Beautiful beds in the country with their own hands: photo, device and options. How to make practical and beautiful garden beds

Raised beds are the saviors of vegetable growers with poor soil, site drainage, and those who find it difficult to cultivate a large vegetable garden. The main idea of ​​such structures is instead of fighting bad conditions to create a structure above the ground, where all soil parameters can be controlled with minimal effort. Attractive high beds in the photo have their pros, cons and difficulties. Armed with tips and having studied the instructions for different arrangement options, choosing the right one for yourself is quite simple.

Purpose of high beds

It is easy to understand why the beds are made high - this design helps to solve a variety of problems of the site, whether it is waterlogged, infertile, densely overgrown with weeds, or even a cold climate.

decorative vegetable garden

Properly selected and placed high structure allows you to effectively grow plants in specific conditions, without making such significant efforts for this as in traditional vegetable growing.

Raised beds - horizontal boxes or containers for growing garden crops, herbs and flowers, located at least 15-20 cm above soil level. Their width is from 40 to 150 cm.

This size is convenient for processing landings without standing on the ground with your feet. The length depends on the size of the site and the desire of the owner. It can be either just ridges in the form of "hills" of nutrient soil mixtures, or structures with sides made of different materials.

Animal Protection

Classification and features of species

Vegetable growers around the world have developed many types of high beds. This makes it possible to choose the design that is most suitable for certain conditions and effectively grow plants in almost any climatic zone. Any of the modifications can be attributed to one of the categories:

Waist-high vegetable containers

Pros and cons of growing plants at height

As with every technology, the "on top" method of growing horticultural crops has its own advantages and difficulties that may arise when applied in practice. Therefore, before you "rush into battle" and start construction, you should familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of the method and try it out in specific conditions.

Design option

Benefits and possible difficulties

Bulk beds, whether large boxes, mounds without fencing or narrow containers, have several advantages over traditional vegetable gardens:

• In the spring, they warm up faster, allowing you to plant plants earlier and get the first harvest.
• The soil does not compact from walking because the structures are made to allow easy access from walkways between them.
• An excellent option for those who, for health reasons or due to employment, cannot work in a traditional garden. Raised beds require much less effort and time to get a good harvest.
• Thanks to the use of humus, systemic feeding of plants with fertilizers and regular watering, you can get much larger crops of vegetables from a smaller area.
• Using imported soil and humus, you can get an environmentally friendly crop, even on polluted and infertile (sandy, saline) soils.
• With a fence made of wood, vines or stone, beautiful raised beds can act as a decorative element of the site.

Wooden high containers look very aesthetically pleasing

At the same time, some vegetable growers identify disadvantages that sometimes cause difficulties in the practical implementation of this method:

• The equipment of high beds requires the acquisition of materials and minimal skills in the construction of simple wooden structures.
• In the absence of a compost heap, humus and fertile soil also need to be purchased.
• In hot weather, the soil dries out faster, which requires more frequent watering or the installation of a drip irrigation system.
• The need to replace the soil every few years or add compost annually and grow green manure before and after the main vegetables.

How to neutralize disadvantages and overcome difficulties

These difficulties can be overcome by taking used boards or slate as construction material, preparing a compost heap in advance and arranging drip irrigation from plastic bottles.

For a test, you can make one small garden bed with your own hands and experiment on it for one year. Having determined what and how it is better to grow by this method in the conditions of a particular site, you can proceed to full-scale construction, taking into account the accumulated experience.

Strawberries grown in beds or in containers are always clean and do not get sick

Many gardeners begin their acquaintance with this method by growing strawberries in high beds. This plant can be grown with your own hands on any type of elevated beds. When planning the planting of strawberries, it is worth considering the features of its cultivation:

• When building a container or box, it should be noted that strawberries are planted in sunny places, therefore, in order to avoid overheating of the soil, their walls are made of brick or stone wood, but not of iron and slate. For the same purpose, the outer walls of a tall building should be whitewashed or covered with white facade paint.
• To avoid rapid drying and overheating of the soil under the bushes, it must be constantly covered with a layer of mulch, film or agrotextile.
• In a low box, the earth will dry out and deplete faster. You will need frequent watering and updating the mulch - at least twice a week. Therefore, it is necessary to have a compost heap and a barrel in which organic matter will be infused for irrigation.

The device and dimensions of raised landings

To make the right high bed with your own hands, you must first determine the most advantageous location for it on the site. The place should be lit 5-6 hours a day and preferably from the very sunrise. It should not be in the winds, especially the north, and in a draft.

Most experts recommend placing containers in a south-north direction so that all plants receive an even amount of heat and light. If the site is located on a slope, it is better to place them regardless of the cardinal points, but across the slope.

Device and layers

How to calculate the dimensions of a structure

Then determine the appropriate height. Containers can be made slightly raised above the ground (25–30 cm) or high (70–80 cm). Both options have their own advantages. There are even scientific studies devoted to the selection of the height of containers according to a certain formula for the proportions of the body of a particular person. As for the device, the beds at the waist level require more time and effort, but they are warmer and easier to care for.

The optimal size of a high bed in width should allow it to reach the middle without stepping on the soil (70-100 cm). If you plan to install two containers placed in parallel, you can make a mini-greenhouse out of them. For this, the boxes are made 80 cm wide, and the passage between them is 60 cm. A frame of plastic pipes is created from above and covered with a film.

One of the wooden frame options

Basics of construction and the basics of construction

Having decided on the size, they mark out a place on the site, remove the fertile soil layer on the spade bayonet and fix the fence around the perimeter. On the sides they knock down the frame, slightly recessed into the ground, or simply put it on the surface. Most often, the frame is upholstered with boards. The bottom is left free. The scheme of a high bed with a wooden frame and a small recess in the photo below.

The simplest design of high beds is a wooden box without a bottom, consisting of two short, two long boards and four pointed beams. The width of the boards is selected depending on the required height of the structure, and the length of the bars should be 20-30 cm longer in order to drive them into the ground.

Support bars are attached to short boards, after which long boards are attached to them. The finished structure is installed in a marked and prepared place.

Simple construction of boards and beams

We make high beds with our own hands

For those who have at least minimal construction or carpentry experience, it will not be difficult to figure out how to make high beds with their own hands, and in a short time to bring the idea to life. The first (trial) design can be made from existing building materials or waste - old doors, slate, boards.

Wooden fence and its features

The fence can be built from wood, concrete, brick, stone, and almost any material available. When choosing material for bulk beds, consider:

• price;
• mounting complexity;
• durability;
• decorative properties.

Typical Circuit

When the question arises: what to make high beds from, most owners opt for a tree. With proper processing, this material can last 5-7 years, and it looks beautiful.

Before construction, boards and beams must be treated with special antiseptic impregnation, stain or used oil. So that the impregnation does not subsequently penetrate into the soil, and the frame is as little as possible affected by moisture, it is upholstered with a dense film from the inside.

Boards for high beds are taken from larch or acacia. Such wood species have the best ratio of low cost, strength and durability. For work, a slab, timber, logs (halves), any boards, lining are suitable.

High wooden beds will last longer if the boards are at least 2 cm thick. The sidewalls are fixed with metal corners or by installing 40 × 40 or 50 × 50 bars at the corners of the box and screwing the boards to them with self-tapping screws.

Not the cheapest, but very beautiful solution is the beds of the timber. Their advantages are durability and practicality - it is convenient to lean on a wide side, sit down, put seedlings. In addition, the beam will perfectly withstand even a large amount of soil in waist-high containers.

A box of timber - reliable and beautiful

Other fencing materials

More difficult to build with your own hands are high fences made of concrete, brick, metal, stone. They are stronger and more durable than wood, but also have their drawbacks.

Metal beds look very neat, are mounted quite easily and last almost forever. They are made, as a rule, from galvanized steel, sometimes with a polymer coating.

Ready-made fences are sold in stores, so their installation also takes a minimum of time. If you have the skills to work with metal, you can save money and make a fence from roofing iron and metal corners or a frame from wooden bars.

Galvanized metal fence

Concrete beds are a little cheaper, but also require special skills to build. Such a structure can last at least 30 years. Borders can be installed in a monolithic tape method, using a sliding formwork method, or to make beds from concrete blocks, simply by installing them in the right place. The disadvantage of concrete fencing is its ability to increase the acidity of the soil.

Concrete structures can also perform a decorative function.

New brick fences are beautiful and reliable. The disadvantage is that in order to make an even and neat masonry, you must have special skills or hire a craftsman. How to lay out brick beds:

• pull the rope tightly on the pegs along the inner perimeter;
• dig a trench, at least half the height of a brick;
• lay out the first row evenly;
• start laying out the fence on the solution.

The rest of the building materials in the case

A stone fence is made in the same way. The stone will fit into any landscape design and is almost eternal. Disadvantages - the inability to move the structure to another place and the high cost of decorative stone.

Gabions in the form of a fence

The fence for high beds can be built from slate, plastic bottles, curb tape, vines, straw and other materials.

Blocks as a fence

Soil preparation for successful vegetable growing

When the fence is ready, they begin to fill the raised beds with nutrient soil. On wet soils and at a low height of the fence, it is best to dig a trench 10-15 cm deep. If there are rodents on the site, a fine-mesh construction mesh is laid on the bottom to protect the plants.

How to fill high beds with your own hands - the order of layers:

1. If the structure is installed on the surface of the earth without removing the top layer of soil and backfilling the drainage, in order to avoid the germination of weeds, the bottom is covered with geotextiles.
2. If the site is wet or the fence is made of stone, concrete, brick, be sure to make a drainage layer of crushed stone and sand or branches and twigs. Drainage from branches is covered with coarse sand or expanded clay. A geotextile is laid on the drainage layer, then another layer of crushed wood waste.
3. Next, plant waste is laid: chopped branches, grass (excluding weeds), dry leaves, tops, vegetable peelings, straw. A layer of organic waste can be compacted with earth or laid on top of the sod with the soil up. To speed up the decomposition of waste, they can be watered with a Baikal solution or other similar means.
4. The next layer, depending on availability, is manure, peat or immature compost. After complete decomposition, they will nourish vegetables for a long time.
5. The topmost layer is the soil for high beds, consisting of a mixture of fertile soil and humus or mature compost. It should be of such thickness that the roots do not grow into the lower decaying layer. The composition of the soil for the top layer is easy to adjust for the cultivation of certain crops. Mineral fertilizers, sand, semi-rotted sawdust, soddy soil, peat can be added to it.

Layer-by-layer filling of the finished box

Watering for high beds

You need to water the beds and feed the plants more often than in open ground. The average frequency of watering is once or twice a week. Traditional watering from a hose or watering can has significant drawbacks - it compacts the soil, loosening is required after it, a strong pressure of water destroys the structure of the topsoil. If you water with a weak pressure of water, a lot of time is wasted. Therefore, more and more gardeners prefer to organize automatic or semi-automatic watering.

The irrigation system on high beds can be made in different versions:

1. Drip irrigation tapes. It is necessary to lay one such tape under each row of plants. Further, polypropylene pipes are fixed on the fence, to which each tape is attached through valves.
2. Drip irrigation can be arranged in a similar way using polypropylene pipes with holes. A diagram of such a system is shown in the photo below.
3. A semi-automatic garden waterer can be created from old hoses. They are laid on the ground and in places where water should come out, small holes are made.
4. One of the easiest semi-automatic watering options that you can do yourself is wick watering. To do this, buckets or large plastic bottles are dug into the ends of the frame. One end of a wick made of cloth or rolled fabric is immersed in a container of water, and the other is buried 10-15 cm into the soil.
5. Bucket watering beds is the cheapest in the device. To do this, you need to bury a plastic bottle with a cut bottom and small holes made under each plant. Through the bottom it will be convenient to pour water from the hose, and from the holes it will slowly flow out under the root of the plant.

Diagram of a drip irrigation system from old hoses or pipes

Raised beds, with all their pros and cons, are a technique that allows you to grow solid crops of vegetables even in small and unsuitable areas. There are many variations of their arrangement, filling and watering - from simple and economical to expensive and decorative. Among such a variety, it is easy to choose the option suitable for a particular site, financial capabilities and even the physical parameters of a person.

In order to make the right beds with your own hands, you can study the positive experience accumulated by gardeners and begin your summer cottage experiment. We will need to invest time and energy, but the high yield and minimal maintenance of the garden are worth it! A modern garden can be comfortable and beautiful, and working in it can be enjoyable. Sounds like a dream? To make this dream a reality, you only need desire and a little effort.

How to make the right beds with your own hands

We will tell you a simple and effective way to make productive beds with your own hands, which has been proven by many years of practice. This method has become widely known thanks to the experience of Igor Lyadov. The principle is quite simple: high beds should be narrow (60-100 cm) and long. It is important that the bed is extended along the north-south line - this will provide maximum light and heat to the plants growing on it.

First, a box is made of boards, logs, slate or any other material.

Cardboard is placed at the bottom of the box - this partially prevents the growth of weeds.

Then the cardboard is covered with a small layer of sand.

Then the bed is filled with organic fertilizers (compost, manure) and covered with earth. The earth can be taken directly from the passages between the beds.

The passages themselves can be improved so that weeds do not grow on them and you do not have to spend time weeding them. It all starts with lining with cardboard or newspapers.

Only now a layer of sawdust 2-3 cm thick is poured onto the newspapers.

Such regular beds last for many years and allow you to grow amazing crops. You just need to regularly replenish them with compost or other organic fertilizers.

Beautiful beds with your own hands: plants, fences, paths

Of course, a good harvest in the beds is the most important thing. But if it's important to you that your garden look modern and beautiful, then here are a few ideas for you.

Use different combinations of plants in the beds, combining the colors of the leaves and fruits to create interesting compositions.

Garden fences serve not just utilitarian practical purposes, and make it easier for you to further maintain the beds and plant plants; Bed railings divide the garden into zones and create a neat landscape design structure. For fencing, you can use almost any material that you have at hand.

By raising the beds above ground level, you will make it easier for yourself to care for plants and give your garden an attractive look.

Paths between beds are also very important. In order for them to be comfortable and beautiful, do not forget to protect the aisles from weeds. The easiest way is to lay agrofibre on the track substrate.

If you reach a certain level in the design of the garden, then your summer cottage will change beyond recognition, and at first glance it will even be difficult to say whether it is a garden or a flower garden.

Garden beds: 100 useful photos

For some of us, the garden is still not the most inspiring place in the country. And indeed: there is nothing more tiring than the monotonous rows of cabbage, beets and tomatoes, which constantly require weeding, watering, or pest control. However, we believe that things can be very different! And we invite you to get acquainted with the photo of beautiful gardens in the country.

It may seem to you that arranging beautiful beds requires too much effort and time. Of course, it is simply unthinkable to equip thirty acres in this way with the help of one or two people. But, firstly, not always and not everyone has such a large garden, and secondly, even if you have almost industrial plantings, you can apply these methods to part of the garden.

This article discusses beds for the lazy: photos of the easiest structures to manufacture for those who want to get a neat garden with a minimum of effort, the most common materials and technologies for creating structures based on them. The reader will learn how to combine vegetable crops in one garden and prepare the soil for planting cucumbers. The article contains practical recommendations for beginner gardeners.

Designing the right beds in the garden will solve many problems and open up new opportunities for the owner of a summer cottage:

• protection against soil erosion in the garden when a large amount of precipitation falls or watering plants. The bed borders will keep the nutrient soil in place, preventing it from washing out onto the paths. In addition, the passages between the structures themselves will remain clean, no dirty puddles and streaks;

• the possibility of forming the basis for the creation of a temporary greenhouse for the spring. By installing high sides as fences, you can organize a multi-layered garden bed inside the structure, which can be used as a greenhouse. To do this, it is enough to install special arcs and stretch the film. The result is a neat greenhouse house;
• improving the appearance of the garden due to orderly and even plantings with a beautiful frame;
• creating borders that prevent the spread of weeds.

Making your own beds from boards and other materials allows you to clearly limit the landing area, so weeds and harmful plants do not have the opportunity to spread widely. If the garden fence is dug in to a great depth, the level of protection increases and perennial weeds that are unable to overcome this barrier can no longer penetrate into the garden bed.

Note! With the help of beds with well-buried fences, the spread of plants such as reeds and couch grass is effectively blocked. Their root system is capable of covering large distances underground if left unchecked.

Photos of interesting designs of beds, recommendations for their creation. Tips for designing unusual landscape design on the site.

The best place is the area where the sun is present throughout the day. It is allowed to install beds where the shadow is present in the morning or in the afternoon. If the proposed construction zone is dark throughout the day, you should not use this place for arranging a garden.

How best to make beds in the garden: choosing the optimal design

The choice of the design of the beds is carried out at an early stage of planning, when a place for the garden has already been selected.

Each type of beds has certain advantages:

• raised or - the most efficient designs that are best suited for growing vegetable crops. Building materials for their creation are not expensive, while the soil does not need to be dug up. The width and height of the structures determine how much effort and time it will take to build them. Most often, summer residents prefer wooden beds made of boards. On the network you can find photos of bulk beds with your own hands, such structures do not have a fence. They are also categorized as elevated structures;

• container beds - will be beneficial in cases where the space of the site is limited. For organizing such beds, pots of small, large and medium sizes are suitable. Garlic, peppers, lettuce and greens feel especially good in containers. Mobility is another advantage of container beds, which, if desired, can be rearranged to any place;
• open ground beds are the oldest way to grow crops that are planted directly into the ground. In such conditions, it is more difficult to get a good harvest, so the technology of joint planting vegetables in the garden is often used.

Helpful advice! If it is planned to plant crops in open ground, it is recommended to determine the quality of the soil, fertilize it and check the compatibility of vegetables in the garden according to the table.

How to make beds from boards with your own hands: useful tips

Most often, raised beds are made of wood. This material in comparison with others is considered the most practical and environmentally friendly. Similar designs look very aesthetically pleasing in the photo. Do-it-yourself beds from boards have other advantages:

• a simple maintenance system that involves easy weeding, harvesting and watering plants;
• the possibility of growing vegetable crops even where the soil is completely unsuitable for these purposes. On the basis of the boards, a frame is made, which is subsequently filled with fertile soil bought in a store, so there is no connection to the quality of the earth and its composition. Thanks to this, plants can be grown even in areas with a rocky surface;

• box structures allow you to keep the soil inside the beds. In addition, the presence of sides simplifies the process of mounting arcs to form a greenhouse. It is much easier to fix these elements on the fence than to dig them into the soil;
• even without knowing how to properly make beds in the garden, any summer resident will cope with the manufacture of wooden structures-boxes. The boards are easy to process, and the construction and assembly of the frame does not require an expensive tool;
• there is no chance that plants planted near the sides will get burned in the summer heat. Wood, unlike metal, is not prone to overheating.

Note! The ecological purity of the material allows you not to worry that harmful substances will get into the soil. Wood is much safer than asbestos-cement sheets (slate). The exception is boards treated with chemicals designed to double the life of the material.

Making practical beds from boards: how to make the right choice of material

Summer residents most often create wooden structures based on blanks that are found on the farm. For the manufacture of beds, timber, round timber, slab, lining can be used.

When it comes to purchasing boards in a store, you should pay special attention to the type of wood from which they are made:

• a board made of ash or oak will last a very long time. Although the cost of such products is quite high;
• pine remains the most favorable in terms of price and processing. But this type of wood is highly susceptible to decay while in the ground, so its service life is short. Due to impregnations and antiseptic agents, the life of a pine tree can be extended for a couple of years;
• boards made of cedar and larch wood are considered the most suitable material for making boxes. Larch has a natural impregnation with resin, thanks to which the product will retain its novelty for many years without the use of additional impregnations. Cedar wood is characterized by a lower resin content, but it is not inferior to larch in terms of durability and at the same time has an affordable price;

• boards made on the basis of acacia feel good in the ground. It is worth noting that this type of wood is durable and has a solid structure, so the process of processing it will be more difficult. To work with acacia, you need a powerful electric tool.

Helpful advice! It is not recommended to save on the quality of the material. Boards made of bad wood are prone to rapid decay. After a few years, holes will appear on the fences of the beds, through which fertile soil will be washed out during rains and watering plants.

Making beds from boards with your own hands: photos, dimensions of structures

The beds-boxes have a rectangular shape and are made of boards. The simplest design does not require special knowledge and skills, so any novice summer resident can handle it. The main thing at the same time is to correctly calculate the dimensions of the boxes.

• height- many summer residents strive to create the highest possible sides. However, this approach is erroneous if it is not planned to build a warm bed for cucumbers or other types of crops, where a fence height of up to 0.7 m is welcome. The manufacturing technology of such structures requires the laying of a multilayer insulation. For ordinary beds, such high fences are not required, it is enough to limit yourself to 0.15-0.2 m. In addition, wood is susceptible to deformation changes under the influence of moisture, so there is a risk that over time, high fences will swell and lose their attractive shape;

• width- experienced summer residents recommend choosing a width equal to half the height of the person who will take care of the beds. Most often, this parameter is in the range of 0.9-1.2 m, because in the process of work, a person should be able to reach the middle of the structure from the side of the side rail;
• length- this parameter is practically unlimited. Although unnecessarily long structures reduce the level of rigidity of the side rails, it is therefore recommended to choose a length in the range of 4-6 m.

Helpful advice! When choosing dimensional parameters for wooden beds, it should be taken into account that between them it is necessary to organize passages 0.4-0.6 m wide. Only after that is the layout of structures on the site considered.

Creating mixed plantings of vegetables in the garden: photo examples and optimal schemes

The method of combining cultures in practice is very effective if the companion plants are chosen well. Therefore, site owners calculate according to a special table of the neighborhood of vegetables in the beds before planting. Some types of vegetables have a depressing effect on each other, others can improve the growth and development of neighbors, provide them with protection from pests.

The correct neighborhood of vegetables in the beds: compatibility table

Many gardeners note that due to the proximity of beans as a compaction for the garden where potatoes are grown, the number of Colorado potato beetle is significantly reduced. Marigolds effectively protect cabbage from white butterflies. Despite this, a certain balance must be maintained. After all, an excessive amount of marigolds in the garden can drown out the growth of cabbage.

Table of neighboring vegetables in the garden, creating a successful tandem:

The following pairs of plants are characterized by poor compatibility of planting vegetables in the garden:

• cabbage and strawberries;
• onions and beans;
• carrots and celery, dill, parsley;
• cucumbers and potatoes.

Helpful advice! In the garden, in addition to the main crops, it is recommended to plant spicy and ornamental herbs pointwise. Thus, the garden will be not only beautiful, but also useful.

Examples of mixed planting vegetables in the garden: popular schemes

A good example of the compatibility of vegetables in the garden is the combination of onions and carrots. As an independent crop, onions are able to produce about 2.5 kg of yield from 1 m² of beds. Carrots on the same area gives about 6 kg of crop. With the joint cultivation of these crops with 1 m², you can get 9 kg of vegetables. These plants create protective barriers for each other against pests, so the efficiency of the used area increases.

Of course, when planning co-growing crops in the garden, you need to group the plants according to their height so that none of them blocks the light for the other. This is necessary because vegetables can not only have different heights, but also grow at different rates. It is desirable that compactors that are planted additionally be lower in height than the main vegetables. The principle of a multi-tiered neighborhood of vegetables in the beds allows you to create favorable conditions for the root system of crops, and also contributes to the rational use of solar energy.

High yields are collected from the beds where beets and late cabbage are planted. To do this, beets (9 plants) and cabbage (4 bushes) should be planted on an area of ​​\u200b\u200b0.8x0.8 m, while not forgetting to fertilize the holes with a glass of compost and a handful of eggshells (pre-grind).

To get an excellent result when planting beans and tomatoes, it is recommended to place the plants in a row with a step of 0.3 m. Along the row with bush beans, it is installed so that each plant is at the dropper. Tomatoes are planted in the central part of the garden. As a result, bean and tomato bushes should be staggered.

Helpful advice! It is better to cut the stems of tomatoes for the winter, and as low as possible. And the beans, on the contrary, are recommended to be left untouched.

Table of crop rotation of vegetables in the beds by crop groups

Crop rotation can also affect the yield of beds. If the annual change of crops grown in the same garden is carried out in the correct order, the garden will produce good yields.

Benefits of proper crop rotation:

• the probability of soil fatigue on the site is excluded, since the same vegetable every year absorbs the same set of nutrients from the soil and does it from the same depth;
• the spread of diseases and pests that infect plants of the same family is prevented;
• it becomes possible to rationally use fertilizers.

The most primitive way of organizing crop rotation in the garden involves planting plants from different families on the same area every year. It is easiest to break cultures into four groups:

1. Leafy crops - these include various types of cabbage, green onions, leafy lettuces, as well as spinach.
2. Fruit vegetables - cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, pumpkin.
3. Legumes - beans, chickpeas, peas.
4. Root crops - potatoes, beets, radishes, carrots.

Table of the simplest crop rotation in the garden:

Arrangement of beds for cucumbers in the open field: photos and recommendations

For growing cucumbers in open ground, the beds are usually prepared in the fall. This should be done before the onset of rain and temperature drops. The planting area must be carefully dug up and saturated with organic fertilizers. Cucumbers like fertile, light soil that has a good level of air and water permeability. If the soil in the area is heavy, sawdust, peat or sand can be added to the ground to facilitate loosening.

Helpful advice! To get a rich harvest, it is recommended to add a tablespoon of superphosphate and a glass of ash per 1 m² of area. Instead of ash, you can use dolomite flour.

The process of preparing the beds for cucumbers in the spring includes the procedure for disinfecting the soil. For this, the place of the future garden is spilled with potassium permanganate. The solution should be hot and strong. In addition, soil fertility can be increased by introducing chicken manure or manure. This procedure is carried out locally, that is, the fertilizer is placed directly in the trench or hole. After that, the bed is covered with a small layer of soil, where the seeds are then planted.

How to make a bed for cucumbers: agricultural secrets

To get a rich harvest of cucumbers from the garden, you must adhere to the basic rules:

1. Near the beds should not be canals for irrigation, streams and flowing reservoirs.
2. If the planting area does not have protection, the garden is best placed in a quiet place where there are no drafts.
3. Procedures such as watering and loosening the soil should be performed on a regular basis. Otherwise, a hard crust will form on the surface, and the bed will dry out a lot.
4. Cucumbers grown in open ground need to be fed much more often than plantings growing in closed beds.
5. During harvesting, it is not recommended to change the position of the lashes of the plant or turn them over.
6. Weeding plants in open beds should be done more often than it is done in closed ground.
7. It is recommended to cover the entire surface of the bed with a black film.

Cucumbers need a rich biological composition of the soil. Therefore, it is recommended to fertilize the land with organic matter, for example, grass, humus, branches, rotted manure, food waste. In the process of their decomposition, not only the fertility of the soil increases, but also heat is released, warming the soil. So that the high temperature does not damage the root system of cucumbers, experienced gardeners advise to carry out abundant watering.

Interesting fact! Sometimes the decomposition of organic fertilizers is so active that the soil in the garden warms up to 80 ° C. Under the influence of such a high temperature, many pests, viruses and pathogenic fungi contained in the earth die. The result is a natural sterilization of the soil.

There are several ways to grow cucumbers outdoors. For these purposes, you can form a long ridge bed, a hole, dig a ditch, or build a high structure.

How to make beds for cucumbers with a bookmark in the garden

To form a bed with a bookmark, you will need to dig a trench. The depth of the ditch should be equal to two shovels. Then branches are laid out across and sawdust is poured. The next layer consists of straw and garden waste. You can add autumn leaves, cardboard or newspapers, compost. The thickness of the fertilizer layer should be within 5-7 cm. The bookmark is filled with warm water and covered with a mixture consisting of compost and earth.

A bed with a bookmark can effectively serve for 5 years. In the second year of operation, you will not need to add compost to the top layer, because during the decomposition of organic components, the bed itself will produce nutrients.

Advantages of a bed for growing cucumbers with a bookmark:

• convenient irrigation system;
• water stagnation is excluded;
• in the spring you do not need to dig up the soil, it is enough to loosen the soil.

Plants can be planted on such a nutrient base much earlier than is customary to do in ordinary beds. It is not recommended to use beds with a bookmark in low-lying areas and areas where water stagnates.

Warm surface beds for cucumbers in the open field

This type of warm beds for growing cucumbers is built on the surface of the prepared soil. This technology will be the best option for areas that are located in the lowlands. In order to enhance the heating process, the bed is covered with a film. As a result, a greenhouse effect is formed, which has a positive effect on the growth of cucumbers and their yield.

Surface beds also include structures in the form of boxes made of brick, slate or boards. The bottom of these containers is covered with sand, then with wood waste. Next comes a layer of organic waste and straw. After laying each component, the contents are carefully compacted and filled with liquid manure. Finally, the bed is covered with a mixture consisting of and soil.

Helpful advice! Skins of vegetables and fruits, fallen leaves, eggshells (pulverized) can be used as organic waste.

Cucumbers are planted in two rows. Plants are placed along the edges of the bed-box, which ensures a sufficient level of illumination. If it is planned to plant cucumbers in early spring, the structures can be converted into greenhouses. To do this, you will need to install plastic arcs and stretch a plastic film over them. Thus, heating is enhanced and it becomes possible to get an early harvest. Moreover, the result is completely independent of weather conditions.

Raised beds for cucumbers in the open field

Warm raised beds are used when the site is located in a region with a cold and humid climate. Due to this, there is a full warming up of the soil, which allows to achieve a harvest in the early stages. If groundwater comes too close to the garden, the bed rises high, due to which the plantings do not get wet on soil oversaturated with moisture. Stone trees, whose roots are severely affected by groundwater, are planted in a similar way.

Various materials are used as borders for these structures. The most popular of them are slate and wood. In rare cases, metal is used. This type of beds can be installed even in the middle of the lawn. If you make a frame in the form of paving stones or tiles, a raised garden with cucumbers will become a worthy decoration of your summer cottage.

As an alternative solution, it is possible to build an artificial mound on the territory that does not have a fence. You can take any length for such a bed, the optimal width parameter is 1 m. You should not raise the decorative garden to a height of more than 1 m. The air that remains in the voids formed between the elements of large organic matter provides good ventilation and contributes to the rapid heating of the soil.

To speed up the process of decomposition of fertilizers, the soil is spilled with a solution saturated with special bacteria. The procedure is carried out twice a year. The first time the soil is watered with bacteria in the spring. Before planting plants after processing the beds, you should wait at least a week. The second time the soil is spilled in the fall after the crop is harvested. When the earth has already been treated with the composition, it should be loosened so that the soil is saturated with oxygen, and the preparation itself is evenly distributed.

How to make beds in the garden: a video review of technology

Recently, the so-called “high beds” have become popular among amateur gardeners, which are more convenient to work on than ordinary ones.

Gardeners who have just started developing their plots should be interested in the idea of ​​​​a high bed. An already landscaped plot will not lose from such a bed, besides, the harvest from such beds will pleasantly surprise you.

How to make warm, high and comfortable beds on the site?

What are "high beds"?

These are boxes without a bottom, 7-11 m long, 1.3 m wide, 0.7-0.8 m high, and 0.4-0.5 m deep below ground level. This bed height (table height) allows the elderly and physically weak people without much effort to perform work on planting and caring for them.

The deepening of the beds below ground level by 40-50 cm is necessary in order to lay walls through which rats, mice, and moles will not penetrate into the garden.

You can build a bed along the wall of the house, but not on the north side, its width in this case should not exceed 80 cm (the length of an outstretched arm). If the cornice of the roof of the house retains rainwater, this option of the bed is no longer available.

Oval-shaped and even round beds are possible (Fig. 1.2). They are built from flexible wavy sheets, and fastened inside with wire.

If possible, the direction of the beds is chosen from north to south. If the direction of the bed is from east to west, then the plants should be placed so that tall types of vegetable crops, such as peas, are located on the north side of the bed.

Building material for high beds

A high bed is a structure that should last for more than a dozen years. This must be taken into account when making a decision on construction. The most important building elements are the walls. What material should they be? More than others, such properties as frost resistance, resistance to decay, corrosion resistance and relative strength are important. Some amateur gardeners solve the problem by occasionally buying cheap material, such as what is left of a broken house, and most often destined for a landfill.

As the saying goes, "everything in the household will come in handy." It can be wood (Photo. 1), hollow blocks, porous or just old bricks (Photo. 2). And, finally, the most suitable building materials are sheets, the use of which for the construction of beds saves working time.

These are, first of all, wavy sheets (Photo. 3) usually 2 × 1 m in size, made from a wide variety of materials (we can use slate). The advantage of sheets is their stability and strength, provided by "waves", which evenly distribute the external load. Even the thinnest corrugated slabs are suitable for building the walls of a high bed.

Laying a high bed

Organic material for filling the beds is prepared in advance, several months before the planned construction. A pile of branches, twigs, and round timber gives the impression of a huge mass, but after crushing and tamping, this pile turns into a modest pile. Hence the rule, confirmed by experience: to prepare twice as much material for stuffing as it seems sufficient at first glance. And since the need for organic material for a high bed is very large, you need to use those wastes that can become compost.

From wood material for the construction of the beds are trunks, twigs and branches, waste construction timber, sawdust, shavings. Pieces of plywood are less suitable, as they contain chemical glue. And if you still use them, then only as a "volumetric filling", and their place is at the very bottom, at the bottom of the pit.

Suitable material is old newspapers. Newsprint, made from wood pulp, decays quickly and is readily eaten by earthworms. The same can be said about cardboard if it does not have a photo or color print on it. As a filler, to increase the amount of arable land per 10 meter bed, 2 m 2 of clay or sand is required (Fig. 3).

Building and filling a high bed

In the future, the spirit level can be abandoned. To do this, you need to find two fixed points on the front wall, and hammer two pegs on the opposite side, to which you can attach the cord.

A new stage of work - filling the beds

It must begin from the bottom, with the most voluminous material: tree trunks, boards, logs, stumps, stacks of newspapers can be laid between them. The larger the stuffing material, the deeper it needs to be laid.

Chumps and stumps, located below all and receiving less air, form a kind of "reserve" for soil microorganisms, thanks to which they remain active even in winter.

Filler clay is mixed with arable land, and sand is buried in the middle layers of the beds, where it serves as an air-conducting material.

Then there are uncut branches that are trampled down with their feet. Sub-arable soil taken from the next section of the garden is thrown on them.

Then again a layer of branches criss-crossed, this time chopped.

This layer is covered with the remaining subsoil and further - in the same order to the end of the bed, until another front wall is set.

At this stage, it is already possible, without fear of being with your feet in the water, to pour the loosened subarable land from the hose so that in places there is a swim. And in the future, the bed will be moistened not only through watering from above, but also due to the capillary rise of moisture from below.

There is no need to be afraid of compacting the beds from flooding, which is harmful to plants. This "care" is taken over by brushwood, branches and twigs. Thanks to their cruciform position, thousands of small recesses-chambers filled with air and so important for the functioning of the bed appear in a layer of almost a meter.

Now you can continue filling the beds: sticks the size of a hammer handle, finely chopped shrubs and to them again a shovel of arable land from a pile lying to the side, then newspapers, but now not a whole pile, but expanded and pre-moistened.

As the amount of stuffing increases, more and more arable land is required for backfilling. With surprise, we suddenly discover that our “creation” is even more insatiable than one could imagine. Instead of earth, if it is over, you can pour sand and lay cobblestones.

When the stuffing level reaches 30 cm, counting from above, the stretching begins. In two holes drilled through the bulges of the sheet on the opposite walls of the beds, a steel wire is threaded, both ends are connected and twisted with a screwdriver until then (Fig. 4). until the wire loop is stretched, while it is necessary to catch in time the moment when the tension of the opposite walls stops.

The benefits of a raised bed

Due to the fact that seasonal bacteria create an initial strong heating of the bed above (40 ° C), and the subsequent temperature is kept constantly (2 ° C) above the ambient temperature of the earth, vegetables grow faster than in a flat bed. The increased temperature is explained by the fact that the overheating of the organic material of the beds occurs slowly in places, faster in others, and not immediately, as in ordinary plots.

• Chumps, stumps and other coarse material located at the bottom, at the lowest point of the stuffing, and poorly supplied with air, perepere more slowly. And it is here that anaerobic microorganisms are most active - a constant source of heat, albeit a moderate one.
• The second reason for the somewhat elevated temperature of the bed is the insulating effect of the air chambers that have arisen during stuffing.
• And, thirdly, the increased temperature of the beds is the result of the dark color of the wavy slabs. Elevated soil temperature accelerates seed germination and vegetable ripening, except in cases where prolonged adverse weather (cold, rain) negates these benefits.

The high bed creates optimal conditions for growing spinach, lettuce, green asparagus, strawberries, kohlrabi, Chinese cabbage, celery, tomatoes, leeks, carrots, mushrooms, tuberous fennel and other crops (Fig. 6). You can, of course, grow flowers, but not those that are "lazy" to bloom on oily, nutrient-rich soil.

If we proceed from the fact that a high bed is a bed for 10 years, then we can count on a constant increase in the humus layer, fertilizer savings and almost complete abandonment of plant protection products.

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