With the approach of cold weather, it is customary to prepare trunk circles for the winter period. Typically jobs include loosening, fertilizing and placing the compost as mulch. Such care makes the soil under the trees an excellent option for subwinter planting of crops with small roots. I always use trunk circles as beds in the fall and today I will tell you how to properly prepare the site for planting and which crops are best suited for planting under trees.
Preparing a place under trees for planting
Before planting, the soil under the trees should be prepared. I always remove fallen fruits, leaves and other debris and only then gently and shallowly loosen or dig up a place under the trees up to about 3 m in radius from the trunk. If the tree is young, then within a radius of about 1.5 m. You can loosen it with a pitchfork - so there is less chance of damaging the root system. I prefer to dig with a shovel, while entering the ground so that its edge is always directed towards the trunk.
What else do I do before the fall planting:
- I apply fertilizers - I sprinkle a dry mixture of 200 g of ash and 30 g of superphosphate on the ground, loosen it and water it. Potassium monophosphate can also be used, in this case 30 g of the substance must be dissolved in a bucket of water and 5 g of citric acid must be added.
- I carry out water-charging watering of the trunk circle.
- Laying compost mulch. If your soil is heavy, you can add sawdust or peat to the compost.
- I level the earth so as to exclude stagnation of water in the garden.
After that, I move on to planting suitable plants in the fall.
We plant flowers in trunk circles
Many types of flowers, including bulbs, are well suited for autumn planting under trees. You can pick up any that have a small root system, I usually grow:
- Marigold.
- Nasturtium and calendula.
- Daisies.
- Asters.
- Crocuses and snowdrops.
I especially love calendula and marigolds, because they not only decorate the place under the trees, but also scare away many harmful insects from the trees.
To make the plants and the tree feel better, tolerate frost more easily and resist diseases, when planting in the holes, I add a teaspoon of a biological product with endomycorrhizal fungi. In this case, I apply the main mineral fertilizers only at the beginning of autumn, and do not use them immediately before planting. In the future, the need for fertilizing and watering is also significantly reduced.
I plant seedlings and bulbs a month before the onset of cold weather, and sow the seeds when the daytime temperature is around 6 ° C outside, with night frosts. I don’t soak the seeds, but just sow them often and cover them with a layer of mulch made from underfoot sawdust and spruce branches.
We select suitable vegetable crops
Some vegetables and greens do well in tree trunks. With soil temperatures slightly above freezing, I plant cilantro, parsley and dill, basil and lettuce, spinach, radishes and onions. Fragrant herbs and greens can be planted under any mature trees. They also help fight some pests such as spider mites and others that threaten fruit trees.
It is good to plant onions under young trees, especially with a columnar crown - this way there will be much less shadow. If there are no such trees, then you can plant from the southern edge of the trunk circle. I plant onions both on the turnip and on the sets. Of all the varieties that I tried to plant in this way, Shakespeare, Strigunovsky and Bessonovsky are most suitable for obtaining a turnip. When planting in the fall, I usually take the smallest bulbs.
How I plant onions in the fall:
- I put the planting material for half an hour in a 0.1% solution of potassium permanganate or for three hours in a 3% solution of ferrous sulfate. It's much more effective than some biofungicides, which don't work well in winter, so I don't use them.
- I deepen the bulbs into the ground by 5 cm and cover with fertile soil.
- I lay mulch from peat, sawdust or hay, and cover it with spruce branches before severe frosts. This is especially important if the winter is not very snowy.
With such a planting of vegetables and flowers in the fall, the first shoots will appear in early spring. Plants undergo hardening during the winter, receive protection from many diseases and are actively developing. When planting under trees, you save and rationally use the space on the site, in addition, some crops protect trees from pests. Be sure to try and plant the plants in the tree trunks this fall.
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