The composition of peat-boggy soils consists mainly of components of organic origin. In addition, they contain a significant amount of nitrogen, presented in a form unsuitable for plant absorption.

There are two types of bog soils: lowland and raised, which differ sharply from each other in their properties. Lowland marshy soils form in low areas due to waterlogging groundwater. Birch, alder, spruce, and willow grow here, and herbaceous plants - different kinds sedge, horsetail. The high ones are formed in elevated areas when overmoistened with atmospheric or slightly mineralized waters. In such swamps, the tree species most often found are pine, less often birch, a lot of wild rosemary, blueberries, cranberries, etc.

The thickness of the peat layer and high and lowland bog soils ranges from 200-300 mm and can be from 2 to 5 m. If this layer is less than 500 mm, and heavily waterlogged gleyed horizons lie below, then the soils are called peaty or peat-gley. The value of peat is determined by the degree of its decomposition. The higher the degree of decomposition of peat, the better its properties for plants. The degree of peat decomposition in lowland peat soils is 75-90%, while high bog soils contain only 2-5% minerals and, therefore, have few nutrients for plants.

Peaty-boggy soils are poor in potassium and phosphorus. However, the latter is the main element of the so-called peat-vivianite soils. The phosphorus compounds they contain are inaccessible to the root system of garden and vegetable crops.

Peat-bog raised (ordinary) soils are formed under conditions of excessive moisture by atmospheric water in closed drainage-free depressions on watersheds under moisture-loving vegetation. The weak mineralization of atmospheric precipitation and the lack of nutrients contribute to the growth of sphagnum mosses, which are the least demanding of mineral nutrition conditions. High bog peat has low ash content and low decomposition organic matter, high moisture capacity. The soil has a strongly acidic reaction and high hydrolytic acidity. The soils are characterized by weak biological activity and low levels of natural fertility.

Transitional peat (residually low-lying sphagnized) develop on low-lying bog soils, which in some cases (when the groundwater level drops or when the peat layer rapidly increases) can become detached from the groundwater horizon and lose contact with them, which leads to saturation of the upper peat horizons waters of atmospheric precipitation and the abundant vegetation of lowland swamps is replaced by sphagnum mosses. In agrochemical terms, they differ from high-moor peat in the slightly lower acidity of the soil solution.

This type of soil is characterized by high level water and breathability. However, it is characterized by excessive humidity and does not warm up well. The structure of such soils is similar to foam rubber, which quickly absorbs moisture but also releases it easily.

Cultural activities. Actions aimed at improving the physicochemical qualities of peat-boggy soils should be carried out as follows. First of all, it is necessary to normalize the process of decomposition of organic elements, as a result of which nitrogen is released and transformed into a form available for absorption by plants. In this case, it is necessary to create favorable conditions for the development of soil microflora. To achieve this goal, it is recommended to regularly feed the soil with microbiological substances, compost, sawdust, slurry and manure. In addition, when carrying out cultivation activities, peat-boggy soils must be improved by introducing potassium and phosphorus fertilizers. When processing peat-vivianite soils, the amount of phosphorus fertilizers must be reduced by 2 times.

You can increase the level of porosity in peaty swampy soils by adding clay flour, compost or coarse sand.

The soils of raised and transitional swamps are not very suitable for agricultural use, so they are most often occupied by forests and swamps.

High-moor peat is a valuable bedding material for livestock farming. Horse peat soils are the main source of cranberry collection and have important environmental significance.

 I probably shouldn’t have decided to title my article that way, but in any business, the most important thing is the mood. Remember the phrase from the famous cartoon: “Whatever you call the boat, that’s how it will float”? Very true. At the end of winter, my husband and I purchased this plot. New. And they moved from the south of the Leningrad region, from heavy, rich clays, to the north of the Vsevolozhsk region, to damp, swampy peatlands.

The contrast was enormous. It is not known why we liked this eight hundred square plot of land in gardening; in winter it was not visible from under the snow. We could only guess: what would we get - a swamp or just a lowland. Or maybe you’ll be lucky and all these young pines grow on dry, mossy sand? Well, of course, miracles don’t happen, and we didn’t get the sand. In the spring, the snow melted surprisingly lazily from our swamp; almost until summer, the old stumps kept pieces of ice in their rotten core. And there's nothing you can do about it.

But how strange: the soul still rejoices. You walk along white moss, it’s squelching under your feet, and your eyes have already looked for a hummock with lingonberries, are already taking a closer look at the limp, last year’s cranberries, are already admiring the blooming wild rosemary bush. And what is the air in our swamp! It smells of pine and pine resin, smells of peat and mushrooms and, of course, blooming heather and wild rosemary.

The site is at the very edge of gardening, securely closed on all sides by young pine trees, the most respectable of which are as thick as a pine tree. There is also one mature spruce and two “centuries-old” pines growing on it. My husband has always been very fond of conifers, and in this case he took under his care all the pines growing in our house, all of them that will not be affected by future construction, they should fit smoothly into the future garden, and that same cranberry meadow will go under the garden... “Well Well, agronomist, act!” The main thing, in my opinion, is not to lose optimism and not to part with good mood under the pressure of reality.

When, while making reconnaissance circles around the site, I fell almost waist-deep into a peat-bog window, I almost immediately decided that there would be a decorative or drainage pond here. The water stood very high, and the heavy rains this year did not help it go away. I kept repeating it like a tongue twister: peat soils are highly acidic, they are water- and air-permeable, they accumulate and retain moisture well, and they contain nitrogen in a form that is difficult for plants to reach.

My husband, with a chainsaw in his hands, was reclaiming the site for the future road and house, and I still wandered restlessly through “our swamp.” I even had a cowardly thought to call the editor: save me, help me! All this talk about drainage, land reclamation, and deoxidation is certainly good in theory, but in practice it only causes a feeling of confusion. This is as much as eight hundred square meters, and there is ankle-deep water everywhere, well, almost everywhere. After all, an ordinary gardener most often encounters peat in the form of compost or mulch and really respects this material. Peat can make the heaviest soil loose and beautiful.

What to do if there is no soil? Not at all. Thus, having admired the site from the outside, I began to get acquainted with it from the inside. The husband dug a meter-long pit, and almost at the very bottom there was some kind of dirt, not clay, no, not loam, but some kind of dusty gray sand, more like silt. The chairman of horticulture said that it was supposedly quicksand, but refused to explain its properties in more detail. The water kept oozing from the walls of the hole and, in the end, stopped somewhere thirty centimeters from the surface of the soil. Well, that means the ditches will still work, and that’s good. A green coating on the bare surface of peat indicated not only increased acidity and humidity, but also that this peat is rich in various salts, which, unfortunately, are not available to plants in this form. But how to take them?

What is generally known about peat? It is known that it is formed from incompletely decomposed plants. Plants are prevented from decomposing completely by a lack of oxygen, which, in turn, appears due to excess water. It would seem that it would be easier, dry the swamp and you will get almost black soil, but no! Many marsh plants contain antiseptic substances, phenols, which suppress decomposition processes. Moreover, these antiseptics are able to act both during the life of marsh plants and after their death. An example of this is the well-known sphagnum moss, which is still successfully used in the construction of log houses to protect wood from rotting. In ancient times, sphagnum was even used to bandage the wounded as an antiseptic, and peat mud itself was used to treat skin diseases. Scientists say that swampy areas consume even more carbon dioxide than forests. But despite all the amazing healing properties of wet peat soils, it is not at all easier for a gardener if he is the owner of such a plot.

It’s worth deciding what kind of peat is on my site. It is usually divided into three types: lowland, upland and transitional. If you have the same problem, then you need to make sure what waters feed the peat, what the topography of the area is and what plants predominate on it. The water that feeds the peat varies in degree of mineralization. The poorest waters are atmospheric precipitation; much more “nutritious” are groundwater, as well as the waters of rivers and streams. The vegetation of raised bogs is very unpretentious and, therefore, is capable of growing on the poorest peats - these are sphagnum moss, pine, and “hare's feet”.

But on low-lying “fat” peats, more fastidious ones grow: birch, alder, green sphagnum and other mosses, as well as sedge. If the vegetation on the site is mixed, like mine, for example, then this is transitional peat.

Modern science based on peat offers technologies for producing more than a hundred types of products: from feed yeast to fuel. But in practice, especially for a gardener, all peats are so different in their own way chemical composition, have only one thing in common - their birthplace is a swamp. Of course, peat bogs serve as a natural biological filter; of course, when introduced, peat can improve the physical and Chemical properties soil, can even regulate the balance of humus. But all this happens when it is mixed with other components.

I clarified that the content of mineral forms of nitrogen available to plants from lowland peat is 1-3%, and from high peat - up to 14%. Partially available forms of nitrogen make up up to 45%; the rest is contained in the humic compounds of peat and is inaccessible to plants. All my searches for the ideal way to “activate” peat have led nowhere.

I only learned that on a production scale, the peat ammoniation method was used, which not only reduces acidity, but also decomposes polysaccharides. This method involves treating peat with anhydrous ammonia - ammonia water. As a result, the activity of nitrogen compounds in peat increases, and at the same time the activity of humic compounds in it increases, giving it the properties of a plant growth stimulator. This method is now used mainly for the production of peat-ammonia fertilizers and some humic growth stimulants, using special equipment, personal protective equipment and rather toxic compounds.

Of course, it would be great to turn peat into literally living earth, but alas. For a gardener there was and remains only one way to activate peat - composting, preferably with organic fertilizers, and mandatory reclamation work. Air and organic nitrogen are what will make my site truly alive. Of course, I want to, my hands are just itching, to plant and fruit trees, And decorative bushes, but you can't. I’ll have to make mounds for planting, but in the meantime I brought in a car of loam, and my husband built me ​​a greenhouse.

When, at the beginning of June, the tomato seedlings in it had just risen and the second cluster began to bloom, a neighbor came to see me, from the same area - a swamp, only across the road. “I don’t know what to do in such a swamp,” she said, “there’s even nowhere to sit, it’s so damp.” I was about to answer her that it wasn’t all that bad, why would I sit, would I want to look for a way out, but then she went into the greenhouse and, looking at the blooming tomato bushes, said sadly: “And I see that you have already planted cucumbers.” “Yeah,” I responded hesitantly, “but still more tomatoes.”

How much in our life depends on ourselves, how we perceive this or that, with what mood we get down to business, with what thoughts we grow our garden. Knowledge is extremely important, but the desire to obtain it is much more important. Searching and trusting that everything will work out, it may not be exactly as planned, but it will work out well. But ahead of me I have a garden to build on the hills. There are already thuja crumbs in pots, bought by my husband for the occasion, to plant a thuja alley. White derain and Thunberg barberry with red foliage, cinquefoil and spirea show off. Still in pots, but already there, in the swamp, in the future garden, they are getting used to the microclimate. And they will grow, because peat is like a starting material and it can make great soil. I hope that in winter my plot will look completely different.

I will tell you in detail about all my successes and mistakes, and I hope that there will be more of the former than the latter.

A. Kremneva, agronomist who never loses optimism

Before finding out what bog soils are, it makes sense to remind you what “soil” is in general. Many immediately imagined the school class, the natural history teacher and his words about the solid shell of the Earth - the lithosphere. Its top layer has a unique quality - fertility. This is the layer that was formed over millions of years.

Soil formation factors

The geography of Russian soils is vast, like the country itself. Parent rocks, climate, vegetation, terrain - all these are factors influencing the formation of the fertile layer. In the Russian expanses, stretching from the southern mountains to the northern seas, these factors are very different. Accordingly, the land that gives people the harvest is also different. The territory has many climatic zones with different amounts of precipitation, illumination, temperature conditions, flora and fauna. In Russia you can admire the white silence of snow and sand dunes, see taiga forests and birch groves, flowering meadows and marshy swamps.

There are anthropogenic landscapes - people are increasingly interfering with nature, changing the thickness and quality of the fertile layer (not always for the better). But just one centimeter of humus or humus (which makes up the “living layer”) takes 200-300 years to form! How carefully we need to treat the soil so that future generations are not left alone with deserts and swamps!

Variety of soils

There are zonal soils. Their formation is strictly subject to the law of change of flora, fauna, etc. at different latitudes. For example, Arctic soils are common in the North. They are scarce. Formation of even a weak humus layer under conditions permafrost, where only mosses and lichens are present among plants, it is impossible. In the subarctic zone there are tundra soils. The latter are richer than the Arctic ones, but poor compared to the podzolic lands of the taiga and mixed forests. By reducing acidity and adding mineral and organic additives, they make it possible to grow many varieties of crops.

There are forest soils, chernozems (the most fertile), and desert soils. All of them are the subject of research in such sciences as soil geography, etc. These knowledge systems also pay great attention to the study of non-zonal lands, which include swamp soils. They can be found in any climate zone.

Formation of bog soils

The geography of soils in Russia contains information that the layers we are discussing in swamps and swampy forests are formed during stagnant moistening by rain (precipitation), surface waters(lakes, rivers, etc.) or underground aquifers (ground sources). Simply put, bog soils are formed under moisture-loving vegetation. Bogs can be forest (pine, birch there are very different from their forest counterparts, they are small, “gnarly”), shrub (heather, wild rosemary), moss and grass.

Two processes contribute to the formation of bog soils. Firstly, this is peat formation, when plant residues accumulate on the surface because they rot poorly. Secondly, gleyization, when iron oxide turns into oxide during the biochemical destruction of minerals. This one is not easy natural work called the "swamp process".

Swamps come if...

Most often, swamp soils are formed during hydrogenous succession of land. But sometimes river spaces also turn into swampy places with stagnant water. For example, such a process has been taking place on the great Russian Volga River for several years now. Due to the cascade of hydroelectric power stations and reservoirs, it flows more slowly and stagnates. Urgent rescue measures are needed.

Thus, if for one reason or another the speed of rivers decreases, they become uncontrollably polluted. The bottom springs that feed them silt up. But despite the “cry of nature,” people do not care about them. Therefore, there is a great risk of Russia’s blue arteries turning into stagnant swamps.

Characteristics of peat-bog soils

As mentioned above, peat is formed from a dense mass of insufficiently actively rotting residues. Although there are places where the process does not occur at all. The upper layer, covered with “remnant” deposits, is peat-bog soil. Are they suitable for farming? It all depends on geographical features.

In soils, a thick layer of organic matter could theoretically enrich the topsoil. But it doesn't decompose well. The active formation of humus is prevented by the high acidity of the medium and its weak bioactivity, which is also called “soil respiration.” By the way, this is the name given to the process of the earth’s absorption of oxygen, the release of carbon dioxide, and the production of thermal energy by organisms living in the subsoil. such swamps are primitive. It has two horizons: peat and peat-gley. Gley is an earthen profile to which ferric oxide gives a gray, blue or Blue colour. Such soils are not distinguished by their living force. For use in agriculture they are of little use.

Characteristics of bog-podzolic soils

Bog-podzolic soils can form where wetlands with a moss-herbaceous cover are located. Or where there are wet meadows formed by cutting down areas covered with trees. How to distinguish bog-podzolic soils from podzolic soils? Everything is very simple.

In swamp podzols, persistent signs of gleying are observed. Outwardly, they look like rusty ocher and bluish spots. There are also veins and smears that penetrate all horizons of the profile. The development of bog-podzolic lands is affected by two types of soil formation: bog and podzolic. As a result, both a peat horizon and gleying, as well as podzolic and illuvial layers, are observed.

Characteristics of marsh-meadow soils

Swamp-meadow soils are formed where plains and river terraces, covered with sedge and reeds, have depressions. In this case, additional surface moisture is observed (flood for at least 30 days) and at the same time constant ground recharge at a depth of approximately 1.5 m.

The aeration zone is unstable. It's about the layer earth's crust, located between the day surface and the groundwater surface. The soils in question are relevant not only for flat plains and river terraces with close groundwater, but also for forest-steppes. Sedges, plants from the rush family, and reeds are readily localized on them. The genetic horizons of such lands are differentiated very clearly.

Swamp-meadow soils “live” in an unstable water mode. When the dry season begins, the vegetation of the swamps gives way to meadow vegetation, and vice versa. The following picture is observed: the profile of the earth is one, but life on it is different. During the dry period, if the waters are mineralized, salinization of areas occurs. And if the liquid is weakly mineralized, then dry swamp silts are formed.

Krasnodar region and its soils

Soils Krasnodar region varied. In the Primorsko-Akhtarsky, Slavyansky, Temryuk regions they are marshy and chestnut, rusty due to the many estuaries and bays. Residents of Kuban grow vineyards and rice on them. In the Labinsky and Uspensky regions the soils are podzolic and chernozem. These lands are very fertile. They are suitable for obtaining rich yields of vegetables and sunflowers.

On the Black Sea coast there are mountain forests. Magnificent ones grow here orchards, vineyards. On the Azov-Kurgan Plain there are black soils everywhere. It’s not for nothing that Kuban is called the breadbasket of Russia. Its soils are so rich in humus that local residents They often joke: “Even a stick stuck in the ground grows here.”

During the Second World War, the Nazis loaded black soil into railway cars and transported it to Germany, realizing what a natural value it was. It is good that not all fertile layers are destroyed by the cruel treatment of people. But even with large reserves of gifted land, a person must carry out agricultural work carefully. Whether it is soils of versatile use or swamps of little use for cultivation, one must remember that thoughtless interference with life natural complexes dangerous for all living things.

Peat-bog soils mainly consist of organic matter and are rich in nitrogen, which is often in a form that is inaccessible to plants. These soils contain little potassium and critically little phosphorus.

However, there is such a variety as peat-vivianite soils. On the contrary, their phosphorus content is high, but it is contained in compounds that are inaccessible to plants. Peat-bog soils are also characterized by good air and water permeability, but often have excessive moisture content. Peaty soils warm up slowly because peat conducts heat poorly. Since structurally peat soils are a kind of sponge that easily absorbs but also easily releases water, their structural composition should be improved by increasing the content of solid particles.

Soil improvement measures

The main measures to improve this type of soil should be carried out in two directions. To normalize the process of processing organic substances, which will result in the release of nitrogen and its conversion into a form accessible to plants, it is necessary to create conditions for the development of normal biological life soil. To do this, it is necessary to add manure, slurry, compost, sawdust to the soil, and use microbiological preparations. The second direction for improving peat-bog soils is to increase the content of phosphorus and potassium in them in a form accessible to plants. To do this, when cultivating the soil, phosphorus-potassium fertilizers should be applied, and on peat-vivianite soils, the dose of phosphorus fertilizers is halved. To create a more porous, lumpy structure of peat soils, it is recommended to add compost, a little clay flour, and possibly coarse sand.

Peat soils, their improvement

There is a popular opinion that such soils seem unsuitable for growing vegetables and berry bushes, but after two to three years of development, most garden crops can already be grown on them.

But the approach to the development of each type of peat bog must be individual- depending on what type of swamp was previously in this place.

Peaty soils are very diverse in their physical properties. They have a loose, permeable structure that does not require special improvement. But they all contain little phosphorus, magnesium and especially potassium; they lack many trace elements, primarily copper.

Depending on their origin and the thickness of the peat layer that forms them, peaty soils are divided into lowland, transitional and highland.

Most suitable for growing garden and garden plants lowland peatlands, often located in wide hollows with a slight slope. These soils have good vegetation cover. The peat on such peatlands is well decomposed, so it is almost black or dark brown, lumpy. The acidity of the peat layer in such areas is weak or even close to neutral.

Lowland peatlands have a fairly high reserve nutrients compared to transitional and especially high peat bogs. They contain a lot of nitrogen and humus, since plant residues are well decomposed, the acidity of the soil is weaker, and they contain enough water that must be drained into ditches.

But, unfortunately, this nitrogen is found in low-lying peatlands in a form almost inaccessible to plants and can only become available to plants after aeration. Only 2-3% of the total nitrogen is in the form of nitrate and ammonia compounds available to plants.

The transition of nitrogen to a state accessible to plants can be accelerated by draining the peat soil and enhancing the activity of microorganisms that contribute to the decomposition of organic matter by introducing non-ferrous compounds into the soil. large quantities manure, ripe compost or humus.

High peat bogs are usually overly moistened, since they have a rather limited runoff of rain and melt water. They are highly fibrous because they do not provide conditions for greater decomposition of plant residues. This leads to severe acidification of the peat, which explains its very high acidity. Such peatlands are light brown in color.

The nutritional elements in high-moor peat, which are already scarce in any peat soil, are in a state inaccessible to plants. And soil microorganisms that help maintain soil fertility are often simply absent from them.

When planting gardens and vegetable gardens on such soils, their cultivation requires large expenses. In order for such soils to become suitable for growing garden plants, it is necessary to add lime, river sand, clay, rotted manure, and mineral fertilizers.

Lime will reduce acidity, sand will improve the structure, clay will increase viscosity and add nutrients, and mineral fertilizers will enrich the soil additional elements nutrition. As a result, the decomposition of peat plant residues will accelerate and conditions will be created for growing cultivated plants.

And in its pure form, high-moor peat can practically only be used as bedding for livestock, since it absorbs slurry well.

All types of peaty soils are characterized by low thermal conductivity, so they slowly thaw and warm up in the spring, and are much more often exposed to return frosts, which delays the start of spring work.

It is believed that the temperature of such soils on average during the growing season is 2-3 degrees lower compared to the temperature of mineral soils. On peat soils, frosts end later in the spring and begin earlier in the fall. Create a more favorable temperature regime on such soils there is only one way- by draining excess water and creating loose structural soil.

Peat soils in their natural state almost unsuitable for growing garden and vegetable plants. But due to the presence of a large amount of organic matter in them, they have significant “hidden” fertility potential, all four “keys” to which are in your hands.

These keys are lowering the groundwater level, liming the soil, adding mineral supplements and using organic fertilizers. Now let’s try to get to know these “keys” in a little more detail.

REDUCTION OF GROUNDWATER LEVEL

For removing excess moisture on the site and improving the air regime, peat soils very often have to be drained, especially in new areas. It is, of course, easier to do this throughout the entire garden area at once, but much more often you have to do this only on your own site, trying to create your own local simple drainage system.

The most reliable way to arrange simple drainage is to place shovels in grooves two bayonets wide and deep drainage pipes, pour sand on top of them, and then soil.

Much more often, instead of pipes, branches, cut stems of raspberries, sunflowers, etc. are placed in drainage ditches. They are covered first with crushed stone, then with sand, and then with earth. Some craftsmen use for this purpose plastic bottles. To do this, they cut off the bottom, screw the plug, make holes in the side with a hot nail, insert them into each other and lay them in place of the drainage pipe.

And if you are very unlucky and you have an area where the groundwater level is very high and it is quite difficult to lower it, then there will be even more worries.

In order to prevent tree roots from coming into contact with these very groundwaters in the future, you will have to solve not one, but two “strategic” problems at once- reduce the groundwater level in the area as a whole and at the same time raise the soil level in the area where trees are planted by creating artificial mounds from imported soil. As the trees grow, the diameter of these mounds will need to be increased annually.

SOIL DEACIDIFICATION

Peat soils come in different acidities- from slightly acidic and even close to neutral (in peat bog lowland soils) to strongly acidic (in peat bog high soils).

Under deoxidation acidic soil understand the addition of lime or other alkaline materials to reduce its acidity. In this case, the most common thing happens chemical reaction neutralization. Lime is most often used for these purposes.

But, in addition to this, liming of peat soils also enhances the activity of various microorganisms that assimilate nitrogen or decompose plant residues contained in peat. In this case, brown fibrous peat turns into an almost black earthy mass.

At the same time, hard-to-reach forms of nutrients contained in peat are converted into compounds that are easily digestible by plants. And phosphorus and potassium fertilizers applied to the soil are fixed in the upper layers of the soil and are not washed out of it by groundwater, remaining long time accessible to plants.

Knowing the acidity of the soil on your site, add alkaline materials in the fall. The dose of their application depends on the level of soil acidity and for acidic peat soils averages approximately 60 kg of ground limestone per 100 sq. m. meters of area, for medium acidic peat soils- on average about 30 kg, on slightly acidic- about 10 kg. On peat soils with acidity close to neutral, limestone may not be added at all.

But all these average doses of lime fluctuate greatly depending on the level of acidity, especially on acidic peatlands. Therefore, before adding lime, its specific amount must be clarified again, depending on exact size peat acidity.

A wide variety of alkaline materials are used for liming peat soils: ground limestone, slaked lime, dolomite flour, chalk, marl, cement dust, wood and peat ash, etc.

APPLICATION OF MINERAL ADDITIVES

An important element in improving the physical properties of peaty soils is their enrichment with minerals- sand and clay,- which increase the thermal conductivity of the soil, accelerate its thawing and enhance warming. Moreover, if they are acidic, you will have to add an additional dose of lime to neutralize their acidity.

In this case, clay must be added only in dry powder form so that it mixes better with peat soil. Adding clay in the form of large lumps to peat soil gives little result.

The lower the degree of peat decomposition, the greater the need for mineral additives. On heavily decomposed peat bogs, you need to add 2-3 buckets of sand and 1.5 buckets of dry powdery clay per 1 square meter. meter, and on weakly decomposed peatlands these doses should be increased by a quarter.

It is clear that such an amount of sand cannot be added in one or two years. Therefore, sanding is carried out gradually, from year to year (in autumn or spring), until it improves physical properties soil. You will notice this yourself by the plants you grow. The sand scattered on the surface is dug up with a shovel to a depth of 12-18 cm.

APPLICATION OF ORGANIC AND MINERAL FERTILIZERS

Manure, peat manure or peat-fecal composts, bird droppings, humus and other biologically active organic fertilizers are applied in quantities of up to 0.5-1 bucket per 1 sq. meter for shallow digging to quickly activate microbiological processes in peat soil, promoting the decomposition of the organic matter in it.

To create conditions favorable for plant growth, it is necessary to add mineral fertilizers to peat soils: for basic tillage - 1 tbsp. spoon of double granulated superphosphate and 2.5 tbsp. spoons potash fertilizers per 1 sq. meter of area, and in the spring additionally- 1 teaspoon of urea.

Most peat soils have a low copper content, and it is in a form that is difficult for plants to reach. Therefore, adding fertilizers containing copper to peat soil, especially on acidic peat soils, has a significant effect. Most often used for this purpose copper sulfate at the rate of 2-2.5 g/m2, first dissolving it in water and watering the soil from a watering can.

The application of boron microfertilizers gives good results. Most often, for foliar feeding of seedlings or adult plants, take 2-3 g boric acid per 10 liters of water (1 liter of this solution is sprayed on plants over an area of ​​10 sq. m).

Then peat soil along with mineral soil, manure, organic and mineral fertilizers and lime must be carefully dug to a depth of no more than 12-15 cm, and then lightly compacted. It is best to do this in late summer or early autumn, when the soil has dried out significantly.

If it is not possible to cultivate your entire plot at once, then develop it in parts, but by adding to them all the above-mentioned amounts of mineral additives and organic fertilizers at once, or by first filling the planting holes with loose, fertile soil, and in subsequent years carrying out work on cultivating the soil in between the rows. But this is already the worst option, because it is better to do it all at once.

On already developed peat soils, there is a gradual decrease in the thickness of the peat layer by about 2 cm per year due to its compaction and mineralization of organic matter. This happens especially quickly in areas where the same vegetables have been grown for a long time without observing crop rotation, requiring frequent loosening of the soil.

To prevent this from happening, cultivated peat soil in gardens, and especially in vegetable plots, requires annual additional application of organic fertilizers.

If this is not done, then every year on your site there will be a gradual irreversible destruction of peat (its mineralization), and after 15-20 years the soil level on your site may be 20-25 cm lower than it was before the development of the site began, and the soil will become swampy.

In this case, the soil on your site will no longer be fertile peat, but low-fertile soddy-podzolic, and its physical properties will greatly change for the worse.

To prevent this from happening, in addition to everything else that was mentioned above, a well-thought-out crop rotation system rich in perennial herbs must be constantly operating on your site.

In the future, you will have to annually import and apply either a sufficient amount of organic fertilizer (10-15 buckets per 100 sq. meters) or other soil.

And if there is no manure or compost, then green fertilizer can help out. Sow and bury lupine, peas, beans, vetch, sweet clover, and clover.

V. G. Shafransky