The natural conditions of our country are not uniform throughout its territory. The major differences between the individual districts of Poland relate primarily to the climate and topography. However, in individual voivodships, and even localities, there is significant soil diversification, which is broken down by utility purposes into 6 valuation classes (And class – the most fertile soil, carious,…, Class VI – the poorest soils in agriculture, sandy). Therefore, the species and varieties that are grown here, both fruit trees and shrubs, like ornamental plants and vegetables, they do not go the same everywhere. Therefore, the area of the entire country is divided into the so-called. orchard areas; research is being carried out on the regionalization of vegetable production and some ornamental plants. "Selections” varieties of fruit trees and shrubs and vegetables for commercial crops, and for the first time in 1983 r. "Selection of varieties of fruit plants for the needs of POD and home gardens”, approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Economy [51]. In the conditions of amateur production, the zoning of horticultural production is not as important as in commercial production, because garden users can both alleviate natural conditions as much as possible, and how to improve them as a result of skilful use of the land.
CLEANING THE SITE AND ITS RECLAMATION
The lands intended for employee allotment gardens should be reclaimed, i.e.. brought into agricultural use and drained by local state administration bodies. However, it is not always possible to enforce it. Often these works require the cooperation of future plot users. The same applies to areas intended for single-family housing. In the latter case, the situation is more difficult, because there is a construction site under construction, usually very small, including the future garden, it is very littered and devastated due to various preparatory works and the hauling of building materials. Thus, by commencing the rehabilitation of post-mining areas, we may have to do:
– with dumps (heaps) burning rock from underground mines or from the waste of the steel industry, taking conical forms, table or flat;
– with post-exploitation excavations in opencast mines of brown coal and aggregates, cops, sand and peat, in the form of pits and depressions;
– with areas stripped of vegetation as a result of various construction works and collection for drainage purposes.
The rehabilitation of such areas is carried out in various ways, depending on the nature of the transformations. Heaps, for example, they can be reclaimed in two ways.
1. Disassembled for road and industrial construction. Then, after overburden removal, soil is decontaminated, and then plows, fertilizes and initially sows legumes for green manure, which will enrich the soil with humus.
2. Covered with humus (humus soil) and for the beginning also sown plants for green manure.
Sunken or post-excavation forms are difficult to rehabilitate. Sometimes they form rapidly in the form of bumps and take the shape of fissures, thresholds, funnels, or in a slow manner, causing the formation of large troughs. The slit and sill forms can be eliminated by filling the slots with debris from heaps, and then leveled with a bulldozer and fertilized with a layer of fertilized arable land. However, further ground movements should be taken into account and this should be borne in mind when developing such an area. When troughs are formed, they must be drained, and some can be used as water reservoirs.
Poor pits, if they are large, surfaces suitable for drainage, should be dehydrated first, and then cleaned of bushes. After removing the cleared wood material, the surface is leveled with a bulldozer, forming the slope of the entire surface to the direction of the planned outflow and carrying out detailed drainage works, then proceeds to divide the area into plots on the basis of a previously prepared POD implementation plan.
Any larger areas bare of vegetation, if they are suitable for an allotment garden, it is leveled and mechanically cultivated like this, to enable their horticultural use. Organic-peat soils degraded as a result of intensive use are reclaimed, by fertilizing with a layer of sand thick 10-15 cm. Then the sand is plowed deep with special plows.
Often, together with reclamation, it is necessary to carry out the so-called. agrotechnical drainage, aimed at increasing water retention, i.e.. soil water retention capacity and facilitate surface runoff. These are the works, how: deep plowing, piercing layers of ore in the ground, adjuster (displacement of soil layers), liming soils, removing grooves facilitating the infiltration of surface waters in spring and after heavy rains and managing the runoff of these waters. Such activities are also meliorative agrotechnical treatments, as dense and shallow moleh treatment of compact soil, made with special machines, and introducing a light organic mass into the soil profile, clay materials, margla, and sometimes sand. Deep drainage plowing, as well as deep soil digging are aimed at changing the arrangement of soil layers – elimination of impervious or excessively draining layers.
Depending on the date of receipt of the plot (spring or fall) and the type of soil the first activities on it should be: weeding and digging. If we have manure in sufficient quantity, we spread it over the entire surface and dug it best with a flat-toothed pitchfork (American). If there is little manure, we give it only for planting fruit trees and shrubs. When we get the plot in the spring, it is good to sow, in the part designated for the orchard quarters, a mixture of legumes for digging. The legume forecrop is generally recommended for all crops, if we get land with bad agricultural culture. These plants not only weed the soil, but they improve its structure and enrich it with nitrogen and organic matter. And if we get a plot in the fall and want to plant trees in the same year, at least the holes must be prepared before planting, dressing them with composted manure, and in its absence – with compost soil or peat.
It is also very important to achieve the appropriate soil pH, which will be discussed in the chapter on fertilization.