Growing Potatoes In A Trench Way

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Our gardening is located near Ladoga. My plot, like everyone else's, is six acres, so every piece of land is registered, but I want to grow vegetables, strawberries, fruit trees, berry bushes, and flowers … Everything has to be strictly planned. For example, I plant potatoes on my site by the piece. Therefore, for a very long time I was occupied with the question: how to grow the maximum yield of tubers? I read a lot, tried many ways. The harvest was usually not very high. Finally I decided: why is it necessary to plant on the ridges? I'll do the opposite!

I started by very carefully digging up potatoes and selecting future planting material. 7-10 days before harvesting, I cut off all the tops. Then, when the potatoes are dug up, I leave the harvest near each bush. And only after that I look through the tubers obtained from each bush.

From the most productive, I select potatoes the size of a chicken egg for seeds. I rinse the seed tubers in a weak solution of potassium permanganate, dry them, be sure to green them. Only then I lay out on the grids, in each of which I put a note with the name of the variety. After harvesting, I burn the weeds and tops. The site is now clean.

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And after that I start doing the opposite! Of course, I want to say right away that this method is quite laborious, it cannot be applied over a large area, but those who plan every meter of the site can easily master it.

So, I dig a trench one and a half bayonet deep with a shovel. I put in it all the waste from the garden: the remains of the tops of beets, carrots, flowers. You can add leaves from the forest, etc. When the trench is completely filled, I begin to make the next one after 75 cm. I dig strictly along the cord. The trenches are oriented from north to south. The next trench, like the first, is also covered with waste. So I gradually dig the required number of trenches. Everything is ready for the spring planting.

At the beginning of February, I take out the potatoes and put them in boxes with low sides - 4-5 cm. The potatoes have already begun to sprout, so I handle them very carefully. I put boxes on cabinets, window sills. By the time of moving to the dacha, the tubers lose a little turgor, that is, they become a little shriveled. But on the other hand, they have wonderful sprouts - thick, green. There are many of them, and each is covered with pimples. It seems, put a tuber in the ground, and roots will grow out of them instantly.

On May 1 - 2, I take the boxes with tubers to the dacha and proceed to the second stage. I put a layer of earth into the boxes (it must be warmed up to 18 ° C), put a layer of tubers on it, cover them with a 20 cm layer of earth on top and again put a layer of tubers, which I also cover with earth. And so I put several layers. I make up the boxes on the veranda.

After 10-12 days, roots appear. The potatoes are ready to plant. By May 12-15, the land on the site warms up, you can start planting.

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In the trench I slightly sprinkle the layer of waste with superphosphate, ash and sprinkle it with earth with a layer of 1-2 cm. Then I pour the trenches with a solution of copper sulfate (2-5 g per 10 liters of water). And already on this pillow I lay out the tubers at a distance of 25 cm from each other. I take them out of the box very carefully, because they have sprouted well and have lush "beards" from the roots. Having spread out all the tubers in the trench, carefully sprinkle them with a 3-5 cm layer of earth with a shovel from its sides. This waste cushion will be both drainage, and heating, and fertilizer. And now the landing is over.

At first, the neighbors asked: "What is your whole plot in some ditches?" I just chuckled. Seedlings usually emerge quickly and potatoes grow very well. The leaves on the bushes are dark green, the stems are powerful. During the growth, I spud the planting 3-5 times. Before each hilling, I sprinkle the ground with ashes. When the plants reach a height of 10-15 cm, I spray it against late blight with a solution of copper sulfate (5 g per 10 liters of water). After hilling, my trenches turn into tall, pointed pyramids, and a dark green forest flaunts above them.

Many, seeing the landing, ask: what is it? They do not believe that potato bushes can be so beautiful. But now the plants are picking up buds, they will soon bloom, and I cut off all the buds, do not let them bloom. Let all the power go to the tubers.

And now the long-awaited harvest time is approaching. 70 days before that, I cut the tops. Digging potatoes is a favorite pastime. And this is understandable: the harvest is excellent! Under each bush there are large, clean, healthy tubers. From each bush I collect from one to three and a half kilograms of potatoes. She planted 69 tubers. Having collected the crop, I was not too lazy to weigh it. It turned out that she received 161 kilograms of tubers!

When I dig, I try to be very careful not to cut the tubers, because they are located in several tiers. I remember the first time I planted potatoes this way, I started digging and got upset. My daughter and I dug up the first bush. Before us lay about ten tubers the size of a hen's egg. It's a shame how! And the daughter says: "Mom, dig more!" I dug deeper, and there was another tier with medium-sized tubers. The next tier contained large potatoes. I think: I'll dig with a shovel. I deepened it and gasped - there were 5 large tubers at the bottom. We weighed everything together - three kilograms seven hundred grams from a bush. That's the harvest!

Then I made sure that the number of tiers depends on the number of hilling. They say you can't spud potatoes - you won't get a harvest. So I came up with the idea of digging trenches so that there was more land for hilling.

It would seem that in the past rainy summer with this method of cultivation, the tubers should have rotted. But everything worked out well. The potatoes were clean during harvesting, without any damage. And there were no voids or black spots inside the large tubers. Apparently, all the waste that was laid in the trenches in the fall played the role of drainage. And in a dry year, they retained moisture. The harvest was good too.

I grow early potatoes in the same way. On April 15-20, I cover the beds with foil for a week. After a week, I spill the trenches with a solution of copper sulfate. After planting the beds, I cover them with foil again. If the weather is warm, I fold the film during the day, but close it again at night. I get the same harvest, but 2-3 weeks earlier.

Maybe someone will be interested: what varieties I grow. I have never been particularly fond of foreign varieties. There is a good selection of varieties from our selection. For this, many thanks to our breeders. Here are some that made me happy with a good harvest: Very early and early: Pink spring, Pushkinets, Bullfinch. Middle and mid-season: Detskoselsky, Elizaveta, Charodey, Shaman, Gatchinsky, Petersburg. Mid-late: Glow, Temp, Sotka.

If you get a very good kind of tuber, then you can quickly multiply it. I use two ways.

The first way: green the tuber, germinate and plant in a large container. When shoots 5-7 cm high appear, they must be carefully cut off with a blade, leaving a stump of 1-2 cm. Then immediately plant in peat pots, leaving the top of the head 1-1.5 cm on the surface, and water. The survival rate is 100%. Thus, from one tuber you get 10-15 pots of seedlings. Each seedling will produce 3-5 excellent tubers by autumn. The planting material is ready.

Second way: germinate the tuber so that there are long shoots. To do this, first hold it in a dark, warm place. When long shoots appear, transfer to twilight. Next, gradually move the tuber towards the light. When the sprouts turn green, cut them off with a blade, leaving a 0.5 cm stump. Then cut them into divisions so that each has one internode. You can get up to 30 divisions from one potato. Lay them out on a damp cloth. When sprouts appear, plant them in pots. One tuber made 30 potato bushes. This seedling potato should be planted on June 10-15.

If the sprouts are frozen, they will not recover. Therefore, it is worth covering them with foil at night. When planting, the pots must be removed. So the plants develop better.