Digging up the soil in the fall or postponing the procedure until spring is everyone's personal business. In both cases, there are reasonable pros and cons. Speaking of me, I prefer to dig at the end of the season. However, such a procedure will be useful only if all the fundamental rules are followed.
In this article I want to talk about the main mistakes that make the autumn digging of the soil a useless exercise, wasting time and effort.
Digging a garden in the fall, we habitually break up large clods of earth with a shovel. This should never be done. Under the influence of rains, loose soil is quickly compacted and all work is reduced to nothing. After the autumn digging, large lumps must remain. In autumn, they are saturated with rainwater, freeze and collapse, loosening the soil. In this case, compaction of the earth under the layer of snow does not occur.
In spring, a loose substrate warms up faster. The former clods create a hilly terrain, thanks to which the soil surface is significantly increased. As a result, the earth is saturated with oxygen and dries up.
Trying to end the season at a comfortable above-zero temperature, many gardeners dig too early. This leads to premature compaction of the soil, making the procedure useless. In addition, early digging is not able to cope with pests that have left for the winter. Before the onset of frost, the larvae have time to go back to the ground, where they are not afraid of low temperatures.
It is necessary to carry out the autumn digging on the eve of frosts or after the freezing of the topsoil to a depth of 10 mm. By this time, the ground becomes more dense and does not fall apart during the rollover.
In addition, timely digging allows you to reduce the number of worms that die under the sharp blade of the shovel. By frost, they manage to get deep into the ground.
Siderates will help to significantly increase the efficiency of autumn digging. They allow not only to maintain a loose structure, but also saturate the substrate with a variety of nutrients. Do not ignore this time-tested trick.
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