In our places, everyone knows that, where there is no black soil, there is no good bread without dung. Only in the chernozem regions the earth gives birth without dung, and where the earth is worse, only manure saves. Why no one would think that manure is also needed under apple trees and under berry bushes? A different garden is worth decades, and fertilizer has never been seen. What is there to be surprised that the garden is gnashing and almost ceases to give birth, and some kind of clumsy apples will be born. No, in order to get a good harvest, you need to fertilize fruit trees in three or four years, otherwise there will be no sense.
Please note: this article is based on pre-revolutionary councils for farmers. Some data and techniques could become outdated.
In the field we put manure on top and plow it down: the roots go there shallowly, the fertilizer is also laid shallowly. And in the orchard, you can put puffed dung on top and, after the hoes, mix it with the ground. Manure will cover the ground from drying out, the juice from it will pass to the roots, which are closer to the surface of the earth. But this is not enough: it is necessary that fertilizer be given to those roots that have gone deeper. To do this, one could dig up the ground in pristol circles with a spade centimeter 25 degrees deep; many do.
Such a digging, except for harm, will not do anything. No matter how carefully we dig, we will surely cut and perekalechim many roots. In the big gardens there are special shovels, forks, and in the small farm garden it is better to loosen the ground only from above, sanders by 10. And in order to fertilize the ground deeper, you can do so. Take a herring barrel and let loose clean feces and ashes in it and let it stand until all of it is fermented. Then they make a sharp stake and carefully gouge holes around the trunk of the tree, retreating from it by 0.7 - 1 m. The prepared fertilizer is poured into these holes and the soil is absorbed, and then they are covered with good loose earth.
When the trees start to bear fruit, they will pull more of the juices from the earth, and soon, the earth will be exhausted. There is no way to help with such pits: you need to fertilize more. They do this: around a tree trunk, a circle is made of the same size as the crown of a tree. This means that this circle must pass under the outermost branches of the crown.
A groove of 35 cm depth and the same width is dug along this line around the tree. The roots that will fall, cut with a shovel, or you can chop with a sharp ax, so that the cuts were pores.
The upper ground of this groove is placed separately from the bottom; if the lower ground is bad, it is better to scatter it around, and to fill the ditch bring another. In this work, one must always remember that the roots and the branches should always be handled with care. If you chop off the root somehow, it will hurt for a long time, it may rot; chopped and cut with a knife cleanly, it will heal vividly and give a rich lobe.
When the ditches are dug out around the tree, they are prepared as soon as possible so that the roots are not very windy, the ground for backfilling. The top layer of the excavated land and the ground brought in are mixed with over-rotted manure, ash and bone meal (4 kilograms per tree). Falling asleep this earth into a ditch, it needs to be slightly compacted so that after it almost does not precipitate. This is done for this purpose: young roots, as soon as the ditch is filled up, penetrate the ground; if the earth had been poured loose, it would have become very sluggish and could tear off the delicate roots.
It must be remembered that manure for fertilizing fruit trees must always take rotten, small; from fresh manure roots can rot. When fertilizing plum and cherry trees, it is good to add old plaster to the ground, and if not, add dead lime. Of course, for these trees, the ditch is dug closer to the stem: they have a much smaller crown than an apple tree. If under the orchard the land used to be very fertilized, and the manor lands are more often such, there is no need to lay manure under the cherries and plums. They and the roots go closer to the surface of the earth than the apple tree; This means that if it is necessary to fertilize with manure, it can be laid above the ground and mixed with hoes or shovels. In too greasy ground, cherries and plums start to ache, the bark cracks and a lot of juice flows out - gums. From this trees and fruit less, and often completely dry up.
