How to make humus

If the soil on your site is loamy or there is too much sand in it, then in order to obtain a good crop it must be ennobled with humus. Black scattered mass, which is humus, is also good to use as mulch. Today, this organic fertilizer can be bought in large garden centers, or can be prepared independently. Moreover, the components for humus can always be found in your yard or on a neighboring farm.

Humus is leaf or dung. The first is considered less fertile and is used mainly for mulching plants, hilling bushes for the winter and growing seedlings. The second, on the contrary, is rich in nutrients and it is introduced to vegetable beds, under berry bushes and flower beds.

In order to prepare a sheet humus, you will need a large plastic bag or a special plastic container that can be purchased on the market or in the store. Prepare a leaf humus like this:

In autumn, sneak the leaves from under fruit trees and fill them tightly with a bag or container.
Before laying the leaves, moisturize well with a garden watering can or collect them immediately after the rain.
Tie the bag tightly with a rope and with the help of any sharp object (knife, large awl, metal pin), puncture holes in polyethylene. If you have laid the leaves in a professional container, then it already has ventilation holes.
Place the bag with leaves or container in a secluded shady corner of the garden and forget about it until next year.
In the spring, check the moisture content of the leaves, and if they are dry, pour. Make sure that in the summer the leaves in the bags do not dry out.
In the fall, open the bag, pour the finished humus into a suitable container.
Do not throw away the plastic bag with holes, but fill it with newly assembled autumn leaves.

To accelerate the maturation of sheet humus, it is recommended to lay mowed green grass along with fallen leaves - it can be added 25% of the total amount of raw materials. If the bag or container with leaves and grass is lowered into the basement, where there are no minus temperatures, then the humus will be ready by the spring. Sheet humus in time ripens from 6 months to 2 years. It depends on what the leaves of which trees you will collect. Listfall (apple trees, cherries, pears, grab, birch, etc.) ripen faster. But needles from fir trees, pines and other evergreen plants can decompose even 3 years.

Humus from manure is also not difficult to prepare, but it is necessary to find raw materials for it. You can buy it on a farm or ask your neighbors who hold a cow. Manure is laid in high compost boxes or a heap is formed from it. The box is closed with a lid, and a heap with dark film, slate sheets or roasts of roofing material. If small cracks remain somewhere, then this is not scary-a small amount of oxygen is required to ripen humus. The most important thing is that a bunch of a film or a box with humus not flooded with rains - you need to make a canopy above them.

Humus from manure ripens 1.5-2 years. It is considered ready when the mass becomes black and crumbly, and its volume will decrease by 3-4 times in relation to fresh manure. You can accelerate ripening using special EMs: “Shine-3” or “Baikal”.

To improve the characteristics of the soil, humus is introduced in the amount of 2-3 buckets per 1 square. m. Do this 5-6 days before the seedlings of vegetables, flowers or sowing of any seeds in the ground. Spread humus in the garden and dig it with the ground.