CULTIVATION OF POTATOES IN THE KIROV REGION - PLANTING AND CARE

Contrary to all modern ideas, the author of this article does not even think about sending a shovel to rest. But this does not mean that she does not recognize innovations.

50 years ago at a wedding we were given the keys to the apartment. To be more precise, they singled out half a house built of timber. A whole street was erected with such houses - live and rejoice! True, there used to be a dump at this place, and the land on the site turned out to be awful: sod with wheatgrass, pieces of glass and slate, rusty nails ... In the first year, it was necessary to ditch the whole day to create one 10-meter-long bed. Why am I all this? And to the fact that success in gardening can be achieved only if there is a true desire to ennoble the land. It took me 25 years. Now the soil is fertile, free of perennial weeds. And I learned to cope with annuals quickly, but I'll tell you about this a little later.

I do everything myself, because I have been living alone for a long time after the death of my husband. And I get very good (and sometimes literally the highest!) Yields of all major garden crops - carrots, onions, garlic, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and, of course, potatoes. I would like to tell you about the latter.

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My agricultural technology is as follows. I harvest the crop using a pitchfork (I don’t cut the tops before that), and I dig out the tubers strictly according to the varieties, and they, in turn, were planted in rows in the spring, depending on the ripening time. Usually I cope with harvesting in a week (two and a half hundred square meters are allocated for a potato). After that I hire workers, and they dig up the entire plot with shovels. And every time they praise me: it’s easy, they say, to work - there are no weeds anywhere, the earth is soft. As soon as they finish, I immediately make the combs with a hiller along the twine. Earlier, by the way, I had aisles of 50-55 cm, but now I do 65-70 cm. Why do I dig a plot when it is no longer fashionable? I explain.

The earlier, after harvesting, the fall is raised in autumn, the stronger the guarantee that the harvest in the new year will be 20-30% higher. And this does not only apply to potatoes.

Since all my weeds are annual, they will die after digging in winter.

Such processing activates the work of all sorts of useful worms and microorganisms living in the soil, i.e. there is a kind of preparation for the winter.

After digging, it is convenient to add manure, peat and straw. And this must be done! But fresh hay is not suitable for this: after it a lot of weeds will sprout. It is better to put it in a pile in autumn, alternating with layers and sprinkling with urea. In two or three years there will be excellent humus!

Joyful potato

I carefully sort all the potatoes 30 days after digging, i.e. when the so-called incubation period passes, which makes it possible to identify diseased tubers. Of course, I remove ugly potatoes, as well as those with mechanical damage. I put the potatoes intended for eating into bags and leave them in the woodshed, where the light does not fall. I put a label with the name of the variety on each bag. And I have a lot of them.

True, I am starting to gradually reduce my collection. For example, in 2019 there were 23 varieties, and in 2020 - 13. Why? Strengthened the requirements for them. If there are any drawbacks - cracks on the tubers, susceptibility to late blight, unstable yield, etc. - I remove it. I think the best today are Kolobok, Uladar, Jelly, Madeira, Vineta and Red Fantasy.

And I sprinkle the seed tubers in nets, green them slightly and put them in the pits. This ensures that they will all be well preserved in winter.

On March 1, I take out these tubers and transfer them to the underground, where I keep them for one month. For what? And to wake up all the eyes. Indeed, in the pit, the temperature is kept within 2-4 °, and in the underground it is much warmer.

On April 1, I take out potatoes from the underground and carry them into the house. Then I carry out the next operation. In a bucket of water I dilute 40 g of urea, a pinch of ash, 5-7 drops of iodine and brilliant green, a bag of manganese and boric acid.

Then I separately dilute vitriol, double superphosphate and birch tar in hot water, add it to a bucket, mix everything and put it in this solution for 30 minutes. nets with tubers. I take it out, let the solution drain and sprinkle the potatoes in the fruit crates. When the potatoes are completely dry, I stack the boxes on top of each other. Of course, it's troublesome, but it's worth it.

Protection against diseases (primarily from late blight) is provided.

The ripening of the crop is accelerated by 10-15 days.

The tubers are replenished with fertilizers and microelements, which leads to an increase in yield.

The sprouts become strong and strong.

When it gets warm outside, I put the boxes on the veranda - in the light - before planting. In the garden, the ridges made in the fall quickly warm up. As soon as the top layer of the earth dries up, I go over it with a rake and quickly remove the "caked" soil crust and at the same time the roots of the weeds that have survived since the fall. I put a thermometer into one of the ridges by 8-10 cm and follow it: as soon as it shows 6-8 °, I start planting.

I dig holes on the ridges with an interval of 40-45 cm and put there a handful of pre-prepared nutrient mixture from ash, chalk, onion husks and azofoska. After planting, every 10 days I loosen the topsoil with a rake to make it easier for the tubers to breathe (again, I remove annual weeds, if they remain). If seedlings have appeared, and frost is promised at night, then I slightly sprinkle the sprouts - the main thing is that all the leaves are sprinkled with earth. And then the same loosening and hilling every 10 days, until the bushes in the rows are closed by "crowns". As a result, there is not a single weed on the plot, the earth breathes, the plants are happy, because they have enough food in excess.

Reference by topic: Vegetable garden - to dig or not to dig, to loosen or not (part 7)?

No more digging potatoes! The shovel is no longer needed!