How to make beautiful beds for the lazy, the beds high and smart – is that you need to know the gardener who wants to make his life as independent as possible from garden worries. If you want, you just need to master the method of design of lazy beds, which you can see in the next photo. A bed of this type will allow you to enjoy a well-deserved break at the cottage and will not each time require weeding. Besides, it’s not only convenient, but also increases productivity of crops.
To say that plants do not care on what bed can grow only a person who is far from agriculture. The shape and size of the beds depends on the level of soil moisture, the intensity of gas exchange and species composition of microorganisms that live in the upper layers of the earth. All these factors have a direct impact on the quality of the substrate, and therefore on the level of productivity – the main criterion for success for any gardener or gardener. How to use a scientific approach for the benefit of your garden, how to create not only a neat appearance of the beds, but also to raise the yield of your site as high as possible? We will try to answer these questions in this publication with a large-scale selection of photos of a wide variety of beds.
Principles of arrangement of beds
The bed is a relatively small, often quite isolated area of soil on which it is possible to provide individual care for the plant of a particular culture, create a moisture regime and carry out feeding. It is obvious that on a country site or a kitchen garden plants with various agrotechnics, often opposite requirements to leaving are grown up – without individual approach it will not be possible to achieve high productivity. For this purpose on a site differentiation – division of the territory into zones, and zones – on beds is necessary.
If the purpose of the beds is more or less clear to each gardener, such nuances as the level of illumination, the composition of the soil and even its consistency, necessary for different crops, are not always taken into account and not all. Unfortunately, the lack of understanding that cucumbers and tomatoes, for example, require a different approach, leads to a significant loss of yield. Creating a difficult trench for planting certain crops, and isolated beds, the owner of the site can give the plants proper care – all efforts will always pay off the quality or quantity of the crop.
Methods of cultivation
There are two main (and diametrically opposed) approaches to agriculture:
– traditional;
– environmental.
The traditional way of cultivating land is a thing of the past, incredibly time-consuming and often irrational, extremely damaging to the ecosystem. It is based on human attempts to control the processes in the soil, its state. The traditional way of farming includes the following activities:
– twice-a-day digging soil (for the year);
– herbicide treatment;
– uncontrolled amount of fertilizer applied to the soil;
– beds with this principle of farming are cultivated in such a way that they have a small number of capillaries and, as a consequence, an insufficient number of microorganisms.
All these factors inevitably lead to low yields, depletion of soil resources.
The second approach, ecological (natural), is based on the ability of the soil to regenerate itself. There are many principles of natural farming, but all of them are based on the fact that people rarely interfere in the natural course of processes occurring in the soil. Digging of land is replaced by surface loosening, and weeding 1 time a week or two – timely mulching.
Modern farming methods are based on the ecological method and with this approach, microorganisms, roots of plant cultures and insects independently restore the structure of the soil. The increase in the number of capillaries increases the processes of gas exchange, as a result, the roots of plants are enriched with nitrogen in a natural way, which leads to an increase in both the quality and quantity of the crop. All this can happen without chemical fertilizers or with their minimum amount.
Types of beds for a modern garden
Only at first glance it may seem that the beds differ from each other only in size and shape. Although these indicators are of great importance for plants that need an individual approach and isolation from other cultures. Beds may differ by the principle of formation, for example, not on the site, and above it, located on the so-called “green wall” or inside plastic pipes of large diameter. It all depends on the methods of care for each particular plant species.
Bed in the form of a box
The bed-box is one of the most popular ways of cultivation of the soil today. This method of planting allows not only to create a separate place for each culture, but also to organize the landscape of the suburban area or garden at a high aesthetic level. It is easy to organize a bed in the form of a box – a fence in the form of low shields is installed on the prepared and marked place of the site (Fazenda or a small backyard).
For the organization of fencing beds-boxes can be used:
– flat or wavy slate;
– unnecessary boards;
– polycarbonate sheets;
– plastic;
– any waste material that can tolerate soil moisture more than one summer season.
Further, the prepared compartment is filled with layers of organic matter and soil directly. In the winter, such beds are not understood, and in the spring after surface loosening it will be possible to plant seeds or seedlings of certain crops again. This approach is not only practical, rational, but also aesthetic.
Beds with high sides
High beds are usually presented in the form of ridges or trapezoids. The rise of the soil is usually provided by a “pillow” of the compost layer, on top of which the earth is poured. In areas of our country, where the common bear, a layer of compost is not used, the rise is carried out only by filling the ground. Bear usually arranges nests in the compost layer (warm and humid place is an ideal habitat) and can spread very quickly throughout the site.
High beds are most often used for growing melons:
– cucumber;
– pumpkins;
– squashes’;
– sometimes in this way grow some varieties of potatoes.
Beds with high sides are created for one season. In most cases, the mound strongly settles under the weight of snow and loses its functional background. If in a bed, having a box design, will be grown weaving plants (eg, cucumbers, some kinds of zucchini), it is not superfluous to equip the fence with a vertical grid (made of wood or metal, created with the help of weaving, any improvised means).
If such a design is equipped with a high dome, tightened film, the usual bed becomes a greenhouse. Growing seedlings in such portable designs is very convenient and practical.
“Warm” beds
“Warm” beds are called because of the fact that in their lower layers is fresh, not rotted manure. The mound of manure is carried out in late autumn to winter under the cover of snow were all processes. In early spring, after the snow comes down, such beds are cleaned so that they are warmed by the sun and the decomposition processes start.
Further, the manure begins to humus with high heat. As a rule, in compost heaps during “burning” the temperature inside can reach 40-50 degrees. But in the beds of manure layer is low and this effect does not occur, in addition, winter aging significantly slows down the processes of “burning”. All these manipulations and preparations are needed in order to plant crops in a ready, “warm” bed. Usually, this is done for planting plants with a shallow root system – cucumbers, radishes, etc.
After the end of the summer season, all manure is recycled. If you remove the top layer of soil, then under it you can find – humus, which is a very valuable substrate. This natural fertilizer can be scattered throughout the garden or suburban area. And at the end of autumn in a bed it will be possible to put manure again and to start process of preparation of “warm” beds on new.
Beds with drainage
In clay the kidneys, in very low places that constantly drained all the water and the swampy areas are required to equip the beds with drainage. It is easy to make them – usually removed 50-60 cm of soil layer, then at the bottom of the resulting pit laid sand height of about 20cm, then poured sawdust, humus and only after that – the soil. Drainage and gas exchange in beds of this type are excellent – an ideal place for growing root plants (for example, potatoes).
Material for making beds with your own hands
Creating beds of any configuration requires some preparation. In order to arrange the beds in the form of boxes, you will need to use the following materials:
– slate or boards, plastic or polycarbonate of such height that in the earth there was not less than 30 cm, and on a surface – not less than 20 cm of all size of a product;
– pegs made of wood or metal, which will be needed to secure the fence material;
– non-woven material that can be laid at the bottom of the prepared trench.
Once the workpiece – dug pit will be covered with nonwoven fabric, the top will need to fill it with the following layers:
– sawdust or straw – about 10cm;
– dry leaves (which you have prepared in advance since autumn) – about 10 cm;
a mixture of compost and soil, a ratio of 1 to 2 m (layer size 10 cm or more);
– a clean layer of earth not less than 10 cm.
And in conclusion. Your site can not only bring a good harvest, but also look aesthetically pleasing. Landscape design is able to manifest itself not only in the courtyard of a private house, but also in the garden, in the garden. But the main principle of the arrangement of beds in the territory should still be the needs of plants in sunlight. On a properly located bed care of plants will require a minimum.
Beds from scrap materials
