How to make a compost bed in the fall. A warm bed for an early harvest: DIY ways. How long does it take to decompose compost

Instead of traditional ones, you can make compost beds.

Advantages

• No need to dig.
• Organic fertilizers are formed right in the garden.
• Harvest ripens earlier.
• Plants do not need frequent watering.

Types of compost ridges

In place of the usual garden

Make them in spring or autumn. You can use the beds without a fence, you can use the beds-boxes with sides. The latter are convenient in that they keep their shape. Some of the beds are prepared in the spring, some in the fall. During the season, you can make several pieces.

Hay, straw, the remains of fresh vegetables and fruits, cut grass, weeds (without seed heads), egg shells, tea and coffee brewing, cardboard and other organic waste are placed on a free bed. Add earth. You can put ashes, manure or bird droppings. The layer should be 15-20 cm, the width of the beds should be 70-90 cm. It is better to make the distance between the ridges large so that the plants do not shade each other. You can process two or three beds in the spring. Three weeks later, the compost bed is ready. It is sown, after the emergence of shoots, it is mulched with mowed grass. Mulch protects the soil from drying out, so frequent watering is not required. Cultures are watered under the root. Harvest on such warm beds ripens earlier. The earth can not be dug up, but only loosened with a flat cutter. On such a bed it is convenient to use arcs.

Compost beds can be formed in the fall and left to mature over the winter. After harvesting, a layer of organic fertilizer is poured and left until spring. In the first year, it is better to use such a bed for planting potatoes. You can plant it under hay or mowed grass. Instead of hilling, sawdust or grass is added.

The compost layer will rot and settle, so organic fertilizers are added during the season. This forms a fertile compost layer.

Bed in a portable box

A box is knocked together from the boards, put in a free place, it is possible on the untreated part of the site. During the season, a warm compost bed is formed. First, drainage is done (branches, pebbles), then the box is covered with organic waste, earth. Gradually fall asleep to the top. You can spill "Baikal M-1", cover with spunbond or black film and fix. When the bed is ready, the box is removed and put in another place. Everyone repeats. So you can master the uncultivated part of the site without digging.

Healthy vegetables from your garden

A bed of rubbish

A bed can be made on some waste, garbage. During the summer, they put waste, mowed grass in one place until a big pile is obtained. They make large holes, fall asleep with earth. On such a heap, zucchini and pumpkins grow well in the first year. Mulch the soil between plants. Watered with infusion of herbs, biohumus. Add manure or chicken manure. Harvest in the fall and leave the garden until spring. In the spring it is leveled, given the shape of an ordinary garden bed.

This note is a response to an unusually interesting (like everything that comes from the pen of N.I. Kurdyumov!) Article “Nutritious thoughts in anticipation of the harvest”, published in the journal “Herald Gardener”. It is about the invaluable (and invaluable!) role of sugars and amino acids in plant nutrition.

But I'll start from afar.

For many years I have been a compost fanatic. He began excursions for numerous guests with his “chic” compost pit with a volume of 10 cubic meters and with pits, in which a neighbor put organic matter during the season. But over time, he saw the light: amazingly little "rut" remained after the decomposition of the biomass. And where did the lion's share go? And don’t go to the gate - to the sky, to the wells, to the ponds ...

It is necessary: ​​to mow the whole district all summer, to haunt algae in a nearby lake, to grow green manure especially for biomass, to bring and demolish all this into a compost pit. And what for? To employ yourself? To gut the grown biomass? To harm the environment?

If the organics decomposed in the beds, then the "owner" would be spared from the Sisyphean labor: with a cart of organics - including from the beds - into the pit, and then, with a handful of "rut", back to the garden. At the same time, decomposition products would have a chance to get to plants.

Having begun to see clearly, I, without hesitation, covered up the object of my pride. Biomass began to remain in the garden. No wasted fuss, no loss of biomass energy and nutrients, no damage to the habitat.

True, organic matter in the garden decomposes slowly. But there is a low-cost means of "spurring" the process - a conveyor-made EM silo. After waiting for a warm time, we put fresh herbs in a barrel, add a glass or two of EM solution and sweetness, fill it with water, and “the process has begun”.

The silo is ready as soon as the contents of the barrel have foamed, i.e. bacteria multiplied so much that gaseous decomposition products of organic matter began to be released. The first is carbon dioxide. For thistle, milkweed or chernoshchira, for example, a day or two may be enough, nettles need two or three days, amaranth and blooming sweet clover may need four to five days, and purslane must be held "under the gun" of bacteria for at least a week so that he does not come to life in the garden. We take out the ripened thick (silo) and lay it around vegetative plants. Then we water the decomposed EM silo with water to hide the bacteria from the sun and moisten the mulch substrate (bacteria are comfortable only in a humid environment). And in the barrel with the remaining yushka we put new greens, add sweets, add water ...

This "conveyor" works (with a single filling of the EM solution at the very beginning) all summer long, as long as there are eaters of the "brew" of this kitchen in the beds - vegetative plants. And as long as there is greenery worthy of putting it in a barrel. These can be weeded (non-seed) weeds, weeds from a wasteland, non-marketable zucchini, cucumbers, watermelons, melons (oh!), lettuce and radishes that have begun to shoot, beet tops, carrots ... Last summer, for example, plentifully born plums went into business. And how - skipping! Sweet indeed! From the fact that it is impossible to ensilage, we can mention - offhand - wormwood, ragweed and walnut foliage: there is no need to "enrich" the soil with absinthine and juglone.

The manipulation of the head is determined by the intensity of the flow of greenery. If the greenery does not “support”, then part of the inoculated (populated with bacteria) yushka can be used for watering. When the greens “flow like a river”, then this yushka has to be shared with new barrels (in my “hot time” there are up to nine 70-liter barrels - all over the garden). Plants gratefully, without delay, react to EM silage.

There is an important bonus for the gardener too: EM silage is a bioactivator and a BALANCED top dressing, so that what is grown remains FOOD (unlike industrial vegetables, which Fukuoka called aqueous solutions of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium ... packed in the shell of a tomato, eggplant, etc.). P.).
Now back to Kurdyumov's article.

Here is a quote from it: “... soluble sugars are the beginning of any microbial food chain. It is the first thing that is eaten when it enters the soil. You don’t even need to digest it - energy in its purest form. Fuse, "gasoline" of any food wave. We're not the only ones craving sweets! Just like microbes and amino acids - take ready-made and build protein. Referring to the old and recent world experience, Nikolai Ivanovich talks about all kinds of sweet top dressing. Even (hold on, readers!) - just about diluted sugar syrup. That's why above the word melon was adorned with an exclamation mark.

I quote further: “It is impossible not to mention the Canadian project RCW - branch wood chips. It started back in the late 70s, and in the early 90s brought to a productive technology that saves depleted soils around the world. Studying how humus is born in forests, scientists have found that the main source of sustainable humus is thin branches of deciduous trees. Why? Because they contain almost an order of magnitude more sugar than the wood of the trunks, plus proteins in a fair amount. In branches, unlike straw, the ideal ratio of nitrogen and carbon! Including other elements, they store 75% of all the nutrients of the forest.”

And one more thing: “At the heart of the farming technique (meaning the RCW project) is the no-till mixing of a 1-2-inch layer of fine wood chips with the top five centimeters of soil. After three or four years, crops on depleted soils grow significantly.”
In the absence of a grinder, I - under the influence of Nikolai Ivanovich's article - began to bring into each barrel a bucket or two chopped (with leaves) into pieces 2-3 cm long of the annual growth of raspberries, apple trees, grapes, cherries, plums ... The effect did not take long: the contents of the barrels began to foam much faster. Elder and maple especially "appeared" to me. And no wonder. “Craftsmen” drive “cursed” from elderberry berries (I remind you: alcohol is formed due to the work of yeast on sugar). And in Canada and the USA, mainly maple honey (syrup) is in use. In any case, the contents of the barrels, in which the maple cut is laid in the evening, foam by morning.

A very important amendment to the EM conveyor ensiling technology! Cheap but angry! I stopped fiddling with my grandmother about a jar of old jam.
Maple is especially interesting in that its shoots are found at every step, and its expanded reproduction is evident: in place of cut branches, two, three, five branches a meter long or more grow in 4-5 weeks. Even champions do not know such rapid growth: goat's rue, rumex, pierced-leaved sylph ... When harvesting maple branches, you should not shun those from which you can cut twigs 70-100 cm long for easy support of plants (for example, tomatoes). With two arches stuck into the ground, a hollow is formed (indicated by an arrow in the figure), into which the plant lies. When the plant begins to lean, it is necessary to “give him a shoulder” from the side where the plant is leaning. Got to the ground? You can put a couple more bows. No comparison with tying whips to a trellis! Which, by the way, must first be built! Inserting the shackles is faster, safer for plants, does not require finger dexterity, and does not interfere with plant growth in any way. In addition, there is no rise of lashes to the sun - the fruits will be in partial shade and will not bake!

So, harvested maple branches form three fractions - one is more useful than the other:

• greens for ensiling (leaves and green twigs up to 4 mm thick),
• twigs to support plants without coercion,
• rough leftovers.

These leftovers are cut into pieces 4-5 cm long and used as mulch. They will not decompose in one season, will be mixed with the soil at the next shallow tillage and, according to RCW technology, will feed the plants (for real, with sugars and amino acids) with the primary fuel of dynamic fertility.

And a couple of words about the maple cut. In the middle of summer, weeds begin to seed, and the flow of decent greenery for silage is depleted. It's time to reorient the process from thick to yushka: put a couple of buckets of maple chaff into barrels (the raw material for it does not dry out) and water the previously decomposed mulch and EM silo with foamy yub. I have sweet (noticeably sweet) stems and leaves of corn and sorghum added to the flow of greens at this time. They grow quite densely throughout the garden as backstage. And just in time for the middle of summer, they need to be thinned out to give the plants partial shade. Just do not uproot, but break out the stems, and then, thanks to wound hormones, stepchildren actively grow - a new raw material for mulch and EM silage.
What an effective imprint Nikolai Ivanovich's article left on garden affairs!

And now - to the compost. Here is another quote from the article: “In the end, God himself ordered to look at the compost with a new eye. And to state: from it, after all, not only ammonia nitrogen and carbon dioxide evaporate. The main thing is that there are no sugars or amino acids left! The very basis of dynamic fertility, its primary fuel, is zero. So Boris Andreevich Bublik is right: composting right on the beds is a special agricultural technique. And not just in the form of mulch or in piles, but right in the soil, in small grooves or pits, under a thin layer of soil. There is no better place for kitchen waste.”

I note that the incorporation of organic matter into the soil is remarkably - in time - combined with mulching and laying out the EM silo on the mulch. It is convenient to incorporate organic matter into the soil in spring or autumn, when the beds are free from plants, and lay out silage in the summer, when the beds are occupied. It turned out like a puzzle: organic matter is embedded in the soil in the cold season, and EM silage is fermented by heat (soil bacteria - thermophiles) and is appropriate only if there are plants on the garden bed - eaters of decomposition products! Let me remind you that it is also advisable to pour a silo yushka only on soil covered with mulch and plants.

The article by Nikolai Ivanovich is a golden nail in the coffin of compost made outside the beds and an extremely appropriate hosanna for sweet top dressing and watering.

Here's a recent anecdote. I gave the article to read to a neighbor who comes to the dacha "for the weekend." Killed, poor, until the evening: “Wow! Just yesterday I was cleaning my grandmother's stocks, and threw away three dozen cans of suspicious jam. Can I not understand her: after all, she could have watered her two hundred square meters of the garden sweetly, but she arrived ... with a bag of urea. This story is a wonderful illustration of the final phrase of Nikolai Ivanovich's article: "This is how the sugar cycle turns out in nature, in the head and in the garden!"
How accurate is the imperative of Lilia Zhuravleva (Orsk Natural Farming Club): To change something in actions, you need to change a lot in your heads. It's high time to take to mind the definition from Kurdyumov's rarity "Smart Ogool": "Fertility is the nutritional activity of the soil as a product of the activity of all living organisms inhabiting it." And throw out of your head the scanty idea that the fertility of the soil is the abundance of minerals in it. An extremely dangerous idea - it really allows you to get a high yield, only it will have a distant relation to food.

The most important factor in the proper development of plants is their balanced nutrition. Everyone will agree with this: both the summer resident-amateur, and the experienced gardener-practitioner, and the scientific agronomist. The most important factor in the proper development of plants is their balanced nutrition. Everyone will agree with this: both the summer resident-amateur, and the experienced gardener-practitioner, and the scientific agronomist.

Even supporters of traditional arable farming will not argue on this issue with adherents of natural agricultural technology, because. both those and others are trying to provide the plants with everything necessary for their proper nutrition, and, therefore, for good growth.

Experience shows that urban gardeners, as well as many rural residents, have a very superficial idea of ​​what, and most importantly, how plants eat. Most summer residents with whom I often communicate have ideas about plant nutrition often close to those of Aristotle, which reigned in European civilization for two thousand years. He taught that plants are, as it were, animals set with their heads in the ground and finding ready-made food in it with their roots.

When meeting with gardeners and gardeners, I often ask the same question: "Where do you grow vegetables best?". The answer is almost the same: "On the compost heap." To the question: "Why is this happening?", Most do not know the correct answer, at best, gardeners say that there is a lot of heat and nutrients. The third question is: "Why does even the best bed, consisting of almost one compost, grow worse than on an unripe compost heap?" and generally, as a rule, puts everyone in a dead end. It would seem a paradox, but it is easily resolved if you know how and what plants eat. Most gardeners believe that plants, in addition to water, need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other minerals. But today it is known for certain that nitrogen in the diet of plants is only 15%, and the remaining macro- and microelements account for 7%. Plants also need oxygen (20%) and hydrogen (8%), and the main element in the diet is carbon (50%).

Plants obtain carbon from carbon dioxide. Even at school, we studied that in the green leaf of plants, when exposed to sunlight, a unique phenomenon of photosynthesis occurs: the formation of organic matter from water molecules and carbon dioxide with the release of oxygen. And what about the compost heap? The fact is that only 0.03% of carbon dioxide in the air is about 30% of the necessary, the remaining 70% of the plant is obtained as a result of the vital activity of living microorganisms (bacteria, microfungi, etc.), decomposing organic matter with the release of not only mineral elements but also large amounts of carbon dioxide. Now it becomes clear that on the compost heap, where intensive decomposition of organic matter occurs under the influence of a large number of developing microorganisms, the best conditions are created for the carbon (basic) nutrition of plants.

Thus, our practical observations with you have led us to the truth already proven by scientists that living microorganisms, decomposing organic matter (grass, foliage, etc.) in the course of their life, play an important role in creating fertility and favorable conditions for plant growth.

The first microbiological preparation Nitragin was created back in 1896 and contained only one nitrogen-fixing bacterium (nodule). This bacterium converts nitrogen gas "inedible" for plants into a nitrate form, easily absorbed by plants. In the late 80s of the twentieth century, the Japanese scientist Higa Terou created for the first time a sustainable community of agronomically beneficial microorganisms (the Kyussei microbiological preparation). Agronomically useful microorganisms not only accelerate the decomposition of organic matter many times over, but also suppress pathogenic microflora (phytopathogens, putrefactive, etc.). The results of using the drug exceeded all expectations: yields increased by 3-4 times with significantly lower labor costs. Further development led to the creation of technology of effective microorganisms (EM-technologies). EM technologies are one of the main methods of today's Organic Farming.

So, dear gardeners, if everything grows “by leaps and bounds” on a compost heap, then draw the right conclusion and turn all your beds into compost beds! Apply organic matter in large quantities not to the compost bin, but directly to the beds. Revive the activity of microorganisms and worms, for which in no case do not use chemicals and do not dig, but only loosen the earth, use EM technologies, and then your environmentally friendly crops will grow without nitrates and toxins, while reducing costs and constantly increasing fertility soil!

Sergei Rumyantsev

First, about terms.
In a broad sense, these words are synonyms. In Russian, it happens that any word has different meanings, depending on the context in which it was pronounced and written.
If manure and other organic waste is placed in a special compost pit or box, it is turned over several times a season, loosened, watered, covered, thinking about the correct ratio of nitrogen and carbon, that is, composting, then a product similar to black earth is called compost .

And in the old days there was a lot of manure, it lay in huge piles near the sheds with animals, no one composted it, it rotted itself, and therefore the people simply called it humus.
Sometimes compost and humus are called humus. But humus is a borrowed Latin word, meaning earth, soil. And it is more correct to talk about humus in the context of talking about the soil, about the constituent part of the soil. Humus is what remains of organic matter that has been in the soil for a long time, processed by soil inhabitants, joined together with soil particles into a single complex and lost the fibrous structure of organic matter visible to the eye.

When we take the soil in our hands in the spring, we feel the pleasant smell of the earth and see its black color, we say that there is a lot of humus in the earth, this is black soil. Therefore, the closest synonym for humus is chernozem.
When we take good compost in our hand and also see the black color and smell a pleasant smell, we still do not call it humus or soil, but when we introduce such compost into poor soil, we understand that we are enriching the soil with humus, turning the soil into black soil .

But when we approach a heap of rotted manure, take humus in our hand, we do not always smell the soil, sometimes the humus has an unpleasant putrefactive smell. Intuitively, we understand the difference between black soil, between good compost, and between humus (an old pile of pig manure that we did not want to compost properly).
So we understood at the ordinary level what compost is, this is the organic matter with which we worked, which we composted.

Why Gardeners Make Compost Differently

I myself went through several stages of understanding what good compost is, and now reading hundreds of articles about composting and talking on this topic with gardening friends, I see that how many people, so many different opinions on how to make it.
Many people like to strictly follow the instructions, hang them correctly in grams, mix manure, straw, grass, and food waste in strict proportions. When a beginner reads such advice, he is confused and afraid to start creating compost heaps.

Someone is afraid of worms, read a lot of esoteric literature and strictly monitors the temperature of the heap so that all eggs and microbes die. Washes hands and vegetables endlessly with soap and brush after working in organic gardens.
Someone builds tables and calculates on a computer how much nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium is in which compost, and what additives should be added to it for each crop.

For some, compost is just a way to utilize the existing organic matter, reduce its volume, reduce the putrefactive smell, so that it is easier to take it out and bring it to the beds. For these purposes, I just put it in bags for six months.

There are fanatical naturalists who believe in the myths of soil digestion, who believe that compost is a loss of carbon energy, and all organic matter must be composted in the garden so that there is no loss, and all the sun's energy goes to the roots of plants. And humus is a dummy, bacteria poop that does not contain nitrogen.

I used to compost the other way too

If I had been asked one or five years ago what is the value of compost for a gardener, what is the essence of its proper preparation, I would have answered: in the quantity and quality of soil organisms, in the stability of the ecosystem that has developed during its preparation.
If you ask me now why a novice gardener needs to have the right compost, I will say in order to cure my dead land of bacterial and fungal diseases and start harvesting faster. And they will ask what is the main benefit of compost, I will answer that in the quantity and quality of antibiotics that the compost has accumulated, thanks to the vital activity of fungi and bacteria, in the ability of the extract from the compost to fight putrefactive organisms, in the ability of compost to heal the land, in the possibility of using infusions and from such compost to restore the fertility of dead soils.

Soil, especially depleted by agriculture, does not always contain all the beneficial microorganisms. Therefore, in order to restore the soil, we must introduce composts with a high content of bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms into it. Such inoculants can be: live compost, biohumus, vermicay, compost tea.

All novice gardeners have confusion in their heads

I want everything at once and quickly. And in order to avoid diseases, I want to kill all harmful fungi and bacteria, introduce pesticides and herbicides into the soil. In addition, I want to get a harvest in the first year on the acquired land. Not pesticides will help here, but extracts from compost.
Live compost for these purposes can be obtained in three weeks, for this you need to make compost in a heap using a special method.

What materials should be used for the rapid maturation of compost

• Various types of manure and litter from pets (waste from the toilet and feces should settle for 3-4 months). This is a nitrogenous material. It causes "burning" of the compost heap.
• Hay, straw, leaves, coarse grass are carbonaceous material. All materials must be crushed: otherwise they are difficult to turn over, and it is more difficult for microorganisms to process them.
• Green grass with turf - contains soil microorganisms, it is with green material that they enter the compost heap.
• Wood mulch is food for mushrooms, mushrooms love to recycle wood fiber.
• In the middle of the compost heap, you can add a kind of seed - comfrey, nettle, yarrow, fish, food waste. This will speed up the overall decomposition process. These are compost activators or accelerators that help warm up the pile.

I'll tell you in detail, in order
First, we make a loose base of the heap: put hay, small branches at the very bottom. It is very important that air is easily drawn into the pile from below. Then we lay a layer of nitrogenous material, alternating with carbonaceous.
After laying the heap, pour water over it so that it is moderately moist.
Then we cover the pile with waterproof material and leave it for 4 days.
On the fourth day, we make the first transfer of the heap. Our task in this case is to place the outer material inward, and the inner material outward. This is necessary for even composting, as the inside of the pile is hotter than the outside.
Then on the sixth day we do the second transfer of the heap. We control the heap temperature. We throw a bunch every other day, the outer material inward, and the inner material outward. On the 18th or 24th day, the compost should be ready, if it is not overheated or overdried.

Overheating will occur during the second third throwing - on the 6-8th day. Stick your arm up to your elbow in the compost heap. If you succeeded and you shout "Hot!" they pulled the hand back, which means that the temperature is above +50 ° C, and everything is fine. At +70 ° C, you will not be able to put your hand in a pile, it hurts.
During the composting process, optimal humidity should be observed, for this we take a little material from the base of the pile and squeeze it very strongly between the palms. If it drips a little, that's what you need.

What happens in the compost heap

During the first 4 days of composting, the population of microorganisms in the heap increases. We turn the pile, many organisms will die - and their bodies will become food for the next generation of microorganisms. There will be a population explosion, they will multiply rapidly and give off a lot of heat.
During the composting process, carbon organics will bind nitrogen and all other elements into humus. Rough organics - absorbent; nitrous - fuel for the heap. Even toxic substances - if any of them end up in a pile - will be bound by long chains of carbon molecules and become inert. This is one of the most remarkable properties of humus.
So, the main secret of a good and fast compost is the optimum temperature of the compost heap, +55…+65 °C. And optimal humidity with good aeration.

How can live compost be used?

I use ready-made compost in four different ways, depending on the purpose.
1. To quickly improve the humus-poor garden soil, I prepare compost, which contains a lot of woody material and, accordingly, mushrooms.
Trees need fungi, they grow in soil in which fungi predominate. Fungi form mycorrhiza, a symbiotic relationship with woody plants. Mushrooms get carbon from plants, giving away nutrients from the soil in return. Mushroom threads - hyphae - stretch for many kilometers, they can extract batteries over long distances. In addition, hyphae provide an exchange of information between trees. This is a kind of Internet in the soil. Fungal spores and hyphae are easily damaged by improper tillage. By inoculating the soil with mushroom compost, fungal diversity in the soil can be quickly restored.

2. For vegetable beds, I prepare compost rich in nitrogen, which is dominated by bacteria. It has more grass, manure, food waste. Such compost is better suited for fertilizing herbaceous plants and vegetables.

3. For the production of ACC, I leave the compost for 6-13 months for good maturation, it is better if it is overgrown with weeds. In this case, the ecosystem of compost organisms will be the most developed and diverse.
4. For the production of compost infusion, fresh compost 10-14 days before use should be shed with 1% molasses solution with the addition of 0.05% fish emulsion. (I make a "stink in a barrel" where I add nettle or comfrey, they have a good balance, a lot of nitrogen, and phosphorus, and carbohydrates). Then it is necessary to loosen well, this causes the rapid reproduction of all soil living creatures, followed by the lysis of most bacteria and fungi, while the compost is maximally saturated with antibiotics, amino acids and vitamins, and the infusion from it is the best medicine for treating rot-infected soils.

So, we need compost to quickly restore the fertility of the lands killed by the previous exploitation.

Why old drugs can not cure the earth

The use of EM preparations, trichoderma and hay bacillus on infected soils does not give a visible effect, they work well on healthy soils with a high content of humus. It is the same with ACS, soils poor in humus, infected with bacterioses, microorganisms introduced into the soil together with ACS and organics are treated, but slowly, in the first year of soil development, the crop is not obtained.

Modern mixed bacterial-fungal diseases reduce the immunity of plants, their resistance to frost, drought, pests, weeds, and no agrotechnical measures can save them from these diseases. We treat mushrooms - we get an outbreak of bacterioses, we treat bacteria with antibiotics - we get an outbreak of fungal diseases.

I have forty years of experience in the treatment of children from mixed microbial-fungal diseases, I use drugs - four in one, kill fungi, microbes, relieve inflammation and restore disturbed microflora of the skin or intestines.

What I saw in vermicoff and what I learned now

So it is with the soil. For the first time I saw that the soils are superbly treated with fresh extracts from vermicomposts. There are no pathogenic bacteria and fungi in the intestines of worms, but there are thousands of microorganisms with hundreds of antibiotics that protect worms from diseases, because worms crawl for millions of years in the dirtiest rotting manure. Last year I described my experience that beds watered with vermicaffe (an extract from vermicompost), and then sprayed with ACH, give an unprecedented increase in yield.

Not everyone can make worm compost, but everyone can make quality compost following the guidelines above. In compost, where there are no temperatures above 55 degrees, micro worms and millions of other micro soil animals manage to multiply in three to four weeks, and all of them excrete coprolites no worse than dung worms, and the composition of bacteria in it is no worse than in worm compost and the content of antibiotics that suppress all known soil pathogens is not worse, and the composition of beneficial soil anaerobes and protozoa is excellent. We get the effect of four in one.

How to make hoods and how to use them

If you take 2-3 liters of high-quality fresh compost in a bucket of water, stir well and leave for about an hour until the color of dark coffee, pour it over your diseased beds, at the rate of half to two liters per square meter, then this infusion will suppress both pathogenic fungi, and bacteria, relieve inflammation of the roots and create a protective layer of beneficial microorganisms in the rhizosphere. Vitamins from compost infusion will increase the immunity of plants, and they will successfully resist diseases, pests, drought and frost.

Then you can add organic matter to such a cured soil, without fear of increasing bacterioses, add ACh, and beneficial microbes will take root.
If a dozen beneficial bacteria are added to millions of pathogens, they do not take root, and if millions of beneficial bacteria are added to the ten remaining pathogens in the soil, they will take root, create their own ecosystem and will not let pathogens into their paradise.
Thus, the gardener can already in the first year on the killed soil get a crop and not reduce, but increase fertility.

This is the essence of my understanding of why a gardener needs the right compost.

Which is better - compost heaps or mulch on beds and paths? To prove the case in such a dilemma is like saying: “it is better to oversleep than to undereat.”

In fact, there is no dilemma, if you understand the essence of what I'm doing. I will try to formulate this very essence very briefly: the basis of my technology is in composting plant debris in paths and beds. I moved the compost heap to a place where it would be available to the roots of the plants - in the paths and in the beds. I am for composting with both hands, but with some reservations. Let's compare two options: composting in lanes and composting in compost bins, compost heaps, etc. What is the difference?

1. The process of operating a compost heap can be simplified as follows: we collect all organic residues in a heap. We support microbiological activity in the heap. We spread the finished compost over the beds. We close it in the soil of the beds. The process of operating compost lanes is twice as simple. We collect organic residues on the paths. We support microbiological activity in lanes. And that's all.
2. Composters occupy a separate place on the site. Composting in lanes does not require additional space at all.

These two points alone show the great advantages of compost paths over a compost heap.

1. When composting in heaps, carbon dioxide is lost, which is the main building material of plants. When composting in paths, carbon dioxide is released in the place where plants are able to use it most fully - in the root zone of crops.
2. In compost heaps, most of the organic matter is lost, the heap is reduced in volume by 4 times. Nothing is wasted in the compost lanes. In the process of decomposition of organic matter, it also plays the role of an effective mulch that retains moisture, evens out temperature fluctuations in the soil, and enhances microbiological activity in the garden and paths.
3. The compost heap attracts worms. But only when the temperature in the heap drops does the worms begin to work in the heap (vermicomposting). In addition, the compost heap will attract worms from the surrounding beds, if the beds do not create the same comfortable conditions for the worms as in the heap. The area of ​​compost lanes is much larger than the area of ​​the compost heap (with the same amount of organic material used), which means that more worms are attracted. Worms work there all the time - the temperature in the tracks does not rise. And the waste products of the worms are distributed both in the paths and in the beds through the efforts of the worms themselves. And the worms will lay offspring right there, in the paths.
4. The disadvantages of a compost heap are devoid of compost paths. The organic layer in them does not exceed the critical volume required to heat up the heap. There is no increase in temperature and everything connected with it.
5. In compost heaps, when heated, most weed seeds die. In compost paths, weed seeds do not die. But this is only for the good - free green manure, the seeds of which do not need to be bought and sown. But on paths with a thick layer of organic weeds, unfortunately, there are few.
6. Proponents of compost piles are forced to carry all weeds and post-harvest residues into a pile. If there are compost paths, this is not necessary. We leave everything in place.
7. Compost heaps perform one single role - the preparation of compost. Compost paths, moreover, are a system for automatically adjusting the humidity and temperature in the beds, depending on the season.

And here is another argument against the use of composting in paths and beds: “Your proposal to increase humus in the soil by mulching beds and passages with raw organic matter is equivalent to a natural process - the accumulation of humus in the soil over many years. The gardener, on the other hand, wants to increase the fertility of the soil as quickly as possible ... ”The question shows a clear misunderstanding of the role of paths as small-volume compost bins. All processes that take place in the lanes are equivalent to the processes in the compost heap, except for warming up. Accordingly, no less humus is formed over the same time. But for me, the accumulation of humus is not an end in itself. Humus is only an important "complement". In the process of vital activity, the microworld decomposes organic matter into solutions that it consumes for its nutrition. These same solutions are able to assimilate plants - this is their main food. That part of the solutions that was not absorbed by plants and microbes combines with the mineral part of the soil, forming poorly soluble stable particles - this is humus.

This process in my garden takes place intensively in paths. In the presence of compost paths, the decomposition of organic matter on the surface of the ridge is not so important, although it is useful. The main thing here is to retain moisture, stabilize the temperature, protect the soil structure from destruction, and create comfortable conditions for the worms. These functions are best performed by undecomposed organic matter. But my practice shows that even in drought conditions and without watering, organic residues on the surface of the beds decompose, although less intensively than in humid conditions. In addition, these processes can be controlled. If the organic matter is crushed, then decomposition will go faster. In my practice, I do not grind anything. I just select the mulch for the culture according to the size of the organic fragments. For example, I mulch tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, potatoes with hay, straw, and other large-sized organic matter. Carrots, beets, daikon, radish - foliage, that is, smaller organic matter.

Different organics go into the paths, both small and large, both fast-decomposing and long-decomposing. This is done consciously. This heterogeneous structure of compostable materials ensures constant aeration. This does not allow putrefaction to go on a putrefactive type. All of the above is not to say that I am against shredding organic matter for mulch and composting. But my practice proves that you can do without grinding.

This comparative analysis shows that lane composting is less labor intensive than using compost heaps. And, in addition, it performs many related functions. I did this analysis for myself. I just wondered, maybe I'm really doing too much, compared to composting in heaps? It turns out that my approach is less labor-intensive. Good luck with gardening.

Oleg Telepov,
Omsk