, which grows in the autumn and winter season.warm beds made is a great opportunity to get a harvest earlier than usual. Our capricious Russian spring often harbors unpleasant surprises, for example, a sharp drop in temperatures down to frosts. In this article, we share our experience in creating warm beds for the cultivation of vegetable products. Nikolai Kurdyumov, a famous agronomist and propagandist of natural farming, said that fertility is not a state, but a dynamic process that occurs in the soil. Warm beds are layered just designed to create this continuous living process.
Vegetable crops develop much better on a living substrate of insulated beds, it is easier for them to cope with surface night frosts, to transfer temperature fluctuations. Vegetables on warmed ridges ripen faster, and the labor costs of summer residents decrease.
Igor Lyadov's amazing garden
The whole vegetable-growing process according to the Lyadov system can be reduced to two technological operations - the cultivation of vegetables on specially arranged narrow ridges according to the Metlider method and natural farming without the use of toxic chemicals.
For many years, the garden of Igor Lyadov was in disrepair. Vegetables in the conditions of the Far Eastern climate felt uncomfortable, they suffered because of waterlogging, soaking.
Regular dressings with mineral fertilizers did not save the situation, the taste of vegetables was unsatisfactory, the potato degeneration was observed, the yield of vegetable crops decreased every year.
A gardener enthusiast decided to seriously take up his site. He noted that with the use of wide traditional beds, only the leaves that were located at the edges of the ridge normally develop.
The farmer concludes that the presence of fresh air masses and space affects the growth and development of the plant. Igor Nikolayevich finds confirmation of his ideas in the method of growing vegetables by Mitlider. It boils down to growing the crop on narrow strips of land with a fairly large row spacing( 75 cm or more).
Read also: Excellent yield with minimal costs - high beds
Russian plant-breeder decides to modify the technique and raise warm beds, made with his own hands, above the 20 cm dirt paths to get rid of regular floods that are not rare in the area where he lives. An enterprising gardener made a wooden fence - a box and fenced the ridges.
This fence served as protection against soil erosion. The result was an improvised container.
The advantages of the containers are obvious:
- the shape of the beds is maintained throughout the growing season;
- water is retained in the soil, and you can water the plants less often;
- wooden box made it possible to more effectively produce composting;
- high ridges prevent the loss of nutrients and carbon dioxide emitted by microorganisms.
Soon Lyadov decides to abandon mineral fertilizers. Plants grown in his garden, receive only organic matter in the form of manure, herbal infusion, compost, mulch. Wood ash is also used. Warm beds and the wonderful garden of Igor Lyadov are a great example of natural farming in the open field.
Garden beds in polycarbonate and polyethylene
To prevent plants from being affected by returnable frosts, and in order to accelerate their development, they recommend growing cucumber seedlings under film cover until the last days of May. Before you make the beds in the greenhouse, it must be carefully disinfected, removed last year’s leftovers and replaced damaged items. In a greenhouse with small size, you can build three narrow beds, leaving two passes for maintenance.
The material for the construction of warm beds use the same materials as for the beds in the garden. In a well-fixed box to make all the necessary components.
On a warm bed under a safe polycarbonate or polyethylene shelter, the plants feel much better, they grow faster and endure cold freezing painlessly on the surface of the ground.
If you want to get the first products of early cucumbers earlier, then you need to grow them through seedlings. When grown through seedlings, you can save expensive or scarce seeds, each seed will yield a crop and will not get lost in the soil.
Cucumber seedlings are planted at a permanent growing place when four true leaves appear on the plants.
Immediately before planting the seedlings on warmed high beds, pits are made. The depth should be equal to the depth of the cup in which the cucumber seedlings were located.
Read also: Cultivation and care of carrots in open ground
For such ridges in an unheated greenhouse, cucumbers are planted in one row in the center of the ridge, leaving a distance between plants of 20 cm. The bottom edge of the rope is tied to a cucumber lash over the third sheet, height - 12 cm above ground level.
A warm bed with warming compost and manure under a polycarbonate cover or film provides the optimum temperature for plants.
The temperature is regulated by ventilation, for this you can simply lift the plastic film or open the vent.
Wooden box will allow you to keep moisture longer. Cucumber is a vegetable crop that loves moisture very much. Before entering the fruiting period, it is necessary to water cucumber plantations every 2 to 3 days, while the water consumption per plant is 0.5 liters.
During the ripening period, cucumbers are watered daily, spending 1.5 - 3 liters of water under each root.
With the onset of sustained heat, covering material is completely removed.
Growing vegetables in warm beds in spring and autumn
Modern greenhouses, even built with their own skilled hands, are rather expensive for a summer resident, so the zealous owners try to make the most of it.
Even if the greenhouse is without additional heating, and you live in the country for a limited time, you can develop such an agricultural technology so that under transparent vaults the harvest is ripe from April to November. Of course, this applies to stationary greenhouses, with year-round glass or polycarbonate.
In an unheated greenhouse, sowing of cold-resistant crops begins in early April, or at the end of March, if the weather is warm.
The first to fall into the ground are the seeds of radish, parsley, dill, lettuce, arugula, Chinese cabbage, mustard.
No matter how much the greenhouse protects, for early plantings it should be possible to provide additional cover for plants with nonwoven material.
Similarly, you can also grow all of these crops in the fall, extending the season of consumption of fresh greens until the end of November.
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Autumn harvest of greenery
How to make a warm garden bed in autumn for growing greens before the end of November?
- At the end of August, the greenhouse is almost free of tomato plants, eggplant pepper, it’s good if a couple of cucumber lashes are preserved. So why not free areas, safely covered from cold nights, not to use for business purposes.
- As in the early spring, thoroughly clean the greenhouse from plant residues, remove all damaged, yellowed and diseased leaves from the remaining plants, and rinse polycarbonate surfaces.
- Soil the soil, spill a dark red solution of potassium permanganate, fill with humus, wood ash and superphosphate.
- After a couple of days, pour the prepared ridges with phytosporin solution, make furrows and sow vegetables on the greens.
A warm garden built in an unheated greenhouse will allow you to grow greens until the last days of November.
Warm garden beds with your own hands, step-by-step production of
fill them up by adding some fertile land, peat.
