. Trample it down, sprinkle it with nitrogen mineral fertilizer, and water it. Place the removed turf on top, grass side down. Chop the top with a shovel. And pour the soil folded on the film, mixing it with sand and peat (or compost). If you don’t have any organic substances stored, it doesn’t matter. You can do without them, but you definitely need sand. Rake a high bed and sow vegetables. In the same beds, potatoes will grow magnificently, and their yield will be several times higher.
Do not plow a large area; it is better to make a couple of beds for now, but with preserved fertility and a good harvest. And after that, in place of other future beds, lay black non-woven material tightly on the ground and secure it well. In just 3 warm months, all the rhizomes will rot and the earth will turn to fluff! And by the end of the season (or next spring) you can, by adding sand, form beautiful beds or flower beds in these places. Good luck to you in the virgin lands!
Every farmer knows how valuable time is when cultivating the land, sowing or harvesting, therefore, whether plowing virgin soil with a walk-behind tractor is possible is of interest to many. Using a walk-behind tractor in most cases does not raise any questions or difficulties. A lot of information can be found in the instructions, which are in mandatory goes to every model of equipment. And yet, beginners sometimes have questions. They are often associated with the processing of virgin soil. In order to quickly figure this out, you should find out what the device for plowing the land might be.
Experienced farmers are well aware of the importance of high-quality processing land before planting, as well as in the fall. Productivity largely depends on this. If earlier you had to spend whole days on such work, now you can use a walk-behind tractor that will cope with the task in an hour. When choosing a high-quality and productive device, you can process in two hours the area that would take a whole day with manual plowing.
When choosing an assistant to work on the farm, many people wonder whether it is possible to cultivate the land with a Neva walk-behind tractor or another model, or whether a walk-behind cultivator is better. In fact, there are no significant differences between these types of technology. Many farmers use both one and the second name to refer to conventional walk-behind tractors.
What is the difference between a walk-behind tractor and a cultivator?
If you look closely, you can identify some differences. It is believed that a motor cultivator is suitable exclusively for plowing, mixing soil and applying fertilizers. The walk-behind tractor is more functional. You can quickly connect additional attachments to it, so the equipment can perform cleaning work, function as a lawn mower, etc. Walk-behind tractors and motor-cultivators can also be used for planting seeds, which speeds up this process and makes it simpler.
Most walk-behind tractors are more powerful than conventional cultivators. This is very important parameter, which allows the technique to be used in different situations. For example, if we are talking about plowing virgin soil, you should opt for a walk-behind tractor. It is advisable to choose devices with a powerful engine. This will avoid breakdowns and make the process of plowing virgin soil as simple and fast as possible.
It is much easier to select additional attachments for a walk-behind tractor. Therefore, arable work on the site can be as varied as possible.
The difference between the two units may be the price. The more powerful the engine, the higher the cost of the equipment. Moreover, walk-behind tractors are often equipped with a set attachments. This also contributes to the rise in price. For this reason, if the owner of a plot needs to cultivate a small area, a motor cultivator is most often preferred. With its help it is easy to do arable work on small areas. But it must be taken into account that the power of such equipment for plowing virgin soil may not be enough. In this case, a weak motor cultivator will simply burn out.
Pros and cons of plowing with a walk-behind tractor
Previously, farmers had no alternative, so all work was done manually. Now many people can buy a motor-cultivator or even a walk-behind tractor. However, some still doubt that the land plowed with such equipment is of high quality.
The main advantage of using this type of equipment is that mechanical plowing takes little time. The farmer saves time and effort, productivity increases, and this affects the level of profit. Having a walk-behind tractor, you can refuse the help of hired workers. As a result, the farmer saves on several salaries.
At the same time, using a walk-behind tractor, you can not only plow the land, including virgin soil, but also plant seeds, harvest crops, mow grass and harvest hay, and also do a lot of other things. useful work without spending a lot of time on it. It is also convenient that with the help of one device you can do several jobs at the same time. Thus, already during plowing, the farmer has the opportunity to apply fertilizers to the ground.
Both the walk-behind tractor and the walk-behind cultivator allow you to dig deep into the soil. You cannot achieve such results manually. This is especially true for working in virgin lands. Thanks to the deep plowing provided by the walk-behind tractor, the cultivated land becomes better in terms of structure. This way the soil can be saturated with oxygen and properly moistened. This will definitely affect the harvest in the future.
Processing virgin soil with a walk-behind tractor brings a lot of benefits. With the help of this technique, soil cultivation occurs.
As a result, the planted plants grow well on the site, but weeds are eliminated.
Statistics show that after treating the soil with a walk-behind tractor or a walk-behind cultivator, the yield increases at least twice.
Among the shortcomings, one can highlight only high cost equipment. A good powerful walk-behind tractor for plowing virgin soil can cost about 100 thousand rubles. Plus, you will need additional attachments to perform various tasks. You can make them yourself, but some types will still have to be purchased.
You need to use walk-behind tractors very carefully on virgin soil. If there are many weeds with deep root systems in the soil, mechanical restoration will only be harmful, as it will contribute to the proliferation of harmful plants.
Some farmers believe that the constant use of a walk-behind tractor or a walk-behind cultivator can lead to the depletion of the fertile layer or its disruption, which negatively affects the yield. But this problem can be solved very easily. To do this, it is enough to apply fertilizer simultaneously with digging the soil.
Many gardeners and farmers believe that cultivating the land with a tractor will be much more convenient, and the quality of the plowed land is much higher. The first parameter can be considered correct, but regarding convenience, this is not so. Plowing work with a tractor will only be possible on large and completely open areas. If there are buildings or trees nearby, then using this technique will not work. Walk-behind tractors are much more maneuverable, and they are several times cheaper than the simplest tractor.
Rules for arable work
In order for the land to be fertile and the harvest to be good, you should adhere to some recommendations that exist both for virgin lands and for lands that have already been previously cultivated. One of key points is setting up the equipment. Before you start plowing the soil, you need to carefully adjust the width and depth of digging. Next, you should make sure that the walk-behind tractor is ready for work, that is, it is completely filled with fuel and lubricants.
As for how to plow the land using a walk-behind tractor, for different types soil has its own recommendations. But still, most often, experts advise making a furrow of about 50 cm with a depth of no more than 15 cm. If the soil is very rough, you can go deeper to 25 cm.
The area that is planned to be processed using a walk-behind tractor or cultivator must be completely cleared of large stones and debris. It is advisable to immediately remove all available weeds. Next, an orientation cord is laid along the area. This allows you to create the most even arable row.
Plowing virgin soil is somewhat different from regular work of such a type. Here you can move in a circle or in a zigzag. It all depends on the personal preferences of the farmer. In this case, the shape of the treated area must be taken into account. Experts recommend performing circular plowing on rectangular fields, and zigzag plowing on square fields.
Working in virgin lands is often associated with numerous difficulties. Therefore, for such cases, it is recommended to choose powerful equipment. Sometimes the ground turns out to be so hard that it is impossible to properly plow the virgin soil with a walk-behind tractor, even the most powerful one. For such cases, phased plowing is recommended, that is, the work will have to be done 2 or 3 times. It is recommended to choose the time after heavy rains, since wet soil is easier to process.
After finishing plowing, it is necessary to thoroughly clean the equipment from the soil. In this case, the equipment will last a long time without the need for repairs.
How to make a vegetable garden from virgin soil at the dachaVirgin land is an uncultivated plot of land that has not been plowed for more than 20 years. Such soil is rested and maximally full of nutrients necessary for plants. However, summer residents are more concerned about the possibility of using such a plot for a vegetable garden.
The better way to process virgin soil
Turn virgin soil into fertile soil for growing garden crops is quite possible. The first stage is plowing the land. It is best to use a tractor, but this is quite expensive and is not possible in small areas.
It is possible to process virgin soil with a walk-behind tractor, but its power may not be enough for areas that are too hard. In this case, the procedure must be repeated several times (first superficially, then deeper), or in a wet state, so that the equipment does not slip. The advantage of using any technique is less labor costs and faster results.
Treatment small areas It is carried out manually only with a shovel, but this is quite hard work. Mechanical devices and hand plows are not used for plowing virgin soil, since the strength of one person is not enough.
If digging with machinery is not possible, the soil is dug up manually with a shovel, lifting it to a depth of 15 cm. The lumps are not broken, but left to dry, after which the turf is shaken off the soil, helping with a hand ripper. Plant rhizomes are placed in compost pit for rotting.
How to prepare the soil for planting vegetables
After the first processing of virgin soil, you cannot immediately begin cultivation. It is necessary to further prepare the land. If the soil has been cultivated using machinery, then weeds are not selected from it, as with manual digging, but are plowed up along with the soil.
After plowing with a walk-behind tractor or
To improve the structure of the soil and saturate it with useful microelements, green manure plants (mustard, lupine, oats, rye, alfalfa) are planted. When the greenery grows, it is mowed and additional digging is carried out using machinery or manually.
On winter period winter crops are planted. In early spring after the snow melts, a third plowing is carried out and the area is planted for the first time garden crops.
After manual digging
When cultivating the land manually, you can use the previous method, but more often they do it differently. The land freed from turf is treated with herbicides to kill weeds. Then sprinkle with peat, humus or sawdust and dig, mixing everything.
After a week, the soil is fertilized with complex mineral fertilizers: potassium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, nitrophoska, superphosphate and dig up a second time. The land becomes suitable for use as a vegetable garden.
What to do if you need to process a large area manually
When processing a large area of virgin soil by hand, a popular method is dividing the area into small segments, which are covered with a double layer of dense material at least 5 cm thick. You can use cardboard, straw, black film or spandbond, and press down with bricks.
The ground overgrown with grass is left covered until autumn, when the greenery under such dense mulch has time to rot and rot. Thanks to humus, many earthworms will appear, which will loosen the soil, and the soil will be easier to work with. The disadvantage of this method is that the beds are ready for planting only at the beginning of the next season.
It is possible to prepare the land using inverted turf. Areas overgrown with grass are dug up manually with a shovel. Potatoes are planted in the resulting holes, which are covered with dug up turf, turning it over with the grass part down.
The grass in the ground rots, thereby fertilizing the potatoes and promoting their growth. This method allows you to harvest the crop the first time you plant it. But the timing of planting potatoes must be observed.
If space for beds is needed for urgent planting, and there is no way to wait next year, you can use the option of bulk beds. Prepared fertile soil it is poured directly onto virgin soil, and the row spacing is dug up and treated with targeted herbicides. Plants with a shallow root system (zucchini, cucumbers) can be planted in them.
Green squares
Life now is such that you have to plant a lot, otherwise you won’t survive. Only having time to conquer new heights! Next to my site there is land abandoned many years ago, overgrown with wheatgrass and other weeds.
Sod - you can't get a shovel in! There are two more complicating points.
The first one is when When developing virgin lands, I decided not to use herbicides. The second one is everywhere in our areas different thickness of the arable horizon, where there is more, where there is less, and under it there is chalk in the form of large (and not so large) pebbles. So we had to approach the matter creatively, as people say: just in case, have your own custom.
I finally found a way.
It is very effective and moderately labor intensive. But wheatgrass does not have the slightest loophole. However, I want to warn you in advance: do not immediately take on big piece land - first assess your strengths and capabilities, try it, see how it goes.
So, I mark a strip according to the size of the future bed, 1.5 m wide and 10 m long (see figure). Using the bayonet of a shovel, I cut out a square of turf (B1) and take it to the end of the proposed ridge. I cut out another similar square nearby and take it there. Then I go deeper as far as the arable horizon allows (A1 and A2). I remove the earth at the very end.
I perform this operation across the entire width of the bed, and I end up with a small ditch. Now I cut out a square of turf (A3) and lay it on the bottom of the ditch (in place of A1). Then I go deeper on the bayonet of the shovel (VZ), but I place the excavated soil on top of the previously laid turf - and so on across the entire width of the bed.
And it turns out that I am burying the sod. Having reached the end of the bed, in the same way I lay down the soil that I brought there at the beginning of work - sod on the bottom (with the layer turned over), and the pound on top. And at the end of the event, I carefully level the resulting bed with a rake. This is the big picture. And now the nuances.
How to remove wheatgrass...
Buried turf is alive. And it contains a lot of pupae, eggs, and larvae of pests. Therefore, if there is an opportunity and desire, a week or two before digging it would be nice to treat it with a strong solution of urea or ammonium nitrate(which will speed up the decomposition of the buried turf and reduce the number of pests). When the fertilizer takes effect and the grass turns yellow, you can start digging.
Now specifically about the solution. I take 500 g of fertilizer and dissolve it in a bucket of water. I spray it with a spray bottle in sunny, windless weather, after the morning dew has disappeared.
Therefore, before treating with urea, you need to check the weather forecast. Don't spray before it rains!
And then one day, after a rainstorm, my dried grass began to grow again. I had to use another solution, since there was no more urea (as well as the opportunity to buy it): I took 150 g of vinegar (9%) per 2 liters of water and added 5 tbsp. l. salt. I note that treatment with vinegar is considered an environmental means of control, since it quickly decomposes into carbon dioxide and water. Of course, it is also necessary to cultivate the soil with such a solution only in dry weather.
And one more nuance. When digging, especially if it’s in the fall, you need to put old newspapers between the layers of soil (A and B). They will rot over the winter, and this is an additional obstacle for pests and weeds.
Cover for garden beds
Now about how I resolved the issue with different thicknesses arable horizon. In June, when the grass was still lush and the weeds were just gaining strength, I treated the intended digging site for the first time with a strong urea solution. After that, I dug up with a shovel with a bayonet and turned the formation around. You can't go any deeper - it's chalk. It is this moment that is captured in the photo; the dried wheatgrass is visible from behind. I leveled the bed with a rake and covered it with what I could - pieces of cardboard, slate, linoleum and black polyethylene, pressing it all down broken bricks and boards.
And in August, I removed the cover, used a hoe to make wide, 15-20 cm furrows along the entire length (for a bed width of 1.5 m, there were 5 furrows), watered them generously and sowed rye thickly. It itself perfectly suppresses all hostile vegetation, but by autumn it grew wildly and became bushy. In this form it went into the winter. In the spring it grew even more, and in the tenth day of May I weeded it down to the very roots with a hoe. Then I dried it (it turned out to be wonderful straw!) and raked it to the side.
He dug up the bed finely, breaking up large clods with a shovel, and carefully leveled the ground with a rake. When the threat of frost passed (after May 26), I planted tomatoes and mulched all the free space in the bed with straw.
Then, during the season, new mulch was placed on top of it - weeded weeds. So the wheatgrass had no chance, but the tomatoes were a great success!
If there is no opportunity (or desire) to cultivate rye, then this advice: do not remove the cover from the garden bed in the fall, but sow corn or sorghum in the spring.
And if this is not suitable, plant it in this bed white cabbage, it will cover the entire surface with its burdock leaves, suppressing weeds. By the way, in the photo in the background you can see tomatoes and cabbage planted in this way (corn simply did not fit into the frame).
The main thing in this struggle is not to lose heart and strictly follow what was drawn up in advance. detailed plan operations codenamed "Liquidation". And methodically, systematically, systematically, step by step, move towards the intended goal.
You can also (this has been verified!) plant peppers, but then the mulch layer should be at least 10 cm. In general, more enthusiasm and creative approaches! As one of the classics of agriculture said, there are no bad lands - there are bad owners.
TWO HUNDREDS OF VIRGIN ELINE AND BAD SUMMER
Agree, it’s impressive when, in the very first year, on empty, abandoned land, and even in a disgustingly rainy summer, good harvest. What is this - an accident or a well-deserved success of a summer resident who thought through all the nuances in advance?
I had two acres of undeveloped virgin land: a thick carpet of turf on loamy soil. Polycarbonate sheets lay along the edges of the area Brown- from the old fence. The grass did not grow under them, but the mice did their work - they loosened the ground. Following the advice from the magazine, I planted potatoes in this place, planted them without digging, in furrows, followed by a small hilling. And I trimmed the edges with a shovel and laid turf on turf - it rotted, and the result was loose soil.
In August 2016, after I dug up the potatoes, I planted strawberries in two rows in the vacant space, mulching the roots with everything I had at hand - grass, black plastic bags. Before the frost, it developed well and partially even bloomed, although the variety is not remontant. Overwintered well and gave excellent harvest. I have never had so many strawberries before, although the variety is not very successful: the berries are very wrinkled. But again, thanks to the advice, I grew from seeds such varieties of strawberries as Baron Solemacher, Ruyana, Koketka, etc. But that’s another story.
And last spring I decided to plant the second, not yet developed part of the plot with pumpkins and zucchini. I usually do them well, but spring and early summer that year in the Moscow region turned out to be simply terrible: it rained endlessly, it was cold and there was very little sun. I sowed these crops several times, planted them with seedlings, covered them with cut bottles, and... And I succeeded! Moreover, taking into account the fact that I cleared the ground from the turf in small squares, and covered the remaining turf with black film or cardboard.
No matter how terrible an abandoned site may look, virgin soil can be reclaimed without digging. It is enough to mow all the weeds and then start creating raised beds(V southern regions) or trenches (in the northern ones). Weeds should be isolated by covering the soil with several layers of cardboard, newspaper or black, opaque film.
When the pumpkins and zucchini grew (and in August it suddenly became warm, 25-28°), they closed the entire territory right up to the fence and did not
allowed weeds to develop. The harvest turned out to be very good for that extremely unfavorable year: I harvested 65 kg of pumpkin and almost the same amount of zucchini.
And as an experiment, last spring I planted two rows of potatoes along the strawberries on both sides, and mustard and oats between the rows of green manure. Mustard, followed by embedding in the ground, very well ennobled my virgin soil, and until late autumn the oats threw out spikelets with seeds, which I tore up and dried. But I liked it less as a green manure: it grows too much.
In general, last year I got a good harvest of pumpkins, zucchini, potatoes, strawberries and wild strawberries from two acres of virgin land, winter garlic and leek variety Kara-tansky (planted with seedlings for the first time).