How to grow potatoes: my advice

A small story about large potato crops

The one to whom this letter seems too long, never potatoes in his life. After all, here are the answers to all the questions. And someone who seems that all of the above is relevant only to the northern regions, is not right: this method works everywhere!

Chapter I: Growing potatoes and gardener tasks

I live in the north of Siberia, where the methods of growing vegetables recommended for the Central and Southern regions are not suitable, and the possibilities here are very limited by the harsh climate and soil conditions.

To get a decent harvest, you have to work not only with your hands, but with your head. I try to explain how this works out below.

When cultivating potatoes, I am guided by four tasks.

• Minimize labor costs.
• Get the maximum harvest.
• Grow the most delicious potatoes.
• Do not use mineral fertilizers.

Preparing the tubers for planting is considered one of the most crucial moments in the cultivation of second bread, and I begin it even while harvesting potatoes. On the seeds I select the tubers from the strongest shrubs, the size of 40 to 90. But from the strongest bushes, in which the number of good tubers is over 12, I take everything, even small ones. I believe that heredity in this case is more important than the size of the tubers.

Once, because I did not have seed potatoes, a friend gave me the leftovers that I wanted to throw away. They were nubbits the size of 1-1,5 cm, but 2-th reproduction. I planted them without any hope of harvest, and the results exceeded all expectations.

The plant grew longer than me and thick in the finger, on each bush there was an average of 10-15 tubers, and all weights 150-250

I never had such a harvest before, nor after. This case taught me to treat respectfully and to small seed tubers, if they are taken from a strong bush. This experience does not fail me.

All tubers, incl. seed, after kopki I wash first in a barrel, and then necessarily in running water. Selected seed potatoes are scattered on grades on film to dry.

After drying, I cover it with another film on top and leave it on 10-12 days for greening, turning over daily. In this form, the potatoes are green, preserved from rain and frost, do not dry out. The green potatoes are folded into meshes according to 10 or 20 kg, putting in each note with the name of grade and quantity. I write the notes with a pencil (the ink blurs when the paper gets wet) and put them in small plastic bags that close, and then into the grids that I put into the cellar. Washed and greened tubers are stored just perfect.

And while the potatoes are green, I prepare a plot for it. In all instructions, before plowing a site, manure, humus, compost and mineral fertilizers are recommended. I live in Siberia, and even in the north, we do not have manure and humus in the daytime, we can not find fire with it, and it takes two years to get compost here, since the summer is short and cold, and a long warm period is needed to ripen the compost. What to do?

I have been accustomed to working with the land since childhood and I know firsthand that if you do not invest anything in the land, you will not get anything from it either. And I support the life-force of Mother Earth as follows. In summer koshu hay, the blessing nearby is a meadow, and in the autumn I transfer this hay to a site where I spread it evenly and smell it. Plowing leads shallow, 12-15 cm.

The soil after such plowing is mixed with hay and becomes airy.

And the worms in it are bred for the next year visibly-invisibly, which is a sure sign of good fertility. In the spring I pick up the seed potatoes from the cellar for germination. I used to try to do it like all people do. There are a lot of ways to germinate, I've studied them all and tried them in practice, but they did not suit me basically for two reasons.

Germination period too long - up to a month or more; while you sprout, our northern summer will come to an end. And when to grow potatoes?

Some methods involve rather quick seed preparation, for example wet, but this method is too labor-consuming, and the temperature regime in our beloved north is not easy to withstand. I plant 20 buckets of potatoes every year, and cooking it this way is too much hassle. But this method itself has a great advantage over others, because roots grow on tubers along with sprouts, which is difficult to overestimate in our short and cold summers.

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Reference by topic:  How to store seed potatoes correctly

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Fig 1. Scheme of installation of boxes in the greenhouse bed Fig 2. Marker and marking scheme of the site

Chapter II: Planting potatoes with boxes

It was then that the thought came to my mind: why not use a greenhouse to grow potatoes in which I will plant cucumbers? After all, I plant potatoes earlier. Soil in the greenhouse at a depth of 10 cm is already warming up to 10-14 ′ by May 15, and by 18-20 ° by the end of May. As a result, I developed the following method.

Two weeks before the proposed date of planting, I drop all the potatoes into varieties of wood in boxes of two buckets. At the edge of the greenhouse garden I dig a hole in the size of the box, where I install it. The edges of the box are flush with the ground. Next to this box I dig a hole under the next box, and with ground from the pit I fall asleep the first box, and so on. The first box vigorously shakes that the earth fills the voids between the tubers, on top of the box leave a layer of ground 5 cm.

Thus, I get a bed with boxes, "planted" close to each other (Figure 1).

From the barrels of warm water installed in the greenhouse, I water this bed 1 times in 2-3 days, depending on the weather. For two weeks, grows a noble beard from the roots up to 3 cm, and wake up all to a single kidney, giving excellent sprouts of length, too, up to 3 cm.

While the seed potatoes sprout, I am preparing a plot for planting. I re-plow the walk-behind tractor with a depth of 25 cm and draw it with a marker with a row spacing of 75 cm. This marking method saves a lot of time compared to a traditional rope and does not trample a section by rearranging it. The marker is a rake 320 cm wide, in which the distance between the teeth can be changed as you wish (Fig. 2).

In order for the beds to be even, before I start marking, I slaughter two pegs and pull a rope between them at a height of 15 cm from the ground surface. I place the left tooth of the marker under the rope and make the first pass, controlling that the left tooth passes without deviating from the rope. It turns out 5 level lines. Then the left tooth is combined with the 5 line and I make a second pass and so on.

Marking is done very quickly, row spacing is smooth, and the area is not trampled, as when planting under a rope, and planting time is reduced by about 30%. My neighbor did not see what I planted under the marker, and was surprised: “How do you get such smooth beds?” I replied that potatoes need to be planted soberly ...

The distance between the tubers is 30 cm, and the planting depth is 5-6 cm. I throw about 1 tbsp. In each hole. l soaked chicken droppings. I tried to plant with fertilizers, but the potatoes turned out to be tasteless, and fertilizers on my site need a lot.

After planting the three beds I rake their harrow. Many neglect harrowing the site after planting potatoes, but in vain. It's not about beauty, it's about harrowing that keeps moisture in the soil.

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Reference by topic: How best to plant potatoes - eyes or tubers

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Chapter III: Potatoes and cold spring

The presence of a powerful root system in sprouted potatoes can not be overestimated for the conditions of a short and cold summer. Last year, the weather played a cruel joke, not allowing on time to plant the potatoes germinated in the greenhouse, and the roots and sprouts stretched over 25 days to 5-6 cm, and the tubers were difficult to disassemble without breaking off the shoots and cutting off the roots. But how nice it was to look at amicable shoots just a week after planting, despite the fact that the cold weather with the rains stood almost to the twentieth of June!

At the same time as this potato, I planted another, sprouted in boxes in the usual way in a country house. It was a pity to look at this "plantation". Germination spanned over a month. I must say that last summer it was only about three weeks warm, and the rest of the time was taken by the transition period between spring and autumn. Of the vegetables planted on the street, only potatoes, onions, carrots and daikon ripened.

The cultivation of potatoes sprouted in the greenhouse, I started two weeks earlier than the one that was germinated in the traditional way. The greenhouse potatoes were already in full blossom, and the traditional potato was still growing.

Chapter IV: Is it time to dig up the potatoes or not?

I was always amazed at the naivete of workaholics who, over the summer, grow potatoes up to 5 times. You might think, if they had plunged 10 times, then the harvest would have been 10 times higher. It's funny! I grew up in the country and learned about potato cultivation not by hearsay. In our locality, everyone has hiked potatoes only so that it does not turn green. After all, solanine, which is formed in a green tuber, is a fairly powerful poison. I myself am an eyewitness, how the domestic animals died, after eating green potatoes. There were a few cases on my bitten plot when the potato tops fell in the heat from lack of water. Attempts to cast this site with repeated and abundant many hours of watering do not give anything, because the water from the bed rolls down like a roof, and the soil at the root of the roots remains completely dry. On the crop and can not speak.

In 2012, I did an experiment in its pure form, leaving part of the potato area without hilling. I replaced the hilling by a few loosening of the flat-cutter, while simultaneously destroying the weeds. But on the grassed beds to destroy the weeds flat-cut is impossible, it is possible to fight with them, only pulling them with their hands. During the harvesting of potatoes on an unheated plot, the root zone of the potato was wet, which affected the yield.

As a result, the harvest on the unoccupied site according to the most conservative estimates was one and a half times higher than in the neighboring burrowed beds. For me, the question of hilling was now closed.

Although I must admit that green potatoes were too much. Of course, I put it on the seeds, but the seeds are useless, too diverse, especially from different bushes - from strong and weak. I had a task: either to grow up potatoes, knowingly reducing yield, or not to grow up, while receiving a lot of green potatoes. Breaking my head, I made a "Solomon decision."

I spend the process of hilling so. Choosing a sunny day, a flat-cutter loosens the soil, while cutting the weeds. Another day they lie under the sun, dying out completely. When loosening, I check the soil for moisture and before melting in the evening I must water the potato area! If the land is rather wet, then water a little, I moistened: only the top layer of the soil, if the soil is dry, water thoroughly.

I have already made sure that if the potatoes are dipped in dry soil, the dry soil inside the bed will remain until its harvesting and no watering will be possible to moisten the soil at the depth of the root system.

The next day, as soon as the crust has dried, I begin to mow. I'm not deep enough to cover the potatoes, so as not to be green, but the main highlight is that in the bed I leave a hollow width of 20-25. See the map is obtained as the letter M (Figure 3). As a result, the potatoes are not green, and the bed does not dry out.

During the summer of the second hilling or loosening I do not spend, I do not do any fertilizing, but I strictly monitor the moisture of the soil and, if necessary, water it, because potatoes are a very moisture-loving crop. This is where the advantage of my M-shaped beds appears.

Watering leads from the hose to the hollow of the garden without spraying, and all the water comes exactly where it should be. And during the rain, the water from the hollow goes to the roots of the potato.

Chapter V: We leave the tops of the potato and measure the temperature

I begin cleaning potatoes in the second half of September, I do not cut off the tops before harvesting for three reasons:

• remove the tops in the area of ​​9 acres - too hard and long;
• if the tops are already dry, there is no sense in removing them, if green, the tubers continue to grow before harvesting;
• with the tops it is easier to clean potatoes: one man digs, and the second, holding on to the tops, pulls out the bush and shakes it.

We dig forks, because so fewer tubers are cut, and it's easier to dig, especially if the ground is damp. Last year, almost all September, it rained, and the dug potatoes were very dirty, I had to wash everything. And mine I in two steps. A bucket of extra-pannoe potatoes is poured into a grid with a shallow cell (15-20 mm) and by dipping I wash it in a barrel of water, after which I turn on the pump and thoroughly wash the potatoes from the lake. Washing potatoes gives the following:

• it is much easier to collect potatoes, since it can be put in a bucket very dirty;
• it dries very quickly;
• washed potatoes are better kept;
• it is easier to take away the seed;
• it is easier to reject diseased potatoes. In the dirty, the patient can not be taken away at all, and if he gets into the cellar, you can lose the entire crop. Two such cases in my practice were.

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Reference by topic:  Potatoes for the North-West: varieties and cultivation

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After washing, sprinkle the potatoes on a film to dry. It dries very quickly - 2-3 hours, after which we pack it in bags and drop it into the cellar for storage.

Attention! Before filling the potatoes into the cellar, be sure to measure the temperature of the air and the temperature in the basement. The temperature of the air in the street must exceed the temperature of the air in the basement by at least one degree.

If you pour cold potatoes into the basement, condensate will settle on it, and it will damp, then it will be covered with mold and will not be stored, and it will be very difficult to dry it in the basement. After filling the potatoes in the cellar, you can not lower the temperature for two weeks to heal the damaged skin. At a temperature below 12 *, the skin does not heal and the potato becomes diseased. As I wrote above, the seed potatoes are taken from a strong hive, using almost the entire bush, including small fines. The missing quantity is selected from the dried potatoes before packing it in bags. The selected seed potatoes are scattered on film for greening.

Fig. 3. Potato hilling scheme

Chapter VI 12 Invoice: 1 in favor of the greenhouse method

Time to take stock. cultivation

The yield of a single vegetable bed with potatoes sprouted in the traditional way amounted to an average of 5 buckets. The yield of one garden bed with greenhouse potatoes was 9 buckets. A more convincing argument in favor of greenhouse germination of seed potatoes is not necessary.

The best varieties of potatoes for cultivation

Bluebeard and Nevsky were especially sympathetic to greenhouse sprouting. But the yield of early-ripened Zhukovsky rose by only 20-25%. I explain this by the fact that early-ripening varieties and without germination have time to mature to technical ripeness. In total, I experienced 12 varieties. On average, I have an 1 yield: 12.

It remains to add that, as far as possible, I try to observe a crop rotation on my site, and although I have the largest potato plant, I grow different vegetables on 15 beds, alternating with potatoes. Part of the site is sown with rye, which I smell. Of course, we have to plant potatoes and potatoes, but at the same time I always change the varieties. Lunar calendar in my life did not use.

After a mature reflection for a long winter, I come to the conclusion that my methods can be relevant not only in the north, but also in the south. After all, a low yield of potatoes in the south is due to the high temperature of air and soil.

At soil temperatures above 20 *, the growth of tubers slows down, and at temperatures above 25 * almost completely ceases. If you take an ultra-ripened variety of potatoes for planting, for example the same Zhukovsky, and to germinate it with the hothouse method described by me, then to the onset of hot weather the potatoes will already be ready for harvesting. After all, the maturation period of this variety to technical ripeness is 45 days from the moment of mass shoots. And by the time of the appearance of the Colorado beetle, he will be in the cellar! In addition, it is possible and its autumn landing.

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Reference by topic: Growing potatoes in straw

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On this I end my potato saga. I would be very happy if someone takes my advice into account - they will not have to take offense at me.

And another tip at last. The harvest should not only be grown and preserved, but also eaten. So, if you add 5-6 drops of 70% acetic essence to the pan when cooking, the potatoes will not darken after cooking, but will be crumbly and much tastier.

Growing potatoes - the results in the photo

© The author of this remarkable letter about the cultivation of potatoes: Boris Andreevich Yermolov. Nizhnevartovsk

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