In the article we're talking about about how to choose and buy the right soil for summer cottage.

When the summer season opens, it seems that a car of land for a plot can be bought literally on every corner.

Roadside sellers claim that their product is first-class black soil or fertile soil. Unfortunately, you can only determine the structure of the soil by eye, but the exact chemical composition, including fertility level and availability harmful substances, only laboratory analysis will allow you to find out. If sellers present any photocopies of documents on the ground, for example a protocol laboratory tests, the authenticity of these papers is often in doubt.

It may happen that purchased from random people soil is a waste substrate from greenhouses or a layer cut off during road expansion or from abandoned collective farm fields. And this risks the soil becoming saturated with weed seeds, contaminated with pesticides, or infested with insect pests and disease-causing organisms. Most often, peat that is poor in composition is passed off as “fat” black soil sold secondhand.

On our partner’s website http://top100pro.ru ( construction equipment rental exchange ) you will be able to place a request for the purchase or delivery of any soil and choose the best offer from system participants.

WE BUY SOIL RIGHT

In order not to make a mistake with the choice of soil, it is better to purchase it from specialized companies, fortunately there are many of them now. These include companies supplying various bulk materials, including for the construction of buildings and landscaping. Production and sales soil mixtures Large nurseries and landscape companies deal with this.

Information about the range, prices, composition of soils and mixtures can be found on the company websites on the Internet. But some questions, for example, whether discounts are provided for the purchase of large volumes of soil, whether delivery is included in the price or prices are indicated for pickup, will have to be clarified by phone.

Before placing an order, you need to decide on the composition of the soil, based on the conditions of the plot, and calculate the volume. Let's say you plan to raise the level of the plot by 4-5 cm, the soil on it is medium-heavy loam that requires improvement, and the area of ​​land allocated for planting is 12 acres (1200 sq. m). In this case, you will need at least 60 cubic meters. m of soil, for example, a mixture of lowland peat, coarse sand and floodplain soil in a ratio of 3:4:2. Loose soil, especially if it contains a lot of peat, settles noticeably over time, so it is better to buy it with a reserve.

Experts recommend not to overuse peat. Its amount in the soil mixture, which is distributed over the site, should not exceed 30%. For example, a soil mixture, more than half consisting of peat, is thoroughly mixed with the soil of the allotment. Individual crops are mulched with a thin layer of peat, followed by the mulch being incorporated into the soil.

Chernozem in the area is also not suitable for use in areas near Moscow. pure form. It is added little by little when digging sandy soils or introduced into soil mixtures along with sand and light loam.

ACCURATE CALCULATION

Price different types soil, ready-made soil mixtures, organic substrates different manufacturers may vary significantly. Fertile or vegetative soil ( top layer from the fields, a mixture of lowland peat with sand or floodplain soil) will cost 590-1790 rubles / cubic meter. m. Poor loam in composition, suitable for raising the level of the site, will be delivered for 360 rubles / cubic meter. m, and floodplain land, with which you can increase soil fertility, will cost 1040-1270 rubles / cubic meter. m.

Tambov, Tula, Ryazan, Oryol, Lipetsk chernozems cost from 900 to 1350 rubles per cubic meter. m, and all kinds of peat (high-moor, low-lying, transitional, weathered) are sold for 450-900 rubles per cubic meter. m.
Horse manure can be bought for 720-1300 rubles per cubic meter. m.

For those who find it difficult to make the desired soil composition on their own, you can use the service “preparing a soil mixture according to the customer’s recipe.”

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

When visually assessing the quality of the soil, you need to make sure that all components of the mixture are well mixed, there are no large foreign inclusions (stones, roots, fragments of boards, pieces of glass, lumps of clay). The substrate should be loose, finely lumpy in structure. Large companies use for mixing and sifting soil mixtures special equipment, since mixing by hand (with shovels) is ineffective.

The brought soil is scattered over a previously dug and leveled surface and, if necessary, thoroughly mixed with the soil on the site. It is unlikely that all the soil will be used immediately, so for storage you should allocate a dry, flood-proof place in a free corner of the land plot. If there are trees nearby that need to be preserved, the soil is poured outside the projections of the crowns of these trees.

For short-term storage (1-1.5 months), piles or heaps are made at a distance of 2-3 m from the trunks. And to protect the soil from weed seeds and erosion by rainfall, it is covered with polyethylene.

In the spring, along many highways you can see trucks with black soil for sale. Find out how to choose the right soil for your garden.

Chernozems are understood as soils of forest-steppe and steppe zones with agronomically valuable indicators: physical (crumbly granular structure, porosity, moisture capacity), chemical (nutrient content, acidity, humus content) and microbiological. There are no such soils anywhere else in the world, and black soils are recognized as our national wealth.

POLLUTION PROBLEMS

Companies offering black soil for sale must have permission to use state subsoil. However, it is often found that sellers of chernozem do not only have government permits, but even do not have sanitary examination certificates. But the proposed soil may well be collected, if not in the Chernobyl zone, then simply near highway, where the content of heavy metals from exhaust gases is extremely high.

A similar problem is possible if a car with relatively clean soil has been waiting for sale for a long time in an area of ​​heavy traffic, or if it was collected from former collective farm fields where long-decomposing pesticides were previously intensively used. Black soil is often sold under the guise of soil mixture for the lawn (in this case permits easier to get).
In any case, when buying soil for a plot, try to check its quality as much as possible and, if possible, find out the level of heavy metals, conduct radiological monitoring, find out the content of nutrients, acidity, microflora and mechanical composition.

QUALITY CRITERIA

Chemical indicators. First of all, high-quality chernozem has a high content of nutrients and high percentage humus. All crops remove the most potassium from the harvest, and there should be more of this element in the chernozem. Sandy loam and sandy soils are poor in potassium. Therefore, if the soil is taken from where there is sand under a 20-30 cm layer of black soil, you can easily detect the low quality even without the help of an agrochemical laboratory, but simply by the presence of sand in the ground. There is no need to be alarmed by high nitrogen content, this is normal.

Physical indicators. Here, don’t be too lazy to get into the car and lightly rake the pound. The best chernozem is dry only at the top, but already at a depth of 20 centimeters it is moist (the moisture content must be indicated in the certificate), has a pleasant granular-crumbly structure, and is black. If you wet it further, you can make a ring like plasticine from the fertile layer. If it crumbles, the humus content in the soil is low, as is its overall quality. Don’t be lazy to do this, even if the mechanical composition is indicated in the certificate. Also, you should not buy a pound whose certificate contains the characteristics “podzolic” and “swamp”. Finally, pay attention to the presence of vegetation. The abundance of weed roots, sticks and stubble sharply reduces the value of the product.

My garden is located in a swampy area and regularly gets heavily flooded in the spring. This has the most negative impact on the quality of the soil - nutrients They are gradually washed out of it, it becomes very compacted and does not dry out until the end of May. When purchasing soil for a plot, I had to go through almost every possible rake, so in this article I decided to look at the main mistakes that gardeners make when purchasing soil for a plot.

Choosing the wrong soil composition

When choosing the composition of the purchased soil mixture, two factors need to be taken into account: initial soil condition on the site (its level of fertility + mechanical composition) and species cultivated plants that you plan to cultivate on your land (some vegetable and ornamental crops may have diametrically opposed requirements not only for the structure of the soil, but also for the quantity and ratio of the basic nutrients contained in it).

For example, to improve heavy soil containing a large percentage of clay, a mixture consisting of high-quality bottom peat, coarse sand and floodplain soil in a ratio of 3:4:2 is best suited. Of course, most often the choice of soil mixtures on the market is limited and comes down to two or three options:

1. Peat mixtures, which are a mixture of fertile soil and peat in different proportions. They are usually purchased for a lawn and for site planning.
2. Chernozems are used mainly as a nutrient additive to the main soil mixture (usually no more than 10% of its volume).
3. Soil mixtures, which may include, in addition to peat and plant soil, humus, mineral fertilizers, sand and even compost. Such mixtures are usually offered by large specialized companies and are not cheap. But they usually do not contain debris, have optimal moisture and air capacity and undergo strict environmental control.

The general rule is - choose a soil in which the amount of peat does not exceed 30%.

Purchasing from unreliable suppliers

If you are not sure of the seller’s integrity, then it is better to play it safe and purchase soil from large well-known companies that value their reputation in the market and will not give you a pig in a poke.

By purchasing soil from private owners at a low price, if a successful combination of circumstances occurs, you will receive waste soil from industrial greenhouses, on which even ordinary parsley will not grow. And in the worst case, you will get land from sedimentation tanks, “rich” in compounds of mercury, lead, cadmium, copper and even arsenic. You can pay for such savings with your health and that of your loved ones.

I had the experience of purchasing such soil: they brought us the top layer of virgin soil cut from a meadow. The soil was used to fill the foundation from the demolished country house and to raise the ground level by small area elsewhere. Already next spring We realized what a mistake we had made - the entire area was covered with perennial weeds, which we had to fight throughout the next season.

But if you still decide to buy soil from a machine, then at least carry out a minimal check:

1. Use a wooden stake with a pointed end to poke the soil into different places. Can the stick easily pierce the soil mixture? This means there is almost no clay in it. If you cannot push the stick even 10 centimeters, then there is a lot of clay or sand in the land offered to you.
2. Conduct a soil acidity test using the OKP soil control kit (you can buy it at any gardening store).
3. Do a simple soil texture test described in.
4. Take an empty liter jar, fill it with soil, pour it in clean water and stir thoroughly. Wait until the soil settles into a sediment consisting of a layer of clay and sand. If we conventionally take the height of the resulting column as 100%, you can easily estimate how much sand is in the soil mixture and how much of the other components.

But the chemical composition of purchased soil and its environmental safety can only be determined in a specialized laboratory.

Purchasing black soil

Purchasing black soil to improve the quality of the soil on the site is an expensive and pointless exercise. And here's why.

Firstly, in our climate, chernozem very quickly loses all its positive characteristics for which it was bought. But the whole point is that chernozem is formed only if the moisture coefficient in a given area does not exceed one, that is, the earth evaporates more moisture than is poured onto it along with precipitation. In most of the territory of Russia, this coefficient is above one, so after just a few heavy rains, black soil loses all its advantages, becomes compacted and becomes overgrown with a hard crust.

Secondly, REAL black soil cannot be cheap if the nearest black soil zone is located hundreds of kilometers away from your site. The cost of such soil consists not only of the price of its loading and unloading, it also includes all kinds of transport and overhead costs, including gasoline costs.

Thirdly, often under the guise of chernozem they sell a mixture of bottom peat and sapropel. This mixture looks like black soil, but it is less fertile and also tends to acidify the soil on the site.

Buying too little land

This is also one of the most common mistakes made when purchasing land for a site.

For example, if your goal is to increase the soil level in a plot of six hundred square meters with medium loamy soil by only 4 - 5 centimeters, then you will need at least 30 cubic meters soil, that is, you will need to bring to the site at least 2-3 (!) truckloads of soil(truck capacity varies from 10 to 15 cubic meters of soil). In our area, one car of fertile land (note that it is land of untested quality, and not humus or, especially, black soil) costs from 5,000 rubles. And if you take a better one, and even with all the “papers,” you will have to fork out the entire 10,000 rubles.

It seems to me that the best way out of this situation is to equip the garden with stationary beds and fill them with high-quality soil mixture purchased from large companies with a good reputation. As an option, you can also purchase sapropel, sand, horse (cow humus) and peat and make the mixture yourself (if you have the time and knowledge).

Thus, the order of your actions when purchasing soil for a site should be as follows:

1. Define mechanical and nutritional composition soil on your site, and also think in advance what crops you are going to grow on it.
2. Choose a large supplier who is ready to provide you with a full list of certificates and analyzes of the soil mixture they sell.
3. Calculate how many cubic meters of soil you need for your purposes (improving fertility or raising the ground level).

By the way, about how to ennoble clay soil, you can read it.

I also recommend watching a short video on the same topic.

Let's consider a common example - the construction is finished, all that remains is to get the land and improve the site.

Before you bring land onto the site, immediately think about the drainage of the site (to remove waste water, remember how the snow melts in the spring, where stagnant water is located - this will help in the future to zone the site) and drainage wells.

Use our section Landscape design.

If everything is taken into account, the required volume of soil for the site is calculated, we begin the process.

Now let’s turn to our experience and make the soil as fertile as possible!

IN different regions There will always be companies or individual truck drivers who sell soil in large volumes. No matter how they assure you of the sale fertile soil- DON'T BELIEVE IT! Such soil was taken either from agricultural land or simply brought from the forest (and never buy soil from construction sites - it is usually impregnated with fuel oil, paint or something similar).

The soil from the fields is properly depleted and contains a high concentration of chemical fertilizers, fungal and bacterial diseases and pests are also possible.

So, we bring soil by truck, maybe peat, maybe " good land"(with the calculated volume) and pour it on the site (immediately think about the location). Then we bring a car of sand. And mix it (of course, not with our hands, but with special equipment).

Now we need to get rid of diseases and pests - we treat them comprehensively (Alirin, Gamair, Trichocin, Glyokladin, or Prestige). We calculate the application rates according to our volume.

Next step - mulch. We contribute Agrovermiculite, Expanded perlite, Mulching mixtures, in general, what can be obtained in your area.

Only after this can the soil be spread around the site.

Next you need to enrich the soil. Fill it with micro and macro elements. It is enough to apply according to the instructions (where application rates are prescribed) complex universal fertilizer. Add organic GUM fertilizers. And fill it with beneficial bacteria, which will speed up the process of formation of fertile soil - they are contained, for example, in Baykam EM.

And leave the soil to overwinter for one season.

Why is this being done? The earth will settle a little (you can immediately fill up the areas where it settles). Bacteria and fertilizers will completely dissolve and create the most fertile layer. All pests and diseases will be eliminated. And you will once again calmly and thoughtfully plan the site.

That’s basically all the wisdom when filling a site with new soil.

Many gardeners are faced with the problem of poor soil: for some in their dacha it is too oxidized, for others it is too heavy or, conversely, not fertile at all. You have to either try your best to improve the quality of the land, or abandon the idea of ​​​​vegetable beds and leave only lawns with trees on the site. I will help you decide whether it is worth buying black soil for your dacha. My own experience allows me to become your advisor in this matter.

My neighbors and I were especially “lucky”: having settled on the shore of an artificial reservoir, we received “plots” of sandy loam soil, more like sand than garden soil. The soil contained too few useful substances and could not retain moisture: half an hour after the heavy rain The paths were already completely dry.

What can we say about vegetable crops oh, if some of them survived, they gave a meager harvest. Or they demanded too much attention to themselves - just have time to appease the earth! Some plants (including berry bushes) simply withered from lack of necessary substances in the ground.

However, sandy loam soil had its positive sides. Therefore, in order to decide whether to buy black soil for a plot or not, I propose to consider the pros and cons of soil and sandy loam soil too.

Features of sandy loam soil:

- Lightness. Such soil is easy to dig up, so caring for a vegetable garden can be done by a fragile girl or an elderly person: no tears or headaches from just the thought of a shovel.

- Poverty of the land. In fact, this point combines both negative and positive! After all, in addition to vegetable crops, weeds also grow on the site. Sandy loam soil also inhibits them, so pest plants do not grow in the beds and do not reach the same size as in fertile soil. And because of the lightness of the soil, it is much easier to pull out weeds; their roots do not “stick” to the ground very much, and therefore do not break off.

- Loss of moisture. Sand absorbs water like a sponge. But it doesn’t hold it, but lets it down, which has a very bad effect on the plants. It turns out that crops systematically do not receive the moisture they need: the water leaves without having time to moisten root system. To somehow correct this problem, experienced summer residents recommend slowly digging peat into sandy loam beds or laying a layer of clay at the bottom of the beds, which will retain moisture. But this is a very labor-intensive process, “thanks to” which you can break your back at the dacha. Not to mention the fact that peat and clay also need to be “obtained” somewhere and money must be paid for it.

Features of imported black soil:

- Weeds. New land will certainly bring new weeds and new diseases to the site - you need to be prepared for this. For example, here, the black soil brought in in the fall “appeared” early spring, when hemp bushes have sprouted in the beds :) No one is immune from this, so you need to carefully monitor the new soil for at least the first year.

- Heavy ground. After the usual sandy loam soil, processing new beds with black soil may seem more difficult work: plants grow stronger in such soil, and it is difficult to pull out weeds.

— Better storage moisture. You also need to get used to the fact that water does not immediately go into the ground after watering. This means adapting to watering new beds less often, otherwise nightshade crops (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, potatoes) may rot or develop a fungus from excess moisture.

- Expensive. Of course, the cost of black soil for a summer cottage varies in different regions, but in any case it is not a cheap purchase. Therefore, if you are not seriously thinking about growing vegetables, it is better to refuse imported land, so as not to suffer about the “missing” money later.

— Depletion of the earth in the future. Over the years even the best black soil will still mix with the “native” soil of your site. And if you, like us, have sandy loam soil, then the useful substances of the black soil will go through it along with the water. But before the land is completely depleted, you will have 20-25 years, during which it will be possible to grow vegetables more successfully (compared to sand).

So, after weighing all these pros and cons, we decided to buy black soil for our dacha. The truck with the earth barely fit into the narrow country street (keep this point in mind!), dumped a mountain of earth and drove away. And we had to transport the black soil to the designated beds and level the ground, which took almost the whole day. A whole truck will not be enough for the entire plot, so I advise you to think in advance which of the beds you will “improve” with new soil, and be sure to acquire a garden wheelbarrow for transporting soil. It’s better not to take on this task without a shovel and a wheelbarrow!

1. The change of soil had almost no effect on tomatoes and carrots: to obtain good harvest These crops need to be planted at the appropriate time and systematically cared for.

But zucchini, cucumbers and squash responded very well to black soil! In the photo you see a bed divided in half: on the left (on black soil) the zucchini have grown strong and strong, and on the right (on sandy loam soil) their bushes look rather weak.


2. For the pumpkin new land became simply a panacea. Previously, our pumpkins grew poorly: the bushes turned out to be small, and the ovaries did not develop and disappeared:


Now, on the black soil, the strong pumpkin vines have grown 2 meters, and the ovaries quickly began to increase in size. Moreover, the pumpkin fruits continued to grow even when we were not at the dacha: they survived 10 days without watering or rain!


3. Peppers also appreciated the black soil. Previously, on the sand they gave a very meager harvest: out of 10 bushes it was possible to get only 2-3 peppers per season. The bushes looked frail, although they were watered regularly - twice a day.

By the way, find out.
On the black soil, the peppers began to grow quickly: the bushes turned out to be strong, and several ovaries formed on each one. So in the case of peppers, chernozem is several times more effective.


4. Beetroot also liked chernozem more. Despite the fact that this crop requires a lot of attention (loosening, organic and boron fertilizing), the beet bed on black soil turned out to be very successful.


5. I was especially pleased with the legume crops on the black soil. We finally managed to grow sweet green peas, climbing beans and even Chinese asparagus