HOW THE POTATO GUESSED THE WEATHER

You can argue as much as you like about how to plant and grow potatoes correctly, but I think the main thing here is to correctly guess (or guess?) the timing of all operations. And so that everything coincides with the weather. And plant on time, and earth up, and weed. But how to do this is a real mystery!

This year we harvested a very good potato harvest. We ourselves are surprised at such luck. As we later found out, it was an early landing. And the potatoes dodged all the cataclysms of this summer.

So, early spring beckoned us, and at the end of April, trusting in the warmth, we began planting. And nothing bad happened. The cold snap that arrived did not damage the plantings; the seedlings rose safely and amicably. So at the end of June we already started digging the first new potatoes.

Rain - as scheduled

Potatoes have deadlines when they need to be watered. For example, when buds appear en masse. And it is desirable that the first flowers begin to modestly but persistently color the green plots. If there is no good rain, consider that a third of the harvest is lost. And just at this time it started raining! Happy coincidence.

And when the drought began, we ourselves began to shed our one and a half hundred square meters. No longer following any rules. Is the earth dry? Turn on the faucet and use the sprinkler directly on the leaves.

But! Some people can’t do this, but we can, because the soil is sandy and the area is under the sun all day long. It will be well ventilated until the evening; it is difficult for diseases to cling to it.

And it’s difficult to spill a plot with a hose, so we use a sprinkler. The soil is sandy, moisture-absorbing, water hardly spreads - in some places it is empty, and in others it is thick.

We scatter the ash several times a season, always after flowering. If there is not enough ash, we give phosphorus and potassium fertilizers

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See also: Mulching potatoes instead of hilling - my reviews (Moscow region)

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Fed, hilled, weeded

In the fall, we sow the potato plot with mustard. And we put all organic waste here. And fertilized litter from the poultry house. In the spring we plow with a walk-behind tractor.

We scatter the ash several times a season, it is especially important to do this after the potatoes bloom. If there is not enough ash, we use mineral fertilizers - phosphorus and potassium.

Without this there is no way on sandy soil.

We always hill by hand. The walk-behind tractor somehow didn’t take root here.

At the same time we weed the plantings, a couple of times is enough. The potatoes themselves tell you when to stop: the rows are almost closed - that’s it, now it’s better not to disturb the tops.

It was hot, so at six in the morning we were already busy with work. One digger is another collector. Fortunately, the family is big. Around the region, as always, the harvest was so-so. And then the work began: piles of clean, large, beautiful tubers grew literally before our eyes. There were quite a few small items.

In the evening they ate potatoes, which were especially tasty on the day of harvesting, and discussed the work day. We collected much more than we expected. They began to remember and count how many buckets they planted and how many they grew, it turned out that “one in nine.” Not bad at all.

By the way, we plant potatoes quite far from each other. We didn’t count centimeters, more by eye. A medium step is enough. Previously, plantings were crowded: we’ll plant more, we’ll dig more. But no! It didn’t work anymore, as the tubers grew too small.

Our mistakes

As always, there were many mistakes.

1. Short hose. When irrigated by sprinkling, the outermost row turned out to be not a son, but a stepson. He didn’t get enough water drops, but we didn’t notice. And just like in the textbook, the whole row got scabby. You will have to run an additional hose. The one stretched out from the garden turned out to be short.

2. The damaged tubers were lowered into the cellar. A bag of potatoes cut and damaged by Khrushchev was lowered into the cellar. A couple of weeks later they gasped: some of the tubers had frankly rotted into mush. So fast? We scoured the Internet and diagnosed it as mixed rot, that is, both fungi and bacteria were at work. And even more precisely - late blight mixed rot. We breathed a sigh of relief when we found out that it “works” only at the beginning of storage and only on damaged tubers.

Conclusion: there was too much rotting organic matter in the beds. Perhaps kitchen waste and carrion have no place in a potato field. It’s better to compost, and then you can put it under the potatoes.

3. Not dried enough. The day we dug potatoes was hot and sunny. So we decided to immediately fold the dug up tubers and put them in the cellar. We hoped it had dried out enough. But no! Even the sun's rays could not cope with disinfection. The potatoes need to lie down a little in the dark and dry! And the peel will become harder, and the cuts will become corky. Yes, and diseased tubers will manifest themselves, they can then be collected and put into use. We had to get potatoes from the cellar and scatter them in the garage and barn. Let him lie in freedom for three weeks.

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Reference by topic: Growing potatoes with seedlings for seed renewal + double hilling

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© Author: Marina Latypova, Kazan

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