Natural farming on a family estate. How to switch to natural farming Organic farming in your summer cottage

If you decide to grow an environmentally friendly, rich and healthy crop for yourself and your family according to the principles of natural farming, but the plot does not yet meet these principles, you should apply the recommendations and advice described below step by step. Perhaps you will have doubts whether growing vegetables, herbs and berry crops using natural farming techniques will really become easier, more interesting, the soil will be more fertile and you will receive good harvests. In this case, select part of the site, at least a few beds.

So, how can you quickly switch to natural farming if you have a plot of land that was cultivated using the agricultural technology of conventional, traditional farming?


Firstly, to make caring for plants easier, it is necessary. These can be either conventionally defined beds within the boundaries of row spacing, or fenced with any material - border tiles, bricks, slate, logs. There is only a small nuance: it is not recommended to bury the border fencing too deep underground, so that the root nutrition of the plants occurs not only from the bed itself, but also from the space between the rows.

Unlike conventional farming, when the beds are quite wide and not very easy to maintain, and the row spacing is narrow, in smart farming the opposite is true. To ensure uniform illumination of plants, to provide them with sufficient space for development, as well as convenience when caring for plants, the beds are made from 0.5 to 1 m wide, and the row spacing is about 1 m. In addition, the beds are located along a line from north to south - so the plants will receive maximum sunlight and will not shade each other. For residents of the central and northern regions, where plants do not receive enough spring and autumn heat, it is recommended to place the beds at a slight slope to the south, since it is believed that a slope of 1 degree is equivalent to moving the site 100 km to the south. When arranging beds, you can also solve the problem with spring flooding of the site - make raised beds– boxes raised above the main ground level.

To quickly improve soil fertility in the beds and mix it with the soil. Coarse sand is added to non-sandy soils to improve their looseness and heat capacity. This rather labor-intensive procedure is necessary only at the beginning, and later soil fertility is achieved by sowing green manure, mulching and adding organic matter. To “start” the soil, you can populate it with earthworms, which can be dug up in the moist soils of forests, near streams and rivers. And in order to saturate the soil with beneficial microorganisms necessary for processing organic matter, spill it with a solution (for example, Siyanie, Vostok, Baikal...).

If you decide to switch to natural farming in late summer or autumn, it is good to sow in the beds. This could be white mustard, Shrovetide radish, sweet clover, winter rye, vetch... One type of plant - green manure or a mixture of several are sown shallowly in fairly dense rows, or scattered under a rake. By winter, your soil will be covered with a green carpet, which will protect the soil from freezing and weathering, and when decomposed, will fertilize it and give it structure. In the spring, two to three weeks before sowing the main crops, green manure is cut with a flat cutter to a depth of 5-7 cm and left on the soil as mulch.

If you do not plan to sow green manure before winter, then the soil must be covered with a layer of hay, straw, and fallen leaves. The mulch layer covering the beds and row spacing acts as a blanket for the soil - it retains heat in cool weather, and in hot weather it protects the soil from high temperatures. In addition, mulch preserves the moisture and structure of the soil; condensation falls on it due to the difference between day and night temperatures, and as it drains, it moistens the soil. In addition to the beds, paths should also “work” for the benefit of the crop, which should be mulched; organic residues can be added to them under mulch, or they can be sown with lawn grasses.

At the end, after preparing the beds and paths, if there is no rain, the area is well watered, since both air and moisture are necessary for the life of soil animals.

in spring next year In order for the soil to warm up faster, we free our organic beds from unrotted mulch, which we rake into the aisles. When the soil warms up enough for sowing seeds, we cultivate the soil with a flat cutter to a depth of 7 cm, loosening the top layer of soil, and then, cutting grooves, we sow. After sowing, lightly mulch the beds, and as the plants develop, add mulching material so that its layer is from 5 to 10 or more centimeters.

Video seminar of the Center for Natural Agriculture in Ufa " First steps in natural farming»

So, to switch to natural farming you need to:

  • Prepare the beds
  • Fill the beds with organic matter
  • Sow green manure
  • Mulch
  • Minimal tillage.

Deep plowing and digging reduce the activity of natural microorganisms, destroy the soil structure and reduce its fertility.

The earth needs to be loosened no deeper than five centimeters using a homemade flat cutter or Fokin flat cutter. This kind of loosening of the soil is quite enough to prepare the soil for planting vegetables, aerate it, and reduce the number of weeds.

The composition and structure of the soil created by previous plantings is not destroyed, the activity of worms and microorganisms living in the soil remains the same.

Be sure to mulch the soil

Organic mulch very well saturates the soil of the site with minerals so necessary for growth plants, and also improves its composition, promotes reproduction and earthworms and other soil organisms.

The content of vermicompost gradually increases in mulched soil. Covered soil is protected from overheating in the sun, and, accordingly, from rapid evaporation of moisture, hypothermia and erosion. Straw, leaves, sawdust, hay, etc. are suitable as mulch.

Maintain crop rotation

Crop rotation, or simply put, alternation, changing crops, helps maintain soil fertility and significantly reduces the number of diseases and pests.

All annual crops should not grow in the same place for the second year in a row - this is the simplest crop rotation scheme.

Complex systems include ten-year rotation patterns of vegetable and fruit crops.

Crop rotation can be carried out according to one of two principles: alternate families or groups of crops (leaf, fruit, root crops) with a minimum rotation plan (usually three to four years).

Make warm beds

The beds are made directly on the compost heap, while still warm - heat is released during the decomposition of organic matter. The temperature of a warm bed is two to four degrees higher than the temperature environment. This makes it possible to plant plants ahead of schedule. Direct composting on beds with raw organic matter provides the following advantages:

  • there is no need to spread ready-made compost over the beds
  • carbon dioxide is used completely by plants, while in finished compost its share is significantly lost
  • mulch function is performed
  • humidity and temperature of the beds are regulated

Note to the gardener:

Green manures are divided into families: legumes, cruciferous and cereals. Legumes enrich the soil with nitrogen.

These include lupine, vetch, peas, soybeans, lentils, sweet clover, sainfoin, clover, and alfalfa.

Cruciferous vegetables (mustard, oilseed radish, rapeseed, rapeseed) saturate it with sulfur and phosphorus.

Grain green manures sprout quickly: wheat, rye, barley, oats, granary. They enrich the soil with potassium and suppress the growth of weeds.

When sowing green manure, observe crop rotation, this way you will saturate the soil with different microelements.

Organic farming – reader responses (transferred from comments)

Over the past 3 years, I have been learning natural farming with interest. We have a training center in Voronezh, where I go to lectures on this topic - very informative! I put a lot of knowledge into practice in my summer cottage.

Soil blanket

Our dacha is located on sandy soil with high acidity, so you have to reduce it. I add humus and chemicals – the bare minimum. My natural farming started with mulching. As soon as the first grass grows in the area in April-May, I begin to create a blanket. Any herb can be used as mulch, but medicinal herbs are preferable.

Around the holiday village there are a lot of nettles, yarrow, wormwood, tansy, celandine, dandelions, burdocks, etc. And there are all sorts of weeds growing in the garden. In the evening I go out on my bike to pick up grass. I cut it with scissors, pack it into large bags, my husband and granddaughter help me. I bring it to the site, lay it out along the edges and between the rows of the strawberry beds, then along the garlic “plantation.”

After a day or two, the mulch dries out and settles. I add a new layer, and so on several times. As a result, the mulch layer reaches 5 cm or more. There is no need to weed - weeds do not grow through the mulch, moisture is retained. Then I mulch other beds with grown plantings. And so all summer. The main thing is to use herbs before they bloom.

The benefits of mulching are obvious. Over the summer, the mulch layer dries out, rots and useful humus is formed. There are much more worms in the ground. The soil does not dry out and does not overheat from the heat. In the fall, I work the remaining mulch into the soil, preparing it for winter sowing.

Natural fertilizers

I use mustard as green manure. She especially loves her potato beds. But we need to try other green manure plants. Oil radish, a plant of the legume family, is highly praised. The main thing is that the earth does not remain bare! After all, in nature something always grows on it, which means that in the garden it needs to be provided with approximately the same conditions.

Spring is early today. Already on March 28th I sowed some carrots. When I was preparing the bed, I noticed that there were a lot of worms in the soil. So my land is alive!

And now a little about feeding plants. Medicinal herb(and just any weeds) I chop it up, fill buckets and old flasks with it. I add humus, mullein, ash, add water, cover with lids and put in a cool place for a week. The proportions are all by eye.

When the composition begins to ferment, the smell is very strong and unpleasant, so I put the containers with fertilizer away. And after a week, I filter the infusion and throw the plant residues into the compost. After this, I dilute the fertilizer - 1 liter per 10 liters of water. I water all the plantings with this solution. I do this once every 2 weeks. When you first feed, you can also add 1 tbsp. l. urea per bucket of water for green mass growth. And then you won’t need any artificial additives - only everything natural. Effective - proven!

On high

We fell in love with the raised beds. Every spring we make more and more of them. We have them fenced with boards and slate. There is a lot of information on how to make them. I have been preparing material for these beds all winter. This carton boxes from pizza and pies, newspapers ( modern paints in printing are less poisonous than before). On the radiator under kitchen window I have plastic trays. In them I dry coffee, tea, egg shells, onion and garlic peels, and citrus peels. I compact the dried material into boxes and take it out to the dacha, so as not to clutter the apartment. And in the spring I put it all in a compost container or on high beds, which will also be warm in the first year (due to the active process of rotting). I use these beds for planting cucumbers, green crops, Chinese cabbage, early tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

Little tricks

Even potato peelings I learned how to dry it in my apartment in a shoe box under the kitchen radiator. In the spring, I dig dry potato peelings around the currant bushes. Productivity increases noticeably, and pests decrease. But cucumbers, onions and carrots are very fond of tea and coffee. I pour them into the furrow and then sow the seeds.

It is often written that beds for spring sowing and planting are prepared in the fall. I’m not particularly smart about this. In the fall, I scatter humus around the garden. I add mature compost under bushes, flowers and trees. And I do this as late as possible, after the onset of cold weather. I pour it directly onto the grown green manure. So our earth, insulated, goes into winter. And in the spring I loosen the soil early and retain moisture. This is my natural farming.

Organic eco-farming – summer residents share their experience

"Vulgar" summer resident

Everyone always called my site ideal. And I was proud of it. Kept it almost sterile clean. Weeds, waste - everything goes into compost. She dug up the earth both in spring and autumn, removing everything down to the last speck. Beauty. And suddenly I began to notice that my land was slowly beginning to resemble asphalt - after watering and rain, it began to float and crack (photo 1), the harvests were not encouraging. And what surprised me most was the disappearance of the worms: the main thing is that the neighbors have them, but I don’t have a single one. And until then I was at a loss until I came across a book about organic farming. This is where my eyes opened - by removing all the organic matter from the site, I simply starved my worms to death. And by digging up the soil with manic persistence in spring and autumn, I also destroyed beneficial microorganisms living in its different layers.

Dear summer residents, don’t do like me! There is only one harm from such purity. For my own wet nurse, the earth, I was worse than a fierce stepmother.

And for five years now I have been behaving exactly the opposite. Now from all the nearby landfills I bring both weeded weeds and mowed grass to my site. lawn grass, and vegetable waste (I don’t take only tomato and potato tops). I cover the beds and the passages between them with all this goodness. I periodically water them with a solution of fertilizer based on humus and a diluted tincture of fermented grass (1 liter per 1 bucket of water). These tools perform a dual function. Firstly, it provides good feeding, and secondly, the process of biomass decomposition is accelerated. My vegetables really like this mulch, and the underground inhabitants are happy and well-fed.

Since about August, I haven’t laid anything out on the beds - it won’t have time to rot. Instead, I start filling the compost pile.

Actually, I have two of them, I use them in turn: I hammer one, and “unpack” the other, ready from last year. We have a large park area next to our dachas, so I put it in compost. a large number of leaves, sprinkled with earth and vegetable waste; there are also a lot of them in landfills in the fall.

One day, a summer resident I knew, seeing me carrying this “product,” snorted: “Ugh, how vulgar!” And I want to shout: “Long live landfills!” Well, where else can you get so much organic matter? Your own is a drop in the sea. Don't judge me, I actually benefit from them.

Organic cycle

The second cure for my depleted soil was green manure. I don’t dig up the earth anymore. As soon as some bed is free, without removing the half-rotted mulch, I scatter the plant seeds and cover them with a hoe. If it’s dry, I make sure to water it – this way the grass will sprout and grow faster more green masses. Once I sowed rapeseed in two plots: in the one near me I watered the seeds, in the one farther away I was lazy. As a result, on the first everything was thickly overgrown, on the second - barely. And if it weren’t for such a comparison, I would already be screaming that they sold me low-quality seed.

I sow the garlic bed with mustard, and when the time comes to plant its neighbor, it has already grown by 10-15 cm. Then I make holes right along it with a stake and throw garlic cloves into them, covering them with compost. With such planting, 80% of the mustard continues to grow (as can be seen in photo 2). With the onset of cold weather, I fill this bed with leaves. In early spring, I leave everything in the same form: under the weight of snow, the foliage will settle, and the garlic will easily pass through it. But since the ground under the leaves does not warm up immediately, the plants sprout a little later than their neighbors. True, this does not affect the harvest, but weeds do not grow under such mulch. Sometimes I water it, and by autumn almost all the foliage is rotted, and my garlic is beautiful (photo 3)!

After harvesting it (in mid-July), I plant sprouted potatoes in this bed. Last year, on October 19, frost hit and killed the tops. But potatoes are the size egg I dug almost a bucket. Such “youth” are good for planting - the variety rejuvenates.

After harvesting the main potatoes, I cut shallow grooves and sow them with rye. Having harrowed it with a rake, I water it. In winter, the area becomes a green carpet (photo 4).

Another secret: removing early vegetables, I sow the plots twice. First I sow fast-growing phacelia and mustard. In September, I chop their juicy greens with a shovel right on the spot, kicking them to the ground. After this, I trim the “pancake” of earth with chopped grass and turn it over. And after that I sow winter rapeseed or rye there and close it up with a hoe. I definitely water it if it's dry. And the grown greenery holds back the snow.

In spring, rapeseed and rye continue to increase their green mass. A week before planting any crop, I again chop the greens and turn over the earthen “pancake”. And where the phacelia and mustard have gone into the winter, as soon as the snow melts, I scatter mustard over the phacelia, and phacelia over the mustard. The soil at this time is still damp, and green manure has time to grow before the main plantings. I cut furrows for onions right along them, dig holes for tomatoes and peppers and pour compost and ash into them.

Green manure and vegetables grow together until there is waste in landfills. Then I trim the green manure, leaving it in place, and fill it with waste. And then read it first. This is the cycle I have in my garden. The main thing is not to pull out the green manure with its roots. The more dead roots left in the soil, the more porous it becomes. I even root systems I leave tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and flowers before winter. The beard of small roots is processed by worms during the winter, and the large part is easy to pull out of the ground in the spring. Now let me sum it up.

You won't be able to beat your head

  • Mustard. It sprouts and grows quickly, heals the soil, wireworms don’t like it, it attracts bees, but you don’t need to sow it thickly, otherwise there won’t be fluffy green mass.
  • Winter rapeseed. It increases fertility as well as manure, prevents the growth of weeds, and enriches the soil with phosphorus and sulfur. You need to chop it before flowering, otherwise it will become very tough.
  • Rye. It fluffs up the soil very well, enriches it with potassium and nitrogen, and suppresses weeds. It is not worth planting in one place every year, because wireworms may appear.
  • Phacelia. It is unpretentious, grows quickly and decomposes in the soil, suppresses weeds best of all, expels wireworms, and withstands frosts down to -7°. It blooms for almost a month, the aroma is honey. The bees are simply crazy about it, which is important for all crops blooming in the country. When seeds begin to form, I sometimes cut it off and put it in the place I need, where it crumbles and begins to grow again.
  • Beans and peas. I also sow the excess of these legumes as green manure. They enrich the soil with nitrogen. Peas can be sown immediately after the snow melts, and beans are heat-loving.

These are my observations. And since I carry out all the work at an accelerated pace (thanks to the same landfills and park area), I can brag. Now I have a lot of worms - large, fat ones, my soul rejoices looking at them. The land has improved noticeably. Upper layer coarse, even the color has become darker. And the harvests are encouraging.

By the way, I do not agree with those who consider organic farming to be easy work. Not digging is only a quarter of the battle.

A large amount of mulch is needed. You need to sow green manure, incorporate them into the soil, etc. It seems to me that someone who doesn’t actually do it speaks about ease. I wish everyone great harvests.

Organic harvests

We are for organic farming, and our goal is to obtain an environmentally friendly harvest. Therefore, we try to select natural fertilizers and means of protection against pests and diseases.

Zucchini abundance

We do preventive treatments against diseases at least twice a month. We alternate between different drugs. We use exclusively biological fungicides: Fitosporin, Fitop-Florz-S, Alirin, Gamair (the last two are mixed after dilution according to the instructions). They contain beneficial bacteria that prevent the development of pathogenic microflora. We use it immediately, because working solutions prepared on the basis of beneficial bacteria cannot be stored. If it rains, repeat spraying. We feed the plants with a “cocktail”: add soft humine potassium fertilizer diluted according to the instructions to a solution of chicken manure (1:20) or vermicompost (zucchini especially needs potassium at the time of fruiting).

Despite all efforts, at the end of July, initial signs of powdery mildew were noticed on the bush of the new variety Patio Star. To prevent its further development, the plant was sprayed with the anti-stress drug Stimul and treated with fungicides every 10 days for prevention.

Of the new products this year, I especially liked the portioned zucchini. Many people are familiar with the situation when, during cooking, large zucchini fruits are not completely removed and then often wither in the refrigerator. But Portioned zucchini got its name for its compact size - it is a one-time fruit. In addition, it is very productive and disease resistant. In our opinion, it still has a drawback - it shoots long lashes, but we did not pinch them.

And not only the little blue ones

We grow eggplants of different varieties and hybrids - it’s much more interesting.

We feed them (usually at least twice a month) with the same “cocktail”, spray them with any anti-stress drug (Ecogel, Zircon, Narcissus, Stimul, Eco-pin - they can be used on all crops twice a month, alternating root and foliar processing) and add Fitoverm for prevention, because Eggplants are often damaged by spider mites. Such feeding is especially important during the fruiting period. We regularly carry out “green” operations: we clean the stems from the stepsons, we form the plants into three stems. We don’t delay harvesting, because the more often you pick the fruits, the more fruits will set. Now, at the end of August,

when the nights become cold and excess moisture promotes the development of fungi and bacteria, we intensify care, because if measures are not taken, the eggplants will begin to get sick. Spraying with biological fungicides began to be done weekly, and the beds with plants were covered with white non-woven material.

Tomatoes until autumn

When tomatoes ripen en masse in a greenhouse, many summer residents lose their vigilance, because here it is, the treasured harvest, just have time to collect it. But, if you want to extend fruiting until late autumn, continue to regularly care for your plants. Since August, we have been treating the bushes weekly against diseases with any biological fungicide, alternating root and foliar treatments. Twice a month we spray tomatoes with an anti-stress preparation. During fruit ripening, the need for potassium increases sharply. Therefore, once at the root, water the tomatoes with infusion of ash. Once a week we fertilize the plants with the already well-known “cocktail”, but at this time, instead of 1:20, we dilute the chicken manure to 1:60 in order to reduce the nitrogen rate to a minimum, but we give potassium according to the instructions for the preparation.

Marina RYKALINA and Vitaly DEKABREV

Transforming the earth through organic methods

I also want to tell you how I came to organic farming and how my land was completely transformed in three years. I live in a village - a house and 27 acres of land: 24 next to the house (the land here is light, sod-podzolic), and 3 acres separately, 300 meters away, under a steep hill, where there is heavy loam. Previously, when they plowed with a horse, they made the beds right away, and the soil did not have time to dry out. Four years ago I asked to plow the garden and cut the ridges by Saturday (by connecting two ridges together, we get a garden bed).

Due to circumstances, the owner of the tractor plowed on Tuesday. With clear weather and temperatures of 20°, by Saturday all the ridges had turned into large, hard clay blocks. How to break them? It’s a pity to break the flat cutter; the teeth of the garden fork broke off. There’s nothing to say about the arms and back... It would be much easier to dig with a shovel, but what’s done is done. Remembering all the obscene words I knew, I said that the tractor would not enter my garden again.

Wheatgrass, nettles, and euphorbia climb from the boundary through the furrow into the beds. It is much easier to remove them with a hand cultivator than with a flat cutter or fork. I used a shovel only to compact the edges of the ridges, but now I’ve stopped doing that too. I form the beds with a flat cutter, raking the soil from the furrows, and leave the edges loose. Somehow, while working, I didn’t even notice, but as I climbed the hill, I felt that my back didn’t hurt! My forearms were tired from unaccustomed use, and only because the soil was very dense in the first year. Immediately advertised manual cultivator everyone I know: for a bad back, this is a godsend! You only need to bend down to pick up the roots of the weeds, but there are fewer and fewer of them every year.

In general, I made a garden bed and planted everything. In August, after removing the onions, I sowed mustard and oats. And having removed the carrots, beets, radishes and cabbage, I left the entire leaf in place - and so everything went under the snow. In the spring, there was a little mustard straw and cuttings from cabbage leaves lying on the garden bed, everything else was eaten. When I pulled out the cabbage stalks (and in the spring they come out easily), they swarmed on the roots earthworms, and not one at a time, but in groups of several pieces.

I loosened the bed directly with the straw using a cultivator. The ground became softer, the teeth easily entered the soil without much effort, and I did it much faster than the previous year. In the summer I sowed oats and mustard again and again left everything under the snow. And by the third spring the soil was already so soft and loose that there was no point in loosening it! Using a flat cutter, like a hoe, I lightly chopped the mustard straw, cut off the weeds in the furrows - and that’s it, the bed was ready.

The soil when cut resembles a sponge, porous. I have never seen so many worms in the beds, except perhaps under a pile of manure. There is no crust, no floating earth. The area dried out very quickly, although there is a swamp nearby. I haven’t applied manure for more than three years, but the soil fertility is not decreasing – on the contrary! From a planted bucket of onions (family) 8-10 (!) buckets grow, and carrots and beets have only one drawback - they are too large. This year the cabbage heads didn’t fit into the bag, but it was quite big – it was from a feed bag.

I’ll admit right away: I don’t pamper my plants with special care. I never water onions, carrots, or beets. Cabbage - only in the holes when planting, and I cover it with dry soil on top.

Only tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse receive liquid fertilizing. IN open ground I water only cucumbers (the bed is covered on top of the soil with film or black spunbond) and young apple trees. The rest all survives on its own. I cover tomatoes and zucchini with mown grass, strawberries with newspapers and a thin layer of sawdust on top. By the way, this is what saved it from freezing in the snowless autumn of 2014, when frosts hit -17°. The neighbors' strawberries were all frozen.

Compost maturation is a long process. In addition, during the winter the contents of the box or pit freeze and thaw quite late - somewhere around mid-May. To speed things up, water the compost generously. warm water, but under no circumstances use boiling water! If you urgently need to defrost the compost, sprinkle ash on top and water it with hot water three times a day. Cover with film or burlap at night.

Neither thick nor empty

I would also like to tell you how I grow vegetables. The bed is long, more than 30 m. After loosening it with a flat cutter or cultivator, it is smooth and loose. I don’t level it with a rake; I use a flat cutter or a slate to make furrows along the ridge. The first one is closer to the edge, retreating 3-4 cm. I sow carrots into it, not densely, with a seeder, every 3-4 cm. If two seeds fall somewhere, I leave them: they won’t grow so huge. Having retreated 30 cm, I make the next furrow, then two more after 25-30 cm. I add a little ash into them and plant onions.

The distance between the bulbs is 15 cm if small, and 20-25 cm if large. I plant the seedlings in the outer furrow. The bed is wide, but I weed it, loosening it with a small flat cutter on a long handle. I leave the grass in place: it dries out very quickly, single stems take root (I will remove them during the next weeding before lodging the feather). When the onions begin to turn yellow, somewhere in the first ten days of June, in rainy weather I sprinkle salt (not thickly). If the tips of the feathers turn very yellow, you can add a little urea to the salt - the feathers begin to actively grow.

I harvest when the neck dries, and the sets when they fall down. And immediately I sow mustard and oats. I make furrows with a flat cutter, scatter the seeds, level them: if you sow on top and harrow them with a rake, the birds will peck. I pre-soak the oats. Carrots and seedlings remain in the garden. I throw mustard seeds between the onion bulbs, they sprout, grow and by the time the onions are harvested they reach a height of 15-20 cm. They grow even more in September.

In the furrow where the seedlings grow, I sow beets with seeds. It’s also not a lot: where two or three sprout, I leave it - the root crops will not be so large. I prefer varieties with small tops, such as Detroit, Pablo - they have thin skin, without ringing, sweet, juicy. I also sow radishes in the furrow - they grow better than in the garden. I plant cabbage at one end of the bed, alternating with onions every other year, and swap carrots with onions.

Where green manure is not sown, I leave vegetable tops there for the winter. Under the cabbage in the holes I put half a handful of dolomite flour, a pinch of superphosphate, and a little ash. I water and plant seedlings in the dirt. I sprinkle dry soil on top, and that’s it - there will be no more watering. But you will have to treat the cruciferous flea beetle. And any of chemicals: Ash doesn't help. Countless hordes attack and instantly suck the juices from the tender leaves of the core.

Salad onions, no problem

This is how I grow my garden. The longest job is weeding in a carrot row, where I pick out blades of grass with my hands. I don’t go close to plants with a flat cutter so that...

From carrot and onion fly I don’t treat it with anything, there are no wormy carrots, and several nests on onions may be affected, but this is a drop in the ocean.

In addition to family onions and sets, I have been planting seeds for several years now. I sow the seeds on March 8-12 in half-liter tall plastic containers or 0.5 liter plastic cups. I sow them 1-2 cm apart from each other, so they can be seen better in the snow, and sprinkle them with earth. Before germination I put it in a dark place. When loops appear, I remove the lid from the container and place it on the windowsill. I plant it in the garden around May 9th. I look at the forecast so that there are no frosts in the coming days - then they are no longer scary.

I make furrows, water generously and lay out the roots in the mud. I try not to bury the onions, which are the size of a match head, too deep. If the weather is hot, I water it several times. The care is usual - weeding, loosening, the bed is well fertilized, so I don’t feed it with anything. I remove it in September, when the neck becomes soft and the feathers fall down.

The bulbs grow weighing up to 600 g. There is only one drawback: you need to eat everything within three months - the onions are so juicy that they cannot be stored for a long time. What we don’t have time to eat, I give to friends. Even his grandson, when he was three years old, asked: “Yuba, give me Yuka!” (He hasn’t pronounced the letter “L” yet). And he ate it raw, to the horror of his mother, who doesn’t eat onions at all.

I highly recommend that all summer residents grow Exhibition. The fly doesn’t touch it, there’s no hassle with it, you just need to spend a little more time on planting than on sowing, and that’s all.

Please note: the container for onion seedlings should not be too shallow, the depth should be at least 10-12 cm. When planting, you can trim the roots and feathers, although you don’t have to do this, it still grows well. But it’s better to buy good seeds. Over the years I have bought Dutch ones: germination is excellent. But this year I was somehow on the lookout and bought it in a simple white bag. It hasn't grown at all! It seems to taste similar, but the onion itself is not so large, and the color of the outer scales is darker.

And now my wish to all summer residents: do not be afraid to part with a shovel! You don’t have to waste tons of land; spare the land, your hands, and your back. I only use a shovel to dig planting holes for trees, and, as you can see, nothing bad has happened: the yields are not decreasing.

Vera KNYAZEVA, Voronezh and Nadezhda Nikolaevna Teplyakova, Tambov

: Crop rotation and cucumbers So, your story...

  • : Is it necessary to alternate vegetables...
  • : How to grow your own red...

    • Evgeniy Sedov

    When your hands grow from the right place, life is more fun :)

    Content

    Human health directly depends on nutrition. Eating foods with GMOs or grown with the use of pesticides and fertilizers leads to irreversible consequences for the body. Modern agronomists propose to turn to the experience of our ancestors, to make the basis Agriculture natural farming.

    Organic farming - what is it?

    Ecological farming differs from traditional soil cultivation by its gentle approach to natural ecosystems existing in nature. The use of pesticides and deep cultivation has become detrimental to the land, reduced fertility, disrupted the natural cycle of substances, and negated the benefits of worms and microorganisms. Eco-farming is based on the awareness of the free interaction between soil, plants, animals, and organic residues, while humans should play the role of a helper, not a pest.

    Organic Farming Basics

    The principles and basics of organic farming are easy to understand and are as follows:

    1. The earth is a living organism, the structure of which should not be disturbed. Intensive cultivation of the topsoil, excessive digging, loosening, mineralization, and other agricultural work are very labor-intensive and lead to high material costs with low efficiency. Natural farming on a farm or garden plot leads to minimal expenses, while allowing you to harvest a good harvest every year.
    2. Mulching is the main method to improve soil quality, create favorable conditions for the natural system. Mulch is straw, sawdust, hay, fallen leaves, roots and trimmed weeds - everything that covers the beds on top protects the black soil from excessive evaporation of moisture, erosion and hypothermia.
    3. Reasonable feeding, which is designed not to destroy beneficial microbes and fungi that utilize organic matter, but to give them the opportunity to multiply, suppress pathogenic bacteria, fix mineral elements, and process everything that can serve as natural humus.

    Agriculture according to Ovsinsky

    The initiator of the breakup with in the classic way Russian scientist I.E. began digging up the garden. Ovsinsky, author of many scientific works, an agronomist by training. Farming according to Ovsinsky is an ideal way to allow the earth to recover itself without interfering with the natural course of nature. As evidence, the innovative breeder in 1899 wrote the work “A New System of Agriculture,” in which he argued for minimal plow intervention in the soil structure, which ensures an environmentally friendly environment and the production of high-quality, safe products.

    Organic farming - Kizima method

    Galina Kizima can be considered a modern authority on the benefits of organic farming. Having received a PhD degree, the woman seriously took up issues of increasing productivity through the right approach to the practice of soil cultivation. Organic farming using the Kizima method has become widespread and is described in books and articles. The basic principle of her garden is the three “don’ts”: don’t weed, don’t dig, don’t water. The author introduced the concept of a “smart” bed into use and proved the effectiveness of her method from personal experience.

    Organic farming - beds

    The agricultural technology of natural farming is designed to create conditions for plants in the beds similar to those that exist in the wild. The goals of the method: improving the quality and volume of the harvest, preserving natural fertility while saving time and effort. To bring this idea to life, the following are used:

    • gentle loosening of the top 5-7 cm of soil in spring and autumn;
    • the use of exclusively organic fertilizers in the garden plot, including compost, manure, humus, green manure, as well as microbiological developments;
    • biological products, agricultural products that protect plants from pests and diseases.

    Organic farming - where to start

    The question of when and where to start organic farming is increasingly asked villager, owners of garden plots. The answer is encouraging: transfer your household farming to a completely new system, known as “organic beds,” can be grown at any time of the year, but the most suitable period is considered to be autumn. On practice main task agriculture there will be a rapid restoration of the upper fertile layer, correct selection protective equipment, maintenance natural ecosystem, maintaining it in this state through elementary actions.

    Natural farming in the garden plot - practice

    Periodic, deep digging is not acceptable if your goal is organic farming in the country. The desire for perfect soil cultivation spoils the soil, has the opposite effect on it, making it heavy, dry, lifeless, hard as stone. As practice shows, this can be avoided using certain techniques:

    • divide the area into small beds, depending on the species composition of the plants that will be planted;
    • try to cover the soil with natural, organic materials, since bare soil is unprotected and less fertile;
    • Regularly mulch the soil to a depth of at least 10 cm, which will reduce the growth of weeds, protect plants from pests and exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and ensure long-term retention of moisture in the soil.

    Principles of organic farming in practice

    For seven years now, following the commandments of N.I. Kurdyumov, B.A. Bublik, N. Zhirmunskaya, Yu.I. Slashchinin, I have adhered to the principles of organic farming and “don’t dig a garden.” And I was not disappointed!

    I divided my six-acre plot of land with a concrete path into two equal parts: the southern- vegetable garden, northern- garden. Along the southern fence- raspberries on trellises in three rows.

    The vegetable garden was divided into sixteen stationary beds 1-1.2 m wide, and the beds were slanted- at an angle of 120° (or 60°) to the central track. I made furrows (more precisely, paths) between the beds 30-40 cm wide, not lower, but in some places higher than the beds themselves.

    The beds were fenced with flat slate, tiles, and boards. The paths were covered with sawdust and chopped branches of various trees. Branches go especially well on paths walnut, chopped with a hatchet into pieces 1-3 cm long.

    I made exactly the same beds and paths in the garden part of the site. Only the beds turned out wider (up to 2 m) due to the fruit trees.

    Garden- vegetable garden... This is conditional, since in one garden bed 8 gooseberry bushes are planted in one row, in another garden- 11 honeysuckle bushes of seven varieties, on the third- 12 columnar apple trees of six varieties, on the fourth- 10 columnar pears. Another garden bed- two-plane grape trellis. And five garden beds are equipped with permanent wire trellises for cucumbers, tomatoes, cowpeas, and climbing beans.

    Two garden beds are occupied by two-plane grape trellises. On the remaining garden beds (there are ten of them) I placed fruit trees and berry bushes. In the garden beds, between the trees, I grow vegetables and green crops. In the circles around the tree trunks I grow catnip, oregano, peppermint and field mint; Aniseed lofant grows under unabi and sea buckthorn, and under an old pear- Echinacea purpurea. In the spring, I plant dwarf marigolds, nasturtiums, beans, golden mustache (fragrant colliasis) and some indoor plants in the free spaces in the tree trunks.

    Fruit trees, all in a row, I bend them hard, pinch them and thereby form cup-shaped crowns. I've been doing this all summer. That's why I don't have trees taller than two meters. I have unabi bushes and Dahurian sea buckthorn higher than fruit-bearing apple and pear trees. And he brought two gooseberry bushes into standard form to a two-meter height.

    I brought out uncovered grape varieties onto grape trellises. Under the grape trellises, located from south to north, I plant beets, dill, spinach, chard, onions, asters, and sorrel.

    And in the fall of 2005, I planted black currants under the grapes. This is not in the recommendations of N.I. Kurdyumov. Apparently, the mutual influence of grapes and currants has not been studied. In such cases, I remember one of the orders of Peter I: “Do not adhere to the rules like a blank wall, for the rules are written there, but there are no times or occasions.”

    And such a planting of black currants, in my opinion, is very good: in the morning the sun illuminates the currant bushes, in the midday heat they are covered with grapes, and in the evening- again in the sun. I don’t use chemicals: the currant bushes are planted with garlic and winter onions, the soil is mulched with a thick layer of rice husks all year round.

    One question remains: how will summer watering of currants affect grapes?

    Once in July, I very well watered, with fertilizing, one grape bush on the gazebo, as a result, I lost 70% of the harvest due to cracking of the not yet ripened berries.

    So, over the course of seven years, I brought at least 10 truckloads of manure and humus and 3 truckloads of sand to the site. I used a cart to carry a lot of different organic matter and a lot of ash. Every year, each grape bush receives a bucket of ash, and fruit trees, berries and ornamental shrubs are not deprived of it.

    As a result, my plot became ten centimeters higher than all the neighbors. Each bed has its own soil, its own acidity. To the cucumber bed- more fresh manure, tomato- a little humus and a lot of mulch, mostly cardboard, and for carrots- a lot of sand, a lot of nettle mulch.

    Until 2003, manure was fermented using the working solution "Baikal-EM-1" (1:100), beds and tree trunks were treated in spring and autumn with the working solution "Baikal-EM-1" (1:1000), and since the fall of 2003 -th I use only my own EOs, prepared using the technology of N.I. Kurdyumov and Yu.I. Slashchinin. Every year from March to October I have a barrel with a solution of my EOs, which I use for watering and for composting organic matter.

    I compost all kinds of organic matter directly on the beds along with the rest of the mulch. I use compost pits only for breeding worms. After rain, these worms crawl out onto the asphalt!!! And I them- in a jar and on your site.

    There are also questions regarding mulching.

    I planted two grape seedlings in the yard, and then the yard was concreted, leaving “trunk circles” with a diameter of 30-40 cm around the seedlings. It turns out that it’s concrete- is this mulch?

    I covered the sea buckthorn tree trunks with a thick layer of fine gravel with sand and humus. Is this also mulch?

    Roofing felt, various polyethylene films- is this mulch material?

    What about then: “Mulch- is it some kind of decomposable organic material covering the surface of the soil." (N. Zhirmunskaya)?

    And another question: how many buckets of mulch, for example, rice husks, or even better humus, are needed to fill with at least an 8-centimeter (and some recommend 10 cm, or even 15 cm) layer? square meter surface of the bed? What if the whole garden bed? What if there are all the beds (I have 28 of them)?

    I know... I mulch all my plantings - they call it “total mulching”. And only organic matter: manure, compost, humus, sawdust, hay, straw, weeds, rice husks. I collect leaf litter and weeds from neighbors, nettles- in ravines, straw- on the edges of fields, cardboard boxes- from the market, from shops.

    I mulch the raspberry fields with corn and sorghum straw every fall. All year round I mulch strawberries, honeysuckle, gooseberries, currants, and all other shrubs- from hyssop and rue to vitex and unabi, all columnar apple, pear and cherry plum trees. All year round, the tree trunks of pome and stone fruits are lightly mulched.

    Perennial herbs in spring easily penetrate a 1-3 cm layer of mulch. I plant garlic and winter onions (sets and selections) directly in the mulch around berry bushes. Around honeysuckle and all columnar onions, I plant only winter or spring onions, because when harvesting garlic, the roots of trees and shrubs are severely damaged.

    In the summer, I feed pome and stone fruit trees and seedlings, berry and ornamental shrubs, all garden and flower crops with my EM compote, infusions of nettles, legumes, chicken droppings, and silicon pebbles. I combine fertilizing with watering. At the end of July I stop fertilizing with infusions, but I pour EM compote on everything composted until November.

    In the fall, after abundant watering with an EM solution, I cover individual beds with cardboard, which I press onto the soil with something heavy so that the wind does not blow it away. By spring, microbes and worms process the organic matter under the cardboard and partially eat the cardboard.

    Every autumn I clean the trunks of old trees from dead bark, and in early spring I coat the trunks and skeletal branches with a creamy water mixture of clay and mullein, to which I add a little ash and copper sulfate.

    I don’t use any chemicals on the site. No fertilizers, no poisons. I only add nitroammophoska to the EM compote- 200 g for every 200 liters. I use bitoxibacillin against the Colorado potato beetle. I used an ax to combat the curling of peach leaves... I haven’t “sprayed” Bordeaux mixture for five years.

    But the most important thing: for seven years now I have not dug beds either in the fall or in the spring. I don't bother my assistants- microbes and worms. I don’t step on the beds, I don’t trample them myself and I don’t allow guests. This is the main law in my area, even for a two-year-old grandson.

    I only loosen the non-mulched areas of the beds after watering or rain, shallowly- up to 5 cm

    As the main garden tools I use large and small Fokin flat cutters, potato and garlic “planters” made according to Fokin’s description and slightly improved, a pitchfork and a shovel for working with organic matter. Another sickle. With a bayonet shovel I just dig planting holes and dig up potatoes.

    I don't need a rake on my property. They and all sorts of other hillers and rippers, hoes and hoes can easily be replaced by Fokin flat cutters. I only use a rake to collect trash on the street in front of the house, yes leaf litter at the neighbors. I don’t collect my leaf litter on the site at all. He “gets lost in the mulch.

    More about tools: I try to attach pitchforks, shovels, rakes to cuttings rectangular section. I'm trying to get rid of round handles and handles. I believe that a tool should be first of all convenient, and then beautiful. Therefore, I was surprised by one article about the “improvement” of the Fokin flat cutter. One craftsman “modernized” a flat cutter: he replaced the handle, which was rectangular in cross-section, with a round one. It’s good that this note appeared after the death of V.V. Fokin. His invention is a specially curved piece of iron made of good steel, screwed with two bolts to a handle that is rectangular in cross-section.

    I understand that everything can be “modernized” ad infinitum... I suffer from this myself. V.V. Fokin did not write that it is convenient to use the handle of a flat cutter to measure, for example, the width of beds or the distance between currant bushes if centimeter marks are applied to it every 5 or 10 cm.

    Stationary beds make it easier for me to rotate vegetable crops, joint plantings, provide consistent landings. In each bed I have 5-6 crops growing at the same time. I learned to combine them according to planting dates, growth, and their mutual influence.

    There are no problems with crop rotation, since I use green manure: oats, barley, wheat, beans, fenugreek- that is, cereals and legumes. I gave up rapeseed, they love it very much cruciferous flea beetles. I also gave up alfalfa.- My chickens don't particularly like her greens and hay. But it was tempting: seven cuttings per season from 2-3-year-old alfalfa.

    "Grass grows on the paths and everywhere possible..."- write K. Malyshevsky and N. Kurdyumov. And everywhere, wherever possible, I have a variety of greens, legumes, marigolds and calendula growing. But grass on the paths is unacceptable to me, especially in the morning, when there is dew or after rain,- the indoor slippers that I wear around the property almost all year round get wet quickly. I don't have any dirt.

    And if plantain, dandelion, celandine or chamomile appear in the beds, then for me they are not weeds if they do not interfere with vegetables. I call weeds spinach-raspberries, fennel, chervil, crazy cucumber, which reproduce by self-sowing, as well as tomatoes, watermelons, zucchini, pumpkins and even cucumbers, the seeds of which fall into the beds, often into raspberries and under currants, with manure and from the chicken coop. If I grow only yellow and black tomatoes in the garden beds (these are “cultivated”), then red ones (“wild”) grow by self-sowing.

    I try to explain to my friends and neighbors: if compost from legume residues is a high-quality fertilizer, then why not make an infusion of legumes for fertilizing? And if it is recommended to infuse nettle as excellent feeding, then why not compost it? Why not mulch potato, carrot, onion and other plantings with nettles? On the slopes of ravines, nettles grow into 2-meter thick thickets before flowering. Take a sickle- and forward...

    Most of the neighbors, unfortunately, don’t understand me and chuckle. My site is called a park, and I- Michurinets. But I don’t take offense at them, I forgive them when they cannot distinguish okra from castor beans, lagenaria from cowpeas.

    It’s a shame when in the fall all the plant remains are piled up- and for matches. And then it’s even worse: all the organic matter goes through the fence, into the street, and there along with the leaf litter- into the fire and into the ashes- into the garbage disposal.

    S. Kladovikov , Krasnodar region

    What do plants need?

    For best development, plants need fertile habitat, which includes whole line conditions:

    a) fertile soil that provides balanced plant nutrition;

    b) optimal soil moisture and temperature;

    c) illumination of plants;

    d) optimal air temperature;

    e) protection of plants from the wind;

    f) a stable self-regulating biosystem - biocenosis.

    I note that these conditions are not arranged in order of their importance - it is impossible to rank them according to this principle, they are all important! If at least one of them deteriorates, this can lead to a significant slowdown in growth or even death of the plant

    What and how do plants feed in nature?

    Air power carried out through photosynthesis, during which, with the participation of chlorophyll in the leaves, which absorbs the energy of sunlight, carbon dioxide combines with water in the leaves, and primary organic matter- carbohydrates.

    Soil nutrition occurs by the roots absorbing solutions of chemical elements from the soil, which combine with carbohydrates to form proteins and fats.

    Preparation for appearance in the soil optimal composition Nutrient elements are the remains of dead plants - tops and roots. After all, if a plant has grown, then it has accumulated all the chemical elements it needs for life. And when decomposed, it releases them into the soil (mineral elements) and into the air (carbon dioxide).

    Organic residues (plant and animal origin) are decomposed by microorganisms, fungi and worms.

    Plants share carbohydrates with soil microorganisms, releasing them into the soil, and microorganisms “in response” process organic matter and release solutions into the soil nutrients, which plants absorb with their roots. Moreover, depending on the type of carbohydrates (glucose, sucrose, fiber, starch, etc.) secreted by plants, precisely those microorganisms that “prepare” the nutrients multiply in the soil needed by the plant right at this moment.

    Thus, the ratio of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in the plant is maintained optimal, since the plant itself knows what it needs now, and behaves like in a restaurant - it “orders” the necessary food from microbes, paying them with carbohydrates for it.

    As a result, the plant grows healthy and is not of interest to pests - it is “tasteless” to them, its composition is balanced, it contains little “sweet”, which attracts pests - “nature’s orderlies”.

    In addition, for root nutrition, plants need water and air, which must be in the soil.

    And this is achieved due to its natural porosity. The soil is permeated with a network of channels and pores formed in place of rotted roots and passages of soil living creatures: worms, larvae, etc. It is these channels that extend to the surface of undug soil that provide excellent water and air permeability of natural soils. In such soil, natural self-watering operates: passing through channels to the cold depths of the earth, warm air, cooling, gives off the evaporated moisture it contains in the form of condensate. This way, 2 times more water gets into the soil than from rain.

    Fertile soil - this is the kind of soil on which plants can feed themselves optimally.

    And summarizing all of the above, we can say that FERTIL SOIL is “LIVING SOIL”, i.e. soil with a natural porous structure with a large amount of organic residues, containing many soil microorganisms, worms and fungi that convert organic matter into food for the following plants.

    Having observed in nature the interaction of plants and soil inhabitants through mutual feeding (and previous plants are also built into this chain as a source of nutrition for subsequent ones), as well as interaction atmospheric air and soil through natural self-watering, we already see how it is important to maintain a stable self-regulating biosystem of your site.

    But that's not all!

    You know that there are plants that get along well and help each other, and there are those that refuse to grow next to each other. Moreover, in mixed plantings « good neighbors» plants are less sick and damaged by pests.

    And if you “have not asphalted all the ground on the site” and left areas of untouched meadow where predatory insects live that eat herbivorous “pests,” then a balance is established between both, and the plants are less damaged.

    And let me remind you here that the main remedy for pests is... fertile soil! Then the plants grow balanced in composition and are not of interest to pests.

    In a healthy ecosystem, all its inhabitants balance each other: snails and slugs are eaten by hedgehogs, birds, toads and lizards; aphids – ladybugs; May beetle larvae in the ground - moles, etc.

    This is what we should strive for, learning from nature: to preserve and increase fertility soil, maintain a balanced biosystem of your site! And, of course, provide the remaining conditions for a fertile habitat for plants.

    How to do it?

    Follow the principles of Natural Farming:

    1. Maintain and increase the natural porosity of the earth

    Use green manure crops for this purpose. And when planting, minimal loosening of 5-7 cm (instead of digging) or plant seeds in depressed grooves. These operations are quite enough to plant the seeds and sprinkle them with soil or compost so that they all germinate. But it does not damage the porous structure of the soil and does not kill soil microorganisms - “natural ploughmen” - after all, they are the ones who “loose” the earth in nature.

    2. Feed the soil, not the plants: bring insoil organic residues(tops, grass, leaves, etc.) - the best complex balanced natural fertilizer.

    Exists 4 ways to add organic residues:

    — mulching- covering the soil between plantings with grass and leaves;

    — sowing green manure - annual plants, like lupine or mustard, used to “grow organic residues” in the form of “tops and roots” and fertilize the soil with them;

    — warm beds - trenches or boxes, 90% filled with organic matter, and representing ripening compost heaps;

    — composting separately from the beds- the worst, ineffective method, although most gardeners use it.

    Using even just these 2 principles of Natural Farming will increase the soil fertility on your site.

    But this will happen over a long period of time. Remember the development of virgin lands in the USSR - its fertility accumulated over many years of decomposition of obsolete steppe grass. And, by the way, it was destroyed in just 2 years by deep tractor plowing, which led to a “crazy” drop in yields.

    If you want to speed up the process of restoring fertility and get results within 1-3 years, then:

    3. Propagate beneficial microorganisms in the soilwe, worms and mushrooms.

    They will accelerate the decomposition of organic matter, which will provide the plants with daily balanced nutrition. That is, they will accelerate the process of increasing soil fertility. And at the same time they will create food supplies available to plants in the form of humus for unforeseen cases.

    Why are southern black soils so fertile? Yes, because they contain a lot of organic residues (plants grow better in warmth) and a lot of soil microorganisms - they do not freeze out in the “warm” winter. A hectare of “southern” land contains 8 tons of soil microorganisms, while in the north – only 2 tons. And they are universally suppressed by digging and using mineral fertilizers and pesticides... Here is the “secret” of the scarcity of northern soils.

    It is now very easy to propagate microorganisms in the soil. For this purpose, microbiological preparations are used, and the best of them, in our experience, are “Vostok EM-1” and “Shine”. They contain only beneficial microorganisms isolated from fertile soils(but we must remember that there are also harmful ones that eat living organic matter and cause plant diseases). Such drugs are also called EM drugs (from EM - effective microorganisms).

    In spring and summer, EM preparations are diluted with water in a ratio of 1:1000, and the soil with organic residues added to it is watered with this solution. As a result, accelerated decomposition of organic matter occurs (for plant nutrition), as well as cleansing (sanitation) of the soil from harmful microorganisms, causing diseases plants. They are suppressed by beneficial microorganisms from EM preparations.

    Similarly, by spraying plants with solutions of EM preparations (1:500), bacterial and fungal plant diseases such as late blight, powdery mildew, gray rot, etc.

    Following these 3 “non-chemical” principles will allow you to increase soil fertility(condition “a” of fertile plant habitat). In such soil, plants grow with high immunity to diseases and pests - they themselves protect themselves from them.

    4. To protect plants from diseases and pests, use roofing felt. to environmentally friendly “natural” methods and biological products, not pesticides. In the first place is prevention (to avoid and prevent), and not treatment of the disease!

    Increasing soil fertility, mixed plantings, crop rotation, autumn mulching, seasonal (autumn and spring) soil treatment with EM preparations in high concentration (1:100), folk-natural methods of protection by spraying with herbal infusions - all this works effectively without polluting Nature.

    Contribute to the establishment of a sustainable self-regulating biosystem on your site - do not destroy or specially create corners of “wild” nature for the habitat of natural enemies of pests:

    • thickets of bushes - for birds;
    • pond - for frogs and toads, for everyone to drink, to create a microclimate;
    • stones - for lizards;
    • piles of branches - for hedgehogs;
    • thickets of grass - for the breeding of predatory insects that eat pests.

    The listed activities will “connect” nature to help you, and you will get better results, while working less!

    5. Create the rest of the conditions for fertile plant habitat, inherent in any farming system.

    These conditions must be created in any farming system. We will not list all known methods; we will note only the main ones, characteristic of Natural farming.

    b) Optimal soil moisture and temperature.

    Water in plants is about 90%, and it is needed:

    — for building the plant body during photosynthesis and root nutrition (for the formation of nutrient solutions);

    - for thermoregulation of plants by evaporation.

    Techniques for ensuring optimal soil moisture:

    • preservation of the natural porous structure of the soil (for natural self-watering and
    • absorption of water after rains and melting snow);
    • saving moisture by:

    — mulching, which reduces evaporation;

    — terracing slopes to prevent water runoff;

    — sunken beds on dry soil (and, by the way, raised beds on damp soil);

    • For irrigation it is better to use “drip irrigation”.

    Soil temperature has a huge impact on plant growth:

    — at temperatures below +8 0 C, the “root pump” of plants does not work;

    - at 20 0 C plants grow 2 times, and at 30 0 C - 4 times faster than at 10 0 C;

    - but at 40 0 ​​C - growth stops.

    Techniques for ensuring optimal soil temperature:


    c) Illumination of plants.

    No plant grows without light! It is necessary for photosynthesis to occur in leaves.

    To avoid shading plants, follow these rules::

    • Place trees and buildings along the edges of the site;
    • Place the beds (or rows of plants in a bed) from north to south and make beds about 0.5 m wide with plantings in 2 rows, and aisles 0.7-1 m wide: then each plant will be outermost and better illuminated;
    • use additional reflected light from the southern walls of buildings and the water surface of ponds or other bodies of water;
    • for mixed plantings, place the plants “facing the light”;
    • Consider the height of the plants when planting successively.

    G) Optimal temperature air.

    Heat is a well-known factor that has a beneficial effect on plant growth, and that is why we build greenhouses and hotbeds, but... at air temperatures above 30 0 C, tomatoes do not grow! Therefore, it is so important to ventilate greenhouses through vents in the roof, and their area should be at least 20-25% of the greenhouse area.

    And in the hottest periods it is even necessary to shade the greenhouses nonwoven materials or nets.

    And in the southern regions, it is generally profitable to build greenhouses from special nets (for example, NetHouse or Optinet), which also protect against pests. In such “mesh houses” the plants are not cold in spring and autumn, and in summer they are not hot.

    e) Protection of plants from the wind.

    Wind is a little-known factor among gardeners that slows down plant growth, but, on the other hand, helps pollination.

    • dries out (requires more water);
    • cools (growth processes slow down);
    • blows away carbon dioxide (the main nutrition of plants) - therefore it is bad to ventilate greenhouses with a draft through 2 doors;
    • breaks plants.

    Protection from “harmful winds”- fences or natural obstacles across the direction of the wind, but taking into account illumination:

    • hedges made of bushes and trees;
    • fences made of polycarbonate or polyethylene film(obstacle to wind, but light penetrates);
    • according to Holzer: high ridges of a sinuous (meander) shape or a crater garden with a pond and plantings on the slopes of the crater.

    Now let's highlight THE MAIN THINGS in the agricultural technology of Natural farming:

    - if you want to INCREASE SOIL FERTILITY - don’t dig up the soil and add organic matter (the more, the better) - “You can’t spoil porridge with oil!”;

    - if you want to ACCELERATE THE PROCESS of increasing fertility and PREVENT plant DISEASES - in addition to these two methods, breed beneficial microorganisms in the soil and on the foliage using EM preparations;

    - if you want to cope with diseases and pests WITHOUT POLLUTTING NATURE - create a sustainable self-regulating biosystem (biocenosis) on your site and use only “natural” methods and harmless biological products - prevention, not treatment.

    That's all the secrets! The agricultural technology of Natural farming is simple, proven and brings consistently high results!

    Try and check! And you simply won’t want to work any other way!

    Leonid Ryabov,
    Head of the St. Petersburg Natural Agriculture Club

    Read also