How to sow and plant seedlings in narrow beds 1. Both seeds and seedlings are placed along the edges, in two rows, along the sides. Two-row is the main trump card of narrow beds: all plants should be extreme. In the Mittlider method, it is necessary to leave the middle of the bed empty also

Different beds are needed, all kinds of beds are important Gardeners most often make beds traditional form- a rectangle 70–100 cm wide and as long as the area allocated for the beds allows, usually 4–7 m. Because of this, a garden consisting of several adjacent

How to arrange crops in the beds to spend less time processing? Remember where I started this book - with the principles of organic farming. One of them - do not leave the ground bare. Placing crops in the garden, I figure out how and what to plant so that

We make beds The soil is cultivated, now you can make beds. Again, a large flat cutter is at work. We determine the place where the bed will pass, where the boundary will be. It is better to put the board and hold the side of the flat cutter, the opposite of the blade, - the heel. There will be a clear straight line on the ground. So

What supports to arrange for grapes Tip No. 189 In the second year after planting, you should begin to form vine bushes. In the spring, it is necessary to install supports on which the vines will subsequently be located. If the supports are not built at the very beginning, this

What are the advantages of narrow beds?

Narrow beds play important role in organic farming. If you want to get a good and healthy crop without chemicals, then you need to know how to make narrow beds, as well as why they are effective. But first, let's figure out why it is worth abandoning wide beds.

Look at pictures 1 and 2. This shows wide and narrow vegetable beds. For greater clarity, I took the same area occupied by the site.

Along the edges of the beds, both narrow and wide, you can’t do without a path. I assumed that the track would be 40 centimeters wide. Oh yes. All dimensions in the drawings are in centimeters.

The area of ​​one such track is 2 square meters with a 5-meter length of the beds (you can have it shorter or longer, and 5 meters is taken only for demonstration). Here you can safely walk, run, jump. Between the two wide beds laid another path. But what do we get? On a narrow bed, you can safely reach the middle, so the trampling zone there is only 10 square meters. Here we do not stand on the aisles, but only on the paths.

Another thing is a wide garden. She can only dream about it. On it, one might say, in general, the whole season is trampled. At least 3 times per season you will walk between rows. What is this walking. How much harm from her! Well, I'll tell you more from here.

Imagine you came to a wide garden and saw a ripe cucumber or tomato somewhere in the middle. What will you do? Of course, you will be on the garden!

But what to do when you need to pull out a weed that is about to give seeds, or suddenly it is time to spud potatoes? There is nothing else left but to stand on the bed. So I say that at least you will walk around the garden 3 times per season. But this is the minimum. In fact, there are usually more than three such walks.

It would seem so what? We do not stand on the plant. But plants can be compared to an iceberg, because what we see on the surface is not the whole picture. Hidden underground secret life plants. What am I telling you, you yourself know very well that not a single plant will grow without roots. But the roots of plants are not only where the stem is. In addition to the main root, the plant also has a number of small roots, and, stepping between the bushes, we thereby cut them off.

What's the difference? Just think, a spine more, a spine less. Well, don't tell. Why, then, do the plants get sick and give a low yield? What little "mineral water" poured? No. This is due to the weakness of the plants, as they "survive" the breakage of small roots. Have you ever had a thin heel stepped on your almost bare foot on the subway or bus during rush hour? The plant experiences almost the same thing. To survive, it will survive, but it will “limp” and get sick. And in the end also small harvest will give.

Remember that each step on the aisle is accompanied by:

1. a large number of dangling plant roots (you have already read about this);
2. compacted soil. In a compacted place, moisture evaporates very quickly from the ground;
3. broken stems and torn leaves of vegetables.

Narrow beds for vegetables are much more preferable than wide ones. You can also grow potatoes on them. Why not? You will see, potatoes in narrow beds will give very good harvest. It is also easy and convenient to grow strawberries in such beds.

But the fact that they constantly trample on wide ridges does not contribute at all big harvest. Little of. The aisles of wide beds still need to be weeded, loosened, watered, and after they have been walked on, the soil needs to be loosened again. And so the whole season. The question is, why do extra work? You have nothing to do with time? It’s better to sit once again with your children or grandchildren, or just relax and look at the beauty around.

A big plus of narrow beds is that they only need to be done once. And while one of the neighbors in the spring will form their wide beds by trampling on them and carrying dirt (in the spring there is no way without it), you can sow or plant something or just relax with might and main.

Sometimes gardeners use borders for beds, which improves functionality, since the earth does not crumble at the edges. There are other benefits of using garden fences, which you can read about here.

By the way, yes, at the expense of dirt. Sow lawn grass on the paths between narrow beds and then you don’t have to “carry” the dirt around the site. You will keep everything clean and tidy. You can still cover the paths with mulch, but I like grass more because:

1. she looks prettier;
2. it is more pleasant to walk on it;
3. mowing the lawn grass we get additional material for mulching.

And what optimal width beds? Here, as they say, a matter of taste. Starting from 90 cm and up to 110 cm. The main criterion is the convenience of work. Narrow beds will be effective if you can reach the middle of them without standing on the bed itself. It is very convenient to process them with a Fokin flat cutter. The width of the path between the beds should be at least 40 cm, and if the garden is large, then you can make some paths 70 cm wide. It will be more convenient to move the wheelbarrow around the garden.

There is also an option to make narrow beds not rectangular, but oblique. In this case, the angles will not be 90°, but 60° and 120°. I myself have never worked on such beds, but they say that they are more convenient than rectangular ones.

I hope I managed to convince you of the effectiveness of narrow beds, and if you yourself are already working on the same ones, then tell us about it. I am very interested to know your opinion too.

Narrow beds provide light work in the garden. If time, health and strength are precious to you, then make narrow beds for vegetables and you will see that most of work will disappear by itself. Good luck!

I advise, dear readers, to receive fresh articles by e-mail. so as not to miss the publication of new materials on this blog.

Best Regards Gardensha

http://garden4u.ru

New and old - why is this topic so painful for us? Some use new techniques and get fantastic results, others look at them with envy for years, but they are in no hurry to say goodbye to the old days ...

The garden is better not to dig!

Five years ago, I came across a book by B.S. Annenkov “Give a shovel to a neighbor! Garden no problem. The title intrigued me and I bought this book. In it, the author very popularly explained why it was impossible to dig the earth. Another academician V.I. Vernadsky said that the German industrialist Krupp, by releasing all his weapons, did less harm to humanity than a man with a shovel and a plow!

However, until now, the Russian peasantry has not heeded this statement, AND TILL our days, it plows the fields with tractors, more than once a year and at least 35 cm deep with a revolution of the earth layer, destroying all life that is in the soil.

Since the 50s of the last century, farmers in most countries of the world have abandoned plowing and digging fields and gardens, switched to sparing and zero tillage and the use of organic composts. At the same time, they receive yields many times higher than those in the fields and gardens of Russia.

There the blockade of bad traditions was broken, but in Russia this is still to be done. Here is an article confirming this: I tried to plant only two acres in a new way using narrow ridges and immediately noticed the difference in the amount of effort expended and the harvest.

At first, I also broke permanent narrow beds only for vegetables, and planted potatoes in the old fashioned way. When the vegetables were just starting to grow, it seemed that there was too much free space left, and all the relatives condemned me for using the land so irrationally and planting vegetables so little, they were afraid that we would be left without a harvest.

By mid-summer, the picture had changed. Due to the narrow ridges and wide aisles, vegetables receive more light, grow well and eventually occupy almost all the free space. There was no more free land in sight. Cabbage felt especially good in narrow beds, the leaves grew large, and in order to water it, you even had to look for a place to step on. Accordingly, the harvest pleased - and so with all crops. Relatives no longer said that I started narrow beds in vain.

The next year, I already broke the entire garden (and I have 10 acres) into beds 45 cm wide with row spacing of 65 cm. We also planted potatoes in two lines on narrow beds in a checkerboard pattern. Surprisingly, it turned out quickly, they did it in two hours. And before?..

They planted it like this: synthetic twine was pulled on pegs on both sides of the bed, then they began to plant it: me and my son on one side, and my daughter and son-in-law on the other. First, the son dug shallow holes, about half a bayonet of a shovel. I put the excavated earth in the center of the bed, I then laid out the potatoes, sprinkling with a handful of ash. Next, the son-in-law, on the other hand, began to dig holes, and covered our holes with the excavated earth; his daughter was also laying out potatoes behind him. When they finished the bed, they moved the twine to the next bed, and with a rake they leveled the remaining holes with earth from the center of the bed. Due to the wide passages, the potatoes had enough light, and they did not stretch.

After landing a week later, I raked the beds with a rake, it was easy to do this, since the beds are clearly visible from the paths. After 10 days, when the paths were covered with a green haze of weeds, I walked along them with a flat cutter, capturing single weeds that had crawled out on the beds from both sides. She coped with the work several times (!) Faster than before, when landing in the usual way- after all, it was not necessary to weed each bush separately.

When it was time to spud, I stood on one path and with a chopper raked the ground with a roller to the opposite row of potatoes. Then she did the same, standing on the path from which she raked the earth, and spudded the second row in the garden. Previously, my daughter and I used to plant potatoes together, as it was hard for me to cope with this alone, but now I manage to do everything myself, without waiting for my daughter, although I am already 58 years old!

Is the habit of digging a vegetable garden stronger?

The harvest is also good. Even the neighbor looked with envy, although he continues to plant in the old fashioned way: he is already 70 years old, and, apparently, the habit is stronger than he is ... Now, thanks to the narrow beds, I can manage the garden without outside help. Only potatoes are helped to plant and dig. Therefore, I advise you not to be afraid and transfer the potatoes to narrow beds - the harvest will please you, and much less effort will be spent on processing!

Since I switched to narrow beds, the earth has become better, earthworms have appeared.

If any “non-standard” comes across, or in the spring there is a crop unused over the winter, I do not throw them in the trash, but use them in compost. I take out only what does not rot in the trash: iron, glass, cellophane, etc. For cleaning, I have a separate bucket in my kitchen, where I put all the waste and egg shells, and everything into compost.

Somehow I came across the advice to cook compost in iron barrels, and I immediately took it into service, now it takes less space. So I advise everyone not to be afraid of the new, because in our magazine for more than a year people have been writing about narrow beds, and only good ones.

Most hard work on the "garden field" - this is the arrangement of the site, breaking it into beds, their autumn digging. Loosening, planting, caring for and even watering (although these are also difficult jobs for older people) are less frightening for gardeners, because these works are more extended in time, and can give at least a short respite in the warm season.

How to organize country cottage area to keep it attractive, keep the garden clean, and reduce maintenance work? I advise you to make narrow beds. In this article I will tell you how narrow beds save summer residents from a lot of labor, and I will share my experience in creating them.

How I made narrow beds and simplified my life. © SILive

Why a big garden is not a big harvest yet

Many years of gardening experience has shown that the quantity of a quality crop is not ensured by a large area. In a small area, more careful care is possible for plants, which means that the yield from the bush and from the area as a whole will be the largest and with best quality fruits. Forces and time to care for culture on small plot spend 2-3 times less.

Multi-field crop rotation (8-12 crops) with large areas beds in old age - overwork. I am 77 years old and have been using the narrow bed method in my garden for the last 15 years. Very convenient and does not require money and excessive physical effort.

An easy way to create narrow beds

To change your traditional garden to a more progressive one, you first need to measure total area site. Level the area allotted for the garden, and divide it into narrow beds with wide paths. The width of the beds should be no more than 40-50 cm. Wide paths must be left between the beds - 80-120 cm. The length of the beds is arbitrary and depends on the desire of the owner. The beds are best directed from north to south. This arrangement will lengthen the illumination of plants in the beds. All grass and leftovers garden plants(not affected by diseases) are thrown onto the tracks.

It is possible to swap narrow ridges and paths in 2-4 years. In the middle of a wide path, select a narrow bed, and form wide paths from the worked-out beds and side parts of the paths. Over the years, a sufficient layer of semi-decomposed mulch will accumulate on them from weeds, tops and stems of garden plants.

New narrow beds 8-10 cm deep are loosened with choppers. During the winter, the soil swells, becomes airy, loosening is repeated in the spring. No digging needed. If not all the work (for various reasons) was completed in a timely manner, and the weeds rose on the beds and paths, they are mowed down and left to rot.

You can not move narrow beds from place to place and then sow wide paths lawn grass: bent grass, bluegrass and other grasses resistant to trampling. They suppress ordinary weeds, beds are obtained in a green dress of lawn grasses.

Some owners cover the paths with old sheets of plywood, roofing felt to reduce their overgrowth with weeds, and it was more convenient to work in the garden. In this case, the harvested weeds are left in the aisles in the garden.

If you have time and energy, you can fence the beds and raise them above the ground. But these works require time and materials. In addition, on free land without any fences, plants develop better.

Under certain cultures since autumn, narrow beds can be sown with green manure. © oldworldgardenfarms

What are the advantages of narrow beds?

There is a free approach to plants on such a bed from two sides. It is easy to process, loosen, plant. You can perform these works sitting on a bench along the garden or move across when planting a large planting material(potatoes, arbazheyka, zucchini, peas, etc.)

Only one strict condition: you can’t step on the garden bed so as not to compact the soil. All work is carried out from wide paths between the beds. On wide paths, all ancillary work is performed using containers, carts, auxiliary equipment, without touching the garden.

Crops are planted in the garden in 2-3 rows no more, except for small-seeded ones (black onions, dill, radishes, lettuces, etc.). On narrow beds, the aisles are left minimally narrow. With such a landing, the growing above-ground part garden plants will cover empty soil faster.

For example, on narrow beds, the row spacing for early tomatoes is 35x35 cm, and for tall, large bush tomatoes - 40x40 and no more than 50x50 cm, for carrots - 5x5 cm. Cucumber row spacings do not exceed 20x20 cm. Weeds will die under the green mass of growing crops, and frequent loosening to kill weeds will not be needed. In addition, 20-25 times less moisture evaporates through the leaf surface of plants than from the open soil surface.

Crop rotation in narrow beds

AT winter period enough time to think about the crop rotation (crop rotation) of your garden. The basic rule is that in the garden, a change of crops should go on throughout the warm season. For example: if large crops are not needed, you can break the garden into 2-3 parts. On one, sow radishes of several ripening periods, and on the second - spinach or salads, then - onions as an annual crop.

Radishes will occupy their part of the garden for no more than 1-1.5 months. After harvesting, you can plant seedlings early cabbage, early tomatoes, 40-day potatoes. After harvesting the salads, the second half of the garden can be occupied with medium or medium-early tomatoes, green (dill, celery, parsley, basil), spring garlic.

If it is planned to plant seedlings of medium and late dates, white cabbage, then it is necessary to sow this bed with green manure in autumn or spring so that it does not become empty, becoming a testing ground for weeds. By the time the seedlings are planted, green manure is mowed down and used as mulch for crops. All crop care can be done slowly, better - on a bench adapted for this.

If you have time and energy, you can fence the beds and raise them above the ground. © Garden Inspiration

Care of crops on narrow ridges

loosening

Sitting on a bench, it is easy to reach a row of plants in the garden on one side and the other, loosen the soil, and destroy weeds. Better weed leave crops in the aisles, but if there are still a lot of them, and they have grown (this happens in the first years), then the destroyed weeds are dumped onto the path. A layer of weeds will spring underfoot, which will reduce the load on the soil. She won't tread so hard. Weeds will rot, form humus, which will be very useful in the future. If the weeds have risen on the paths, they are easy to destroy by surface loosening.

Mulching

Narrow beds are easy to mulch. The same weeds are used as mulch (they are laid in the aisles), straw, sawdust(except conifers) and wood chips, green mass of beveled green manure.

Through a 7-10 cm layer of mulch (not less, otherwise the mulch does not work), weeds do not germinate, they die, as do some pests, including Colorado beetle(the number of treatments against him is reduced). In addition, green manure with their root system will loosen the soil, it will not need to be dug up and at the same time they will serve as green fertilizer for the main crop.

Permanent employment of the site will not require high costs for continuous weed control. Mulching will prevent vegetable crops close to the ground from soil contamination (tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, etc.) and fungal infections (phytophthora, rot). When rotting, the mulch replenishes the soil with organic matter, which will increase soil fertility and improve its structure.

If the site is heavily weeded, then some of the weeds can be removed before the start spring work without much effort. You just need to provoke their faster germination. In the spring, peat, ash, humus are scattered over the snow in the garden and covered with a transparent film. The rays of the sun are attracted by the dark surface, the ground under the film warms up faster and the weeds begin to sprout. After 1.5-2.0 weeks, the soil on the beds and paths is loosened, destroying the weeds.

If late crops are planned to be planted in the garden, the provocation is repeated. Just bare soil is once again pushed by surface loosening (digging of the soil is not needed).

Narrow ridges, especially strawberry or under perennials, are conveniently mulched with a covering material that does not transmit light, but allows moisture to pass through.

If the weeds were not removed from the paths in a timely manner, they are cut off at the root and used for mulching. horticultural crops on the beds.

On narrow ridges it is easy to organize drip irrigation. © Wild Gourd Farm

Watering plants

With sufficient May rains and abundant timely mulching of the soil, it is possible to reduce part of the irrigation by increasing the interval between irrigation. Moisture is well retained under mulch, preventing the soil from forming a dry crust, which often harms delicate plant stems.

On narrow ridges, it is easy to organize drip irrigation. From the main hose running along the garden, a hose with holes is laid on each narrow bed. The smaller the diameter of the holes, the more often they are located. The main hose is attached to the faucet. The pressure of the water is made small, the water should drip, not pour.

Dear readers! Remember that switching to narrow beds will not automatically free the garden from weeds in one year, but will help reduce labor costs for processing the site and allow you to get enough high yields vegetables without physical strain.

Valentina Maidurova

Almost every gardener strives to get the largest possible and, of course, healthy harvest on his site. At the same time, the majority gives their garden a lot of physical strength and time. It is hard work in the garden that discourages many from engaging in farming, and children, looking at the torment of adults and the uninteresting process of tillage, do not want to participate in this.

Therefore, it is necessary to approach agriculture wisely, to do it as simply as possible for yourself, as convenient as possible, observing the laws of nature. One way to simplify work and improve results is to arrange narrow beds.

Vegetable growing in narrow beds was developed by the American vegetable grower Dr. Jacob Mittlider and began to be used in our countries. In his method, mineral fertilizers were widely used in growing vegetables, but organic cultivation ensures rich, healthy and tasty crops.

A narrow bed is formed with a width of 50 cm (in a humid climate) to 100 cm (in a dry climate) of arbitrary length, and the aisles in narrow beds should be wide: from 60 to 100 cm.

Advantages of a narrow garden

Why is it that a narrow bed will be favorable for plants and why such wide aisles?

The fact is, plants that grow in a wide bed receive insufficient lighting, shade each other, stretch out, become weaker, and only the extreme ones develop much better than those in the middle of the bed.

On a narrow bed, plants are planted in 2-4 rows in a checkerboard pattern, and they all turn out to be extreme, and free space - wide row spacing contributes to them. better lighting which has a positive effect on development and health.

Plants in narrow beds also receive the necessary nutrients from the space of the bed filled with organic matter, while the space between the beds also does not “walk” - mulched or sown with a lawn, it retains moisture on the site, and the bottom layer of mulch is processed into fertilizer earthworms and soil microorganisms. In addition, on those covered with sand, sawdust, hay, straw ... unnecessary weeds will not grow.

In order not to waste energy on the formation of new beds from year to year, they are made stationary - they are protected by any available materials- logs, boards, bricks, slate, stones. wood materials it is better to pre-treat to protect against decay - proliferate or paint with water-based paint.

If you have an arid, hot climate, the soil level in the garden bed should not be much higher than the ground level between the rows, and if the climate is rainy or water spills into the gardens, it makes sense to make beds - boxes. In beds raised above ground level - boxes during heavy rains plants will not get wet and will not be heated.

The walls of the beds - the boxes rise 20 - 30 cm above ground level and it is better to make them from durable material, for example, from brick, which is more durable and practical than boards or logs.

High bed - box

How is it done high bed? She is being laid in the following way: leaves, hay or straw are placed in the box at the very bottom, thin twigs can be used, they are covered with compost or humus from above, and then - to the very top - fertile soil. To maintain fertility in the beds, you can add compost to them or grow green fertilizers- green manure that can be sown in early spring and autumn.

On narrow beds, tall and spreading plants that require a lot of space are grown in two rows in a checkerboard pattern - cabbage, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes ..., and more compact ones that will not interfere with each other - in three or four, taking into account the norm of distances between them - onions, garlic, carrots, radishes, beets, lettuce ...

It is worth noting that for better and uniform lighting, all the beds are made stretched from north to south, when the Sun rises, illuminates one side of the plants before lunch, and the other in the afternoon before sunset.

Also, do not forget about combining several types of garden crops in one garden bed, for example - tall in the center, stunted, root crops along the edges.

Advantages of narrow beds

The disadvantage of stationary beds is the labor intensity and financial costs of materials for the walls of the beds in the first year of their foundation. However, the construction of stationary beds has many important advantages that are justified a hundred times:

• reduction of the cultivated area of ​​the soil;
• beauty and order on the site, the absence of dirt in the aisles;
• tillage and care for such beds becomes more convenient;
• no need to form new beds every year;
• ease of irrigation and less water consumption;
• nutrients are not washed out of the fenced garden;
• a high bed prevents flooding and stagnant water;
• the bed contains and retains a sufficiently large volume useful substances and moisture;
• a mulched bed will retain moisture and the growth of weeds;
• the absence of weeds in wide aisles eliminates the need to fight them on large area vegetable gardens thanks to mulch;
• does not require constant fertilization - sowing green manure replenishes nutrients in the soil of the bed;
• an organic bed does not require digging, only loosening with flat-cutting tools;
• the rapid heating of the raised bed in the spring allows for early planting;
• a narrow bed and wide aisles provide plants with not only good lighting, but also free air movement, which enhances the air supply of plants and prevents the development of fungal diseases during wet times;
• raised narrow beds are easier to cover from spring and autumn frosts or to pull sun protection nets over them in hot summer.

Narrow beds - boxes will make your site beautiful, caring for plants is an interesting activity and will allow you to get a rich, healthy harvest!