How to plant and grow potatoes in the garden

When the planting season arrives, there is no time to think about how to plant potatoes. Gardeners follow the traditional pattern: they make holes in the plot, throw in tubers, take care of the plantings and harvest. However, planting in beds has its own characteristics and rules - by following them, you can significantly increase the return on the site.

Is it possible to collect a bucket from a bush if you plant potatoes in beds? What types of ridges are there and how do they help increase the yield? How to grow potatoes in high beds? All the subtleties of planting, the secrets of preparing tubers, tips and recommendations are in our article.

Pros and cons of planting potatoes in beds

The usual cultivation method for Russia is potatoes in the garden. This way moisture in the soil is better retained, making it convenient to apply fertilizers and care for seedlings.

How to plant potatoes in beds correctly:

1. The distance between beds for early varieties is 50 cm, between holes in a row is 25-35 cm. For mid-season and late varieties: between rows is 60-70 cm, between tubers is 35-40 cm.
2. The beds should be level so that they can be easily processed. It is convenient to plant along a string: tie a twine to two pegs, the length of which is equal to the bed. Stick pegs at the beginning and end of the ridge, measuring the row spacing.
3. If the soil is dry, plant potatoes on the plain at a depth of 5-6 cm. In the case of close groundwater and in lowlands, it is better to plant in ridge beds. In dry areas - in trenches or holes.

If you take into account all the features of your planting area and create a bed for potatoes according to the above tips, you can harvest 20-50% more. There are no downsides to planting in ridges. There are features in which the usual planting in beds changes to an alternative one.

Types of beds

Is there little space on the site? Do you want to grow potatoes on your balcony? It's possible. Let's show you how some ways to create beds in a small area can help feed the whole family delicious potatoes.

Narrow beds or the Mittleider method

The main condition when planting in such beds is to comply with all the conditions, no matter how unusual they may seem:

1. Form a horizontal, even ridge 45 cm wide, bordered on the sides and ends with earthen sides 8-10 cm in height. The length of the ridge is arbitrary. The width between the ridges is 105 cm. Do not change the ridges and paths, do not dig up the passages. Make beds only on the day of planting.
2. Plant potatoes near the sides in two rows, the distance in the row between tubers is 4-7 cm.
3. Water only in the root zone at any time of the day.
4. You cannot loosen the soil so as not to tear the developing tubers.

Important! For the first experience of planting potatoes using this method, form 2 beds of 3 m each. In the fall, compare the yield from the usual beds and from the narrow bed, according to Mitlider: where did you manage to collect more tubers from the bush?

Warm beds

Due to its loose composition, it is more suitable for rainy areas. Artificial watering of these beds is impractical because it erodes the soil and exposes the roots.

A warm potato bed is made like this: dig ditches 1.2 m wide and two shovels deep. Thick branches are placed at the bottom first, then thin branches, sunflower stems, fallen leaves and compost. All layers are lightly sprinkled with earth.The top layer is soil 5 cm high. Potatoes are laid on it and simply covered with soil on top. The result is small mounds. To prevent them from crumbling, they are secured with small logs, scraps of boards, etc. After planting, the beds are mulched.

Reference. Mulching - covering the beds with mulch from mowed grass, straw, hay, bark, leaves, sawdust, cut paper and cardboard, and decomposed compost. Mulch retains moisture, protects plants from pests and weeds, and enriches the soil with useful microelements.

Box beds

It is also called a raised potato bed. Growing potatoes in box beds reveals the potential of each variety: from 2 to 4 kg of root crops can be harvested from a bush. Boxes are made when there is no large area for planting. They can be seen along the terraces and verandas of the house. They do not interfere with the design of the yard and look neat. Watering and hilling potatoes in these beds is easy, and the passages between them remain clean.

Potatoes in box beds are planted in holes arranged in two rows, the distance between the tubers is 20-30 cm. The hole is made as deep as a shovel, superphosphate, humus, ash, ammonium nitrate (one fertilizer) are laid on top, a tuber is placed on top and fall asleep. The ridge is mulched.

Attention! If you make a layer of mulch 10-20 cm high, the potatoes do not need to be hilled or weeded.

Making a bed-box

A box bed is a frame made from boards. It is placed on the ground surface and filled with soil.

Manufacturing stages:

• bed frame – 1-1.5 m wide;
• board height – 20-40 cm;
• length – up to 4 m;
• passages between beds – 60 cm;
• Treat the wood with an antiseptic against rot.

Vertical beds

The vertical method of growing potatoes saves time and effort. These beds take up little space.You can make them from a barrel or a bag.

Planting potatoes in a barrel

Dig a hole at least 40 cm deep, put 7-8 cm of compost on the bottom, a large tuber on top, cover with a 9-10 cm layer of compost. And put a barrel without a bottom on top. Punch holes across the entire surface to allow oxygen to enter the soil.

When the seedlings reach 2-3 cm, sprinkle them with compost. And so on to the top of the barrel. At the end of the growing season there will be up to 1 bucket of tubers at the bottom. If you add new tubers to the barrel after it is half full, the harvest can be doubled.

Planting potatoes in plastic bags

Fill the bag to the brim with a mixture of humus, soil and compost in equal proportions. For greater stability, the edges of the bags are turned outward. Make diamond-shaped slits on the sides of the bag and plant the sprouted tubers in them. Place the bags along the edges of the plot, between fruit trees or along ditches. You need to harvest the crop by shaking the soil out of the bag.

Important! It is customary to plant the varieties Bellarosa, Shante, Nadezhnaya, Molodezhnaya, Kyiv Svitanok, Poven and Slavyanka.

Furrow beds

Planting potatoes in this way increases yield due to loose and airy soil, just the kind that is needed for potatoes to grow.

Dig a furrow 20 cm wide and 15 cm deep, place tubers in it in increments of 30 cm, lightly sprinkle with soil. When the tops appear, add soil until a mound forms above the surface. You can alternate soil with ash and humus.

Important! A stable harvest grows annually if furrows are dug in the fall and tubers are planted in them in the spring.

Preparation of planting material - greening and culling

Tubers are prepared for planting 1-1.5 months in advance. Tubers selected are slightly larger than a chicken egg, evenly shaped, without rot, cracks or dents.

Wash the seed potatoes, place them in a container, add hot water (approximately +45°C) and leave until the water temperature approaches room temperature. Dilute potassium permanganate in a separate container, add it to the container with potatoes and stir until the water turns pink. Leave it like that for 15 minutes. Then drain the water, rinse the tubers and dry. In this way, pathogens are removed from the surface of the tubers.

For greening, the tubers are exposed to light for 15-20 days. During this time, the plant poison solanine is formed in the subcutaneous layer of the tubers, so neither mice nor gnawing insects will touch the seed potatoes. To ensure that light reaches the tubers equally, they are placed in glass jars and placed on the windowsill, the jars are turned once every two days. The same effect will be achieved if you spread the tubers in one layer on newspapers and place them on a cabinet or windowsill.

To germinate tubers, they are removed to a warm and dark place. The best option is to place them in cardboard boxes in one layer, away from each other, so that the emerging sprouts do not touch each other. Then lay a layer of newspapers and put up to three more layers of tubers, covering them with newspapers. Place the closed box near the battery. The sprouts are considered good when they reach a length of 4-5 cm, which should take about two to three weeks.

If sprouts do not appear on the tubers or they are thin, thread-like, such material is discarded - it will no longer produce full-fledged shoots and harvest.

Methods and basic planting patterns

Along with the alternative methods of planting potatoes, which were mentioned above, three traditional ones are also used. Their choice depends on the type of soil and its moisture content.

The smooth way

Potatoes are planted under a shovel. Suitable for dry areas.With this method of planting, less moisture evaporates from the soil.

The site has been dug up since the fall. Using twine attached to pegs, the direction of the rows is set at 70 cm from each other. Dig holes with a distance of 25-30 cm, the depth is half a bayonet of a shovel, put seed in them, and fill the previous hole with soil from the new hole. After all planting, the ground is leveled with a rake.

Advice! This method makes it easier for two people to plant. The first farmer digs holes, the second plants potatoes and adds fertilizer. Then the first one fills the hole, digging a new one.

Ridge planting

The method is used when groundwater is close to each other on heavy loamy soils. The ridge planting method provides access to air and warms up the soil.

The ridges are cut with a plow in the fall after applying fertilizer. The distance between the ridges is 70 cm, the height is 12-15 cm, the depth of planting tubers is 6-8 cm, the distance between holes is 25-30 cm. Large tubers are planted to the maximum depth, smaller tubers - 5 cm.

Trench method

With this planting method, there is no need to hill up the bushes and loosen the soil. The soil is prepared in the fall: they dig trenches up to half a meter deep along the entire length of the bed, fill them with leaves, compost, peat, humus, and straw.

In the spring, the trenches are covered with black film, so the ground will warm up faster. The heated soil in the trenches is sprinkled with ash and soil to a depth of 3–5 cm. Sprouted tubers are planted at a distance of 25–30 cm, covered with a peat-humus mixture, mown grass, compost at a depth of 8–10 cm and covered with film.

After the shoots appear, remove the film, cover the seedlings with compost to a height of 10 cm and cover them again, repeat the procedure again. When the third seedlings appear, holes are cut in the film for them.

The growth of weeds is mechanically stopped, and the tubers grow in warmth and moisture due to the process of decomposition of plant residues.

Tips and tricks

Each gardener has his own secrets of productivity. Listed here are universal recommendations that are suitable for all methods of planting potatoes.

1. Mid-season and late-season potatoes are planted when bird cherry blossoms in the region. Early potatoes - when the top layer of soil dries out.
2. With any type of planting, the rows of potatoes should be oriented from north to south - this way there is better lighting in the aisles, while there are more side shoots on which the tubers grow.
3. For planting, tubers the size of a chicken egg are chosen: they contain just as many nutrients as the plant needs to sprout 25-30 cm and develop a root system.
4. Early potato varieties can be dug up 60-70 days after sprouts appear: Lark, Early Spring, Bullfinch, Anosta, Udacha, Prior, Ostara, Latona, Skala. They are completely removed from the site in early August so that they do not rot in the ground. Mid-early varieties can be consumed after 70–80 days: Raduga, Nevsky, Detskoselsky, Sineglazka, Elizaveta, Skazka, Charodey, Naiad, Impala, Sante. They should be removed at the end of August. Mid-season varieties are tried after 80-90 days: Lugovskoy, Granola, Petersburg, Resurs, Shaman. They are removed in early September.
5. You should not plant potatoes in one place year after year, especially if tomatoes grew there before. Potatoes, like nightshades, are prone to late blight and other similar diseases. The best place to plant tubers is where onions, cucumbers, garlic, radishes, cabbage, radishes, beans, and green peas grew. The soil after potatoes is renewed in 3-4 years.
6. To get 2-3 more tubers from a bush, they pick off the flowers on the bush.Potatoes will spend less energy on flowering and will direct it to growing tubers.
7. Fertilizers for potatoes need nitrogen and potassium. Delicious potatoes grow on rotted manure and peat-manure compost. The tubers also like ash; it is sprinkled at the rate of 300 g per square meter.
8. The following recipe will help you save tubers for seed until next year: pour 2-3 buckets of boiling water into a container, add 0.5 teaspoon of potassium permanganate, lower the tubers in the tuber net for 4 seconds, remove and dry. The sprouts will not sprout prematurely, the tubers will not rot or turn green.

Read also:

What is the calorie content of potatoes and do they make you fat?

Mid-early table potato variety "Laura".

Domestic potato variety "Aurora".

Conclusion

Many of us have stereotypes about how to make potato beds. Summer residents most often choose traditional methods, without even thinking about their effectiveness. Don't be afraid to change your perspective on things: try new schemes, maybe even alternative ones.

Prepare the tubers for planting, plant them within the specified time frame, fertilize them, and store them properly until next year. Have a rich harvest!