Did You Manage To Sprout Potatoes Before Planting?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

For some, May Day is, first of all, festive festivities. Well, summer residents often devote these spring celebrations to a trip to their plots in order to plant potatoes in the garden. Let us remember, and if you didn’t know, then we will study the basics and subtleties of this important event. And if in the preparation for this lesson mistakes were made or something was overlooked, we still have a few days to have time to correct these mistakes

On the condition of the soil before planting

It is customary to fill the beds for potatoes with mineral fertilizers in the autumn months. But if you acquired a plot only recently, and because of this it was not possible to take care of fertilizing in advance, you can add an organic mixture to the holes just before planting.

An organic mixture is prepared from the following ingredients:

• compost soil (or peat) - 15 parts;

• humus - 6 parts;

• bird droppings (or mullein) - 2 parts;

• ash - 2 parts.

Such dressing is used both in combination with mineral fertilizers and without them. In the first case, 1 glass of the mixture is placed in the hole per plant, in the second - 2 glasses. It is recommended to mix organic matter well with the ground.

Tuber preparation

The preparation of planting material is carried out a month and a half before the spring harvest. But, as you know, there are no suitable conditions for germinating tubers in a humid environment or vernalization in the light in city apartments. Therefore, sometimes they resort to an accelerated method of pre-planting potatoes. To do this, a week before planting, the tubers are kept in a warm room in which the thermometer does not drop below + 15 ° C. After this procedure, a faster emergence of seedlings is observed. In addition, it is useful to powder the tubers with wood ash before planting. This will have a positive effect not only on the speed of development, but also on the taste of the harvested crop.

There are other, even faster, methods of preparing potatoes before planting in the beds:

• one hour before planting, treat the tubers with an aqueous solution of mineral fertilizers (urea and superphosphate);

• a day or two before planting, spray with any available aqueous solution of mineral fertilizers - superphosphate, boric acid, copper sulfate.

This significantly increases the resistance of potatoes to harmful diseases, in particular - late blight.

Operation on open … potatoes

Is it wasteful to plant large, whole tubers? Indeed, large potatoes can be cut, but when performing this responsible "surgical" procedure, certain rules are also observed:

1. They do this not on the day of planting, but two or three days before going out into the garden, so that the cut has time to harden, otherwise, fresh, it is more vulnerable to disease in the soil or decay.

2. Sprouted balls are cut carefully so as not to touch the sprouts, and it is desirable that there are 2-3 of them on each half.

3. When cutting, tubers affected by diseases are more often revealed - they should be immediately disposed of as planting material is unsuitable. However, in some cases, the disease has no external signs, therefore it is recommended after each such micro-operation to disinfect the knife by dipping the blade into a solution of potassium permanganate. In addition, the tool must be sharply sharpened.

At the same time, small tubers can be dipped in pairs in one hole. Although they are not recommended for use as planting material for an early harvest, such babies also have their own advantages:

• they have a higher germination rate;

• they are more resistant to adverse natural conditions;

• higher resistance to disease.

However, the productivity of such specimens is lower than that of large tubers, therefore, one cannot count on a generous harvest from small potatoes.