Potato peeling at the dacha. Potato peelings are the best fertilizer for currants, how to use them and how to feed them. The right fertilizer for berry crops

Potato dishes most often appear on our tables. This means that there are a lot of potato peelings left over, even if you peel the tubers carefully, with a minimum level of waste. But it is precisely in the peel and directly under it that the largest amount of vitamins and nutrients is concentrated. This is an excellent reason to benefit from potato peelings and use them, for example, as fertilizer for your garden.

Potato peelings are a good fertilizer for the garden

If you live in a private house or are the owner summer cottage, then you probably send the potato peelings to the compost bin. What should residents of city apartments who go to their dachas only during the season do? Throwing cleaning products in the trash can is not the best the best option. You can easily store them until spring by drying or freezing them.

Don't throw away potato peelings, they make free natural fertilizer

Potato peelings will serve you well. They will be a good fertilizer for many plants, environmentally friendly, and most importantly - free. Most often, it is enough to simply bury them in the ground so that when they decompose, they release useful substances into the soil. But cleanings can also help you with “external” use in pest control.

Benefits for various plants

First of all, it is worth noting that fertilizer and fertilizing from peelings are categorically not suitable for plants of the nightshade family, such as:

tomatoes;
potato;
capsicum;
eggplant;
nightshade;
physalis;
tobacco.

These plants are related, therefore, firstly, the substances and microelements contained in the peelings will simply be useless for them, and secondly, they have common diseases. Such feeding can lead to infection with late blight and black scab.

Note! Heat treatment disinfects potato peelings, killing pathogens of late blight and scab. Therefore, if you dried the peelings in the oven at high temperatures or poured boiling water for infusion, the fertilizer will not harm the plants.

But other plants will be very happy with this feeding in any form:

Rules for the preparation of raw materials and the nuances of preparing the infusion

If you have an open balcony, you can freeze peelings on it as they appear in small portions. With this method, all vitamins and valuable substances are preserved. True, there is one drawback. As soon as the temperature rises, the cleaning will begin to thaw and rot, which means it will smell unpleasant. It is unlikely to be possible to store them in the freezer, since there are other products in it. Therefore, you will have to immediately go to the dacha and use the cleaning products as intended as soon as possible.

You can use the second method - dry the cleaning. Although this is more difficult in the process, it is much more convenient in terms of storing the finished product. Dry the cleaning materials by spreading them in an even layer on a radiator or windowsill. You can use the oven to speed up the drying process. 2-3 hours at 140 degrees for each batch of cleaning is enough. After drying, you can store them in linen bags, which is very convenient.

If you want to achieve a greater effect, twist the dried ones in the oven or on a cleaning battery in a meat grinder, and then dry them again. This way you will get potato flour that will decompose in the soil much faster than whole peelings.

Place the prepared peelings in a barrel and pour boiling water over them to obtain a nutritious infusion

In the spring, place the collected potato peelings, previously dried or frozen, in a large container, for example, in a barrel, and pour boiling water over them. Leave to soak for a day, stirring occasionally. As a result, you will receive a solution and gruel, which contains vitamins, minerals, salts and starch necessary for many plants.

Table: principle of applying fertilizer from potato peelings

Target	Way
Application for seedlings	Seedlings of any crops, except nightshades, take potato pulp well when planted in the ground. Pour 1 scoop of gruel into the bottom of the prepared hole, sprinkle with soil and plant the seedlings.
Plant nutrition	Strain the infusion of potato peelings, water the remaining liquid with a small amount of grounds at the roots of the plants. This feeding is equivalent to organic fertilizers. Do it every 2 weeks.
For indoor flowers	Water your indoor plants with a solution of dried peelings ground into flour at least once a month. Also, when replanting, you can put a small amount of the grounds from the solution into the pot.
For garden flowers	When planting annuals or replanting perennial flowers, add the pulp from the infusion (1 scoop) into the holes under each flower. During the period of growth and flowering, water the flowers with a solution from a watering can once a month.
For fruit trees and shrubs	You can simply bury whole dried peelings in the soil in a circle around the trunk.

Video about using potato peelings as fertilizer

Fertilizers made from potato peelings were known to our grandmothers, but now they are gaining popularity again. The material is affordable, environmentally friendly and easy to process and use, perfect for both pumpkin family plants and black and red currants. Have a good harvest!

Potatoes are the main product on our table. And where there are potatoes, there are peelings. Moreover, even with high-quality cleaning of the tuber, a fifth of it is sent to waste. And, as everyone knows, the highest concentration of vitamins contained in this root vegetable is precisely in the peel and the layer that is located under it.

Owners of private houses send such a valuable product as cleaning products to the compost. If you have a dacha and the opportunity to visit it in winter, preserving the cleaning is also not a problem. What about those who spend the winter in a city apartment and only go to the dacha during the season? Don't rush to throw leftover potatoes into the trash. There are many ways to preserve them: dry, freeze. Why save potato peelings? Because they are the best, environmentally friendly and absolutely free fertilizer for garden plants, garden flowers and fruit trees and bushes.

Potato peelings are an excellent fertilizer for plants in the garden.

How to prepare fertilizer from peelings

If you have a balcony and the possibility of using it for such purposes, it is easier to freeze the peelings in small portions as they arrive.

1. This method is good because it keeps absolutely all the vitamins intact. The disadvantage is that as soon as the temperature becomes above zero, you will have to go to the dacha immediately. For many seasonal summer residents, early spring is not yet a reason to visit the site. Now there is a reason. Melted and rotted cleaning on the balcony will emit not just a smell, but a stench. And the valuable nutritious product, collected with such difficulty, will disappear.

Advice!

Even if the dacha is a summer home for you, you need to visit it at least twice a month in the winter. Especially if the winter is cold and there is little snow. Check the cleanliness of the snow cover, the shelter of young trees and other plants, and flower beds. Throw more snow on the ridges and under perennials.

2. The second method is drying the peelings; it is simpler and more convenient for storing the finished product, but more troublesome in the process. To create a completely ideal fertilizer, the peelings should first be dried (in the oven, on a radiator), then ground in a meat grinder and dried again.

In the spring, frozen or dried eco-friendly components for useful fertilizer are poured into a barrel, filled with water and soaked, with constant stirring. As a result, a solution and a highly nutritious gruel is formed, which contains the minerals, salts, vitamins and starch necessary for plants.

How to use peelings as fertilizer

Seedling

Fertilizer from peelings is useful when planting cucumber and cabbage seedlings in the ground. Each finished hole at the bottom is fertilized with potato pulp. One scoop is enough. Sprinkle with soil. Plant seedlings. This will promote soil fertility, since the potatoes will be liked by the soil bacteria responsible for the formation of the fertile layer.

Video - how to use fertilizer from potato peelings

Top dressing

An infusion of peelings perfectly fertilizes crops such as zucchini, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, all kinds of onions, and all types of cabbages. A thick infusion (decant the liquid and add a little thickener) is watered onto the plants at the root using a watering can. This fertilizer replaces full-fledged organic fertilizer. It can be done every two weeks.

Advice!

If you dried the waste in the oven, it has not undergone hot disinfection, and late blight is no longer a source. Dried in the oven, the peelings can simply be buried next to any garden or garden plant.

Potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, vegetable peppers, nightshade and other members of the nightshade family should not be fertilized with potato residues. Not because the beneficial substances contained in potatoes do not affect them. They just have common illnesses. Potato fertilizer can infect them with black scab or late blight. As a last resort, if you really want to use potato fertilizer for tomatoes, prepare it differently - pour boiling water over the dry peelings.

Getting rid of pests

It is not advisable to simply scatter dry or frozen cleaning materials over the surface of the soil. They have an unsightly appearance, and useful substances will quickly enter the soil when they decompose. But there are cases when “external” use is justified.

They are laid out as bait for slugs. These pests crawl to the smell of potatoes. They are collected and destroyed.
The larvae of the Colorado potato beetle are also disposed of in the same way. The peelings are poured in piles in different places between the potato rows. When the larvae have collected on them, the piles are raked and burned, doused with kerosene. You can pre-etch the cleanings, then all that remains is to collect them and throw them away.
Whole potatoes are used to catch wireworm larvae. The wireworm loves him very much. And so that he does not destroy the crops, he is offered a potato “bonus”. The root crop is cut into pieces and buried shallowly in different places. After a few days, the bait with the wireworm caught in it, enjoying the fresh aromatic potatoes, is removed.

Which plants should be fertilized with peelings?

Cultures	Fertilizer method
Seedling	For all plants except the nightshade family, spread a thick “puree” into the planting holes.
Pumpkin crops	Lagenaria, cucumber, chayote, melotria - by watering at the root with a solution of peelings, with the addition of grounds.
Melons	Pumpkin, cucumber, watermelon - the same as pumpkin ones.
Cruciferous	Cabbage, turnips, rutabaga - by watering with a solution without grounds at the root.
Fruit and berry crops	Trees and shrubs - bury dry cleaning in the spring in the trunk circle. It is especially good to fertilize all types of currants with peelings, since the plant needs a high starch content.
Indoor flowers	An infusion of peelings, decanted, is good to use as a supplement for indoor plants during transplantation.

Fertilizing the soil is a necessary measure. Every year it is depleted by plants more and more, and fertilizers become more and more expensive. Why buy "chemicals" in the store. It is better to use an environmentally friendly product, potato peelings, rich in elements and completely free.

So-called organic farming is gaining increasing popularity. The essence of the method is to use a minimum amount of chemical fertilizers in the garden plot. Chemicals need to be replaced with something. Preference is given to natural organic matter. We don’t hesitate to throw food waste into the trash bin. But if you spend a little time processing potato peelings, they can then be used as fertilizer. With a minimum of effort, you will get an excellent natural remedy for feeding.

What are the benefits and benefits of potato peelings?

Any summer resident wants to consistently receive a good harvest from his garden plot, spending a minimum on it Money and strength. Therefore, instead of purchasing fertilizers in the store, all kinds of fertilizers are used folk remedies. Chemical and organic fertilizers, in addition to their high cost, have other disadvantages. In the soil into which you add them, not only agricultural crops, but also all kinds of weeds begin to grow well. If the dosage is not strictly observed, excess chemicals enter from the soil into vegetables, berries and fruits, and from there into your body. As you can easily guess, there is nothing good in such an “overdose”. This will not benefit your health or the soil.

Potato peelings, the benefits of which for the garden have been tested by time, are an absolutely safe fertilizer for humans and completely free. Unlike chemicals, organic matter decomposes much faster, being processed by bacteria contained in the soil. This means that the necessary microelements will quickly reach their destination through the root system. " By-effect» rapid decomposition - heat generation. If you fertilize in the spring, the soil will warm up noticeably faster.

The structure of the soil also improves. It becomes lighter and looser. This is especially important for peat, clay, and silt soils.

Everyone knows that potatoes are very healthy. It contains many microelements useful for humans - potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, iron, sodium. But the same substances are necessary for correct height and development of plants. The most common chemical fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium.

Potato peelings contain many useful substances that are so necessary for the plant.

In addition, 10–25% (depending on the variety) of potato mass is starch, and 3–5% is glucose. It is these substances that plants store in seeds, bulbs or tubers. Starch and glucose are the main nutrition for the developing embryo. Consequently, potato fertilizer will be useful for agricultural crops at all stages of development.

Another important point is the availability of potato peelings. Potatoes in one form or another are present on the table of every family, regardless of financial situation, almost every day. Even if you remove the peel in a very thin layer, approximately a tenth of the mass of the tubers will still be thrown away. A more likely option is 15–20%. Now calculate how many cleanings you can accumulate by next summer if you set a similar goal from the beginning of autumn.

Video: potato peelings to help the gardener

Pest Control

Another useful property Potatoes are a wonderful bait for pests. It is especially loved by slugs, click beetles (its larvae are popularly known as wireworms) and the Colorado potato beetle.

You need to start setting traps as soon as the first shoots appear or the seedlings are planted in the ground. This way you are guaranteed to protect the future harvest.

A pest trap made from potato peelings is very easy to make.

Making traps is easy. Dig glass jars, old unnecessary buckets and pots into the ground, cans or cropped plastic bottles so that the edge of the container approximately coincides with the top edge of the pit. The container must be deep enough and without holes. Place potato peelings at the bottom every evening. To enhance the effect, you can pour them with sweet water (a tablespoon of sugar per glass), syrup, or add a little old jam that no one will eat anymore. In the morning, all you have to do is go around the containers, collect the pests caught in them overnight and destroy them. Just don’t throw what you’ve collected over the fence. After a few hours, the slugs and insects will return to your area.

Another trap option is to bury a long piece of wire in the ground with peelings strung on it. Leave one end sticking out of the ground or mark the place where the trap is buried. Once every 2-3 days, dig it out, collect any pests you find and replace the bait with fresh bait.

How to prepare and use fertilizer

Raw materials for preparing fertilizer need to be collected all winter

Peelings from boiled potatoes are not suitable as a fertilizer. Prolonged heat treatment destroys all useful microelements.

Of course, if you just spread fresh potato peelings over the beds, you won’t get a good harvest. They will begin to rot very quickly, especially in the summer, in the heat, spreading the corresponding “aroma”. In addition, mice, rats and other rodents living in the surrounding area will come running to your site - this is a wonderful treat for them. And in general, plantings “treated” in this way look very unaesthetic.

At the same time, fresh potato (like any vegetable) peelings can and should even be added to the compost heap.

Potato peelings are a good addition to compost.

Exist different variants fertilizers But in any case of cleaning, before fertilizing, it is necessary to thoroughly rinse and disinfect using boiling water, dry heat or cold to destroy the bacteria and/or fungi present on them. IN otherwise you will only contaminate the soil and healthy plants.

To get the right, healthy fertilizer, you need to act as follows:

Rinse the cleaners in cool running water until no visible traces of dirt disappear.
Wait until they dry and lay them out in a single layer on newspapers or thin cloth. If weather permits, dry outside in a well-ventilated place, away from direct sunlight and possible rain. When it’s already cold, do it in the apartment on the radiator or on the balcony. Complete drying takes 7–10 days outdoors and 2–3 weeks indoors. The exact period depends on the thickness of the cleaning. Those who want to speed up the process can dry them in the oven. Place the peelings on a baking tray covered with baking paper, place inside and leave for 3-4 hours at a temperature not exceeding 100ºC, closing the door loosely. The procedure will take even less time if it is carried out in a special electric dryer or microwave oven. The main thing is to choose the appropriate mode. The finished fertilizer becomes noticeably lighter, the peels are translucent and break easily.
You can simply freeze the peelings. The downside is that there probably won't be enough space in the freezer to store them. Another most suitable place is the balcony. But as soon as the temperature outside is positive, the fertilizer will have to be used for its intended purpose. Thawing the peels and freezing them again is strongly not recommended.
If drying was carried out at home naturally, cleanings are stored on the balcony, in an unheated garage, shed, etc., so that the cold destroys pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Place the oven-dried future fertilizer in linen bags and keep in a dry, cool, well-ventilated place. The ideal option is a pantry.
Grind the dry peelings in a meat grinder, blender or food processor until powdery. This ready-made fertilizer is the so-called flour. In addition, this type of cleaning takes up much less space and is easier to store and transport.
In spring and summer, use dry peelings to prepare an infusion. Place them in a bucket or barrel, filling the container about a third, fill it to the top with boiling water and close it tightly. Wait 3-4 days until a characteristic odor appears. Without stirring the contents of the barrel, scoop a liter of infusion from above, pour into a 10-liter bucket and add water (9 l). Now mix thoroughly and water the plants.
The gruel remaining at the bottom of the container will also come in handy. It is dug into the ground under bushes and trees and added to holes when planting seedlings.
Another option for preparing the infusion is to pour boiling water over the peelings, wait until it cools to a temperature of 35–40ºC, and strain.

Bury dried peelings in the ground or prepare an infusion

What plants need to be fed

What plants benefit from fertilizer from potato peelings and how to feed them to maximize the benefits?

Table: how to feed crops with potato peelings

Agriculture	Type of feeding
Cucumbers, pumpkin, cabbage, squash, zucchini, watermelons, melons.	When planting seedlings in the ground, a “porridge” of dried peelings poured with boiling water is placed at the bottom of the hole. Sprinkle with a layer of earth of the same thickness, then another portion of “porridge” is needed. The last layer is soil again. Then the sprout is placed in the hole and it is covered with earth.
Onions, garlic, turnips, radishes, radishes.	Watering with infusion of dried potato peelings every two weeks starting at the end of May. It is better not to water individual bulbs, but to pour fertilizer into the furrows between the rows of plantings. The infusion must first be strained so that the pieces do not end up on the garden bed. On the surface they are absolutely useless, and they also attract pests. Remove the nozzle from the watering can - it gets clogged very quickly. Despite straining, the infusion turns out to be quite thick.
Raspberries.	Cleanings in the form of flour are applied to the root zone, then the soil is well loosened. An infusion of fresh peelings is used for watering (about 5 liters per 1 p/m).
Strawberry.	In the spring, flour from the peelings is sprinkled under each bush. For small ones, one handful is enough, for larger ones, two. In addition, dried peelings can successfully replace mulch.
Currant.	White, pink, and red currants love peeling, but the effect of feeding is especially noticeable on black ones. The berries will become noticeably sweeter and larger, reaching the size of raisin grapes or even cherries. The dried peelings are buried at the roots to a depth of 15–20 cm, after slightly moistening them with water so that they do not take away moisture from the plant. The procedure is carried out in the spring, as soon as the soil has melted sufficiently. If you are satisfied with the condition of the plants, you can feed the bushes every two years. It is possible to feed bushes in winter if the soil around them is cleaned in the fall and covered with polyethylene. As fresh cleaning accumulates, rake the snow, spread it on the ground and bury it again. In spring, dig up the soil well. Watering with infusion of potato peelings every 12–14 days is also effective.
Fruit and berry trees.	Dried cleanings are buried within a radius of 0.5–1 m from the trunk, depending on the size of the tree. Or sprinkle the resulting circle with “flour”, immediately afterwards loosening the soil well. The norm for one tree is 0.7–1 kg.
Tomatoes (tomatoes), eggplants, nightshade, bell and hot peppers.	Fertilizing is not recommended. Since potatoes and these plants belong to the same nightshade family, they are affected by the same diseases. Even disinfection in the form of scalding with boiling water and drying with high temperature does not provide a complete guarantee of the destruction of bacteria and fungi that cause late blight, black scab and verticillium. In addition, these crops naturally contain the same micro- and macroelements as potatoes. Therefore, fertilizer from the peelings will not have a noticeable effect on them.
Annual and perennial flowers and ornamental shrubs.	Watering with infusion of dried potato peelings. Sprinkle flour under perennial plants in spring and autumn.
Houseplants.	Watering with infusion of dried potato peelings. The procedure is carried out every 3–6 weeks depending on the condition of the foliage. You can also water them with cooled water in which jacket potatoes were boiled. This fertilizing stimulates the growth of greenery. Sometimes it is advised to bury fresh cleanings in flower pots, but such “fertilizer” will soon give off a very unpleasant smell, and midges will appear in the apartment. The exception is saprophytic or epiphytic plants, for which rotting organic matter is vital for growth and development (orchids, dracaena, and so on). They can be distinguished by the presence aerial roots and the ability to grow in water. In this case, you cannot do without good drainage. Add peelings in very small quantities.

Every gardener strives to use not only effective, but also environmentally friendly fertilizers on his plot. These can easily include potato peelings. Natural organic fertilizer will appeal not only to garden crops, but also to indoor plants.

Can it be used?

Potato peelings are a publicly available raw material that does not require additional financial investments. During the winter period, so much material is prepared that it is enough for the entire gardening season. The main thing is to learn how to store it correctly.

Advantages

Helps increase the percentage of humus in the soil.
Improves soil structure and increases air exchange.
Potato organics are similar in strength to complex mineral fertilizers.
An environmentally friendly fertilizer that cannot harm human health.
Organic fertilizers increase the growth of weeds, but this is not the case when using purifications.
Potato skins not only nourish the soil, but also help fight garden pests.
It is impossible to “overfeed” the soil with such fertilizer, as often happens with other types of fertilizing.

Flaws

To achieve the desired result, huge volumes of biomaterial are sometimes needed. Storing it in an apartment is very problematic.
It is impossible to control the concentration of nutrients.
Not suitable for all crops.

Peel composition

Raw potato skins are easily processed by soil microorganisms, and therefore nutrients are delivered to plants faster. In this case, heat is released, which has a warming effect. This has a beneficial effect on the development of the plant root system and improves nutritional intake.

The peelings contain many useful substances: vitamins (mostly vitamin C) and starch, fats and glucose, macro- and microelements (huge amounts of potassium, phosphorus and magnesium, sodium and calcium, iron), mineral salts and several types of organic acids.

Such a rich composition of nutrients has a positive effect at all stages of growth and development of garden crops.

Benefits for plants

Potato peelings are a fertilizer that has been tested by more than one generation of Russian gardeners.

They are harmless to garden plants and soil.
Unlike chemical complexes, they are absorbed 100% and in the shortest possible time. Nutrients are immediately absorbed by the root system of garden crops.
Cleanings applied in the spring protect against unexpected frosts due to the release of a significant amount of heat during overheating.
The soil becomes looser and lighter. This is especially important on loams, alumina, and heavily silted lands.
Improves seed germination during sowing. Thanks to glucose and starch, it delivers the necessary nutrition to the embryos.

Everyone eats potatoes Russian families, and therefore there is no need to specially extract fertilizer. After all, usually raw materials simply go into the trash can.

How to cook?

Potato peelings are collected in advance and stored until spring.

Drying

The peel is thoroughly washed, the water is allowed to drain and drying begins. You can simply lay out the cleaning on the windowsill (balcony) or use the oven. If the peel is dried outdoors, it should be protected from sunlight and precipitation.

The natural cleaning method dries within 10 days.

If you don’t want to wait, they are put in an oven heated to 100 degrees. Leave the door slightly open to speed up the drying process. Usually 4 hours is enough.

Freezing

The peel can not only be dried, but also frozen. However this method storage requires an additional freezer. With the onset of cold weather, waste is stored on the balcony.

Note. Potato peelings cannot be re-frozen. It is prohibited to use boiled skins, since the raw materials have already given up all the useful substances to the water.

Cleaning in compost

Potato peels are a welcome biomaterial in any compost. It's all about its ability to accelerate the decomposition of fresh organic matter.

But there is a problem - the cleaning is often covered with fungus, which then, along with the compost, spreads throughout the garden.

Some gardeners carefully select raw materials, others prefer not to take risks by adding boiled skins to the compost.

How to use?

There are three main forms of application:

In the form of flour

To make flour from the peel, it is dried until crisp and ground using any kitchen equipment. Store it in paper bags or fabric bags.

The fertilizer is valued for its versatility - it is suitable for almost all garden and house plants.

Important! You should not store potato flour for a long time - it will certainly harbor midges or harmful microbes.

In the form of a paste

To prepare paste fertilizer, take dry potato skins, hot water and special containers. Cleanings are poured with boiling water to protect the biomaterial from harmful bacteria, fungi, and small insects. After about 7 days, the peel will absorb water and swell. All that remains is to crush it, mix it and use it for its intended purpose.

As an infusion

The peel in any form is poured with boiling water and left for a day. The resulting infusion is ready for use both in the garden and at home.

Important! You cannot simply scatter potato peelings over the arable land - this can attract pests and rodents.

Feeding and fertilizer

It is important not only to prepare potato peelings correctly and put them in one of the forms convenient for use, but also to be able to use them correctly.

Fertilizer based on peelings will appeal to cabbage and cucumbers, all types of currants, pumpkins, fruit trees and home flowers.

Attention! You should not feed peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants with peelings. These vegetables are susceptible to the same diseases as potatoes.

For the garden

When planting seedlings.

Young plants need a full range of nutrients more than others. Adding potato flour or gruel directly into the holes and grooves facilitates the process of crop adaptation and promotes their rapid growth, abundant fruiting.

For feeding a number of melons and melons (cucumbers, zucchini, watermelons, melons, pumpkins).

Cucumbers especially love potato fertilizer. It is used when planting seeds in the ground or when planting seedlings in a greenhouse. To increase productivity, it is recommended to regularly water zucchini and pumpkins, melons and watermelons with infusion from potato peels.

For radishes, turnips, radishes, garlic and onions.

These plants will appreciate potato infusion more. It can be used as fertilizer after May 20. The intervals between adding the composition should not be less than 14 days.

Why save cleanings?

How to prepare fertilizer from peelings

If you have a balcony and the possibility of using it for such purposes, it is easier to freeze the peelings in small portions as they arrive.

Even if the dacha is a summer home for you, you need to visit it at least twice a month in the winter. Especially if the winter is cold and there is little snow. Check the cleanliness of the snow cover, the shelter of young trees and other plants, and flower beds. Throw more snow on the ridges and under the perennial plants.