"Antoshka, Antoshka, let's go digging potatoes!""The words of this children's song are known to all. But in order to drip potatoes, it must first be grown. In our country, potatoes have always been one of the main food products. No wonder the people call it "second bread". Therefore, it is grown by everyone who has such an opportunity, and, of course, the desire. It should be noted that the yield of this indispensable vegetable culture in the kitchen gardens and household plots is still very low. But the potential for the best varieties of potatoes is up to 700 quintals per hectare, or even more. The reason is that the earth loves skillful and careful care. The pledge of a high yield of potatoes is the use of good elite varieties, as well as competent agricultural technology. How to grow potatoes to get a big harvest? What are the methods of growing it? This is what we will talk about in this article. The most competent and experienced growers spend much less time on growing potatoes, but at the same time they get a bigger crop of much better quality than most other gardeners. The choice of varieties, planting potatoes, hilling - each vegetable grower has its own techniques and secrets of how to grow a good harvest of potatoes.

Soil for potatoes

To grow potatoes you need a loose,fertile, slightly acidic soil. Preparation of the soil begins usually in the autumn. The earth should be cleared of weeds - dandelion, wheat grass, sow, and also destroy pests in it - bears, a beetle, a beetle, and their larvae, from the larvae of the Colorado beetle. Then the earth digs up to the depth of the bayonet bayonet. When plowing, it plows to a depth of 25-30cm. Before this, it is advisable to add fertilizer to the land - a bucket of rotted manure or compost, thirty grams of superphosphate, fifteen grams of potassium and phosphorus fertilizers are mixed per square meter. Nitrogen fertilizers are left until the spring, because they dissolve very easily. If the garden is sour and heavy, which can be determined by growing weeds - sorrel, horsetail, plantain, then in the fall add another 300-500 g of lime or ash per square meter. It is not necessary to smash clods and level the dug up land, because large clods of earth better hold up the snow. Therefore, it will accumulate more moisture, and the pests that remain in the earth will perish.

Preparation of seed potatoes

Many truck farmers ask how to growpotatoes from seeds. The best material for planting potatoes are tubers from summer planting or two crops, but you can also use common tubers obtained from a one-time spring planting. When potatoes are grown by tubers, the best shrubs should be noted before harvesting. After that it is necessary to choose from them healthy tubers of the correct form. If at harvesting in the bush there will be at least one diseased fruit, then from this hole and the remaining tubers it is better not to leave to land. The selected tubers should be well dried and then kept in scattered light for one and a half to two weeks for gardening. For this purpose, the potatoes are spilled in one or two layers, periodically turning it over. When all the pulp from its surface to the middle of the tuber will have a greenish color, landscaping can be completed. These tubers are stored until the spring without going through. It should be remembered that such tubers can not be eaten either by themselves or by feeding cattle, because they contain solonine, a poisonous substance. If you want an early potato crop, you should prepare it long before sowing. Three to four weeks before planting the potato tubers should be placed in warm light rooms, for germination. Potatoes can be germinated in boxes with wet sawdust, which are put in a room with a temperature of 12-14 ° C. During this period, sprouts begin to form and the root system develop. You can also grow potatoes in polyethylene bags, in which you need to cut openings for air circulation. The bags are suspended in a light warm room at a low altitude. In this situation, all the tubers are illuminated evenly, so there is no need to shift them. This prevents germs from breaking off.

Growing seedlings and the potato itself

After the tubers sprouted, one canbegin to grow seedlings. Do this in boxes or in heavy paper bags filled with earth. Seedlings should be kept until emergence in a dark cool room, the air temperature in which 10-12 ° C. When the shoots appeared, the seedlings should be transferred to a bright place, and it can be planted in the soil from the middle of April. If the frosts suddenly strike, the plant is grounded or covered with a film. This method can get potatoes as early as the end of May. To make it easier to take care of the potatoes, the area before planting is labeled or the potatoes are planted on the cord. The distance between the rows should be 60 cm, and between the potato bushes - 30 cm. Potatoes are planted at a depth of 6-10 cm when the soil warms up no less than 5 ° C. Before the first loosening or even during planting, nitrogen fertilizer is introduced into the soil. There is a practice of growing early potatoes from tubers with long sprouts. To do this, they are germinated for 30-40 days at a temperature of 12-14 ° C, in a dark room, moistening them periodically with water until long sprouts appear. For cultivation, tubers with a large number of shoots weighing 70-100 g are taken. These tubers are planted, pulling sprouts and sprinkling them with soil, which results in a multi-stem bush. Each tuber under the ground forms tubers. This method of planting allows you to save half the seed material, and the harvest is increased by 1.5-2 times. This way of growing potatoes is used with good irrigation. The emergence of shoots can be accelerated by covering the black layer with planted areas. The film is removed after emergence. It can be left, but in order for the sprouts to grow outward, it is necessary to make cross-shaped incisions over each bush. This method greatly simplifies the care of potatoes, because under the film the soil moisture lasts longer and the weeds do not germinate.

Care of potatoes

Care for potatoes must begin almost immediatelyafter its landing. Many gardeners often make the mistake of postponing nursing until the appearance of the first shoots. The fact is that the germinating tubers in the soil constantly need access to air, the supply of which can be provided only by loosening. Moreover, many weeds come out of the earth much earlier than potato sprouts. These weeds grow very fast, consuming a lot of nutrients and moisture, which they take from cultivated plants. Thus, they oppress potatoes, which, in turn, affects the size of its harvest. Therefore, it is so important to clean and weed out a young weed of weeds, which is killed by the slightest damage to the teeth of a rake or harrow. With ingrained weeds it is much harder to fight. It is also necessary to loosen the soil after watering and raining, as a solid crust appears on the surface of the earth, which disrupts normal air exchange, which significantly retards the germination of the potato. When there are full-fledged shoots, the soil needs to be loosened, while removing the weeds around each bush, and not only in the aisles. On hard and dense soil loosening should be done deeper. If there are leaves in the ground, they should be raised with hands. With the threat of frosts, it is necessary to create a smoke screen for potato shoots. To do this, from the lee side along the edge of the garden lay piles of weeds and dry branches and set them on fire with a sharp drop in temperature. If the garbage is very dry, then it needs to be sprinkled with earth to form more smoke. Before freezing, shoots, especially at night, can also be covered with earth. After the frost has passed, the soil is leveled with rakes.

Top dressing of potatoes

Potatoes are fed with a bird's litter,diluted in water. To do this, the bird droppings are bred in a large container, with half full water, at a rate of 80-100 g per square meter. After a few days, this solution begins to wander, and after the fermentation it is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10. This solution watered the ground around the plants at a rate of 1.5-2 liters per bush. It must be carefully monitored so that the solution does not fall on the leaves, otherwise they will get burned. Potatoes can also be fed with slurry. Thus it is necessary to mean, that it is necessary to feed up with one one - or the bird's droppings, or manure. Excess in this case will not play into the hands of potatoes. After top dressing the soil must necessarily be bored or loosened. To obtain high yields of potatoes, it is necessary to regularly water the soil, because in the heat and drought the growth of bushes is suspended, and the rains that fall after cause the ugliness of the tubers and their proliferation. Potatoes are watered in the evening, at least two or three liters per bush. Watering should be done 3-4 times a week. Very important is the watering during flowering, as well as the formation of tubers. The next day after watering, you need to loosen the land with hand hoes. Caring for potatoes, it is necessary to avoid damage to the tops, as this reduces the yield. Ogorodniki, who do not know the specifics of potato growth, are afraid of too much development of a potato bush. But in vain. A strong healthy top, on the contrary, is favorable and provides a high yield of tubers. The fall of the crop occurs when there is a lack of light or nitrogen in the soil. In order to correct these shortcomings, it is necessary to feed the plant abundantly with sulphate or potassium chloride and superphosphate, which contribute to the formation of the tuber. It should also be borne in mind that planting of potatoes is not placed in heavily shaded areas.

Hilling of potatoes

As soon as the tops grew by 15-20 cm,start to hilling the plant. To the tops, the earth is shoveled with choppers so that a small bump is formed around the bush, which will cover the lower part of the stem to the leaves. Before hilling it is useful to feed potatoes with organic or mineral fertilizers. They should be scattered in the aisles five centimeters from the stems. When hilling these fertilizers are buried under the bush. For each bush fertilizers are taken from the calculation: superphosphate - 5-6 g, sulphate or potassium chloride - 3-4 g, ammonium nitrate - 2-3 g. If the fertilizer is used for liquid fertilizing, then in the middle of the inter-row is digging shallow grooves, where they make solution. On a bucket of water take two tablespoons of potassium and nitrogen fertilizers and four tablespoons of phosphorus. For each bush is taken 1,5-2 liters of such a solution.

Fighting pests and diseases of potatoes

Ogorodnik during the growing season of potatoesit is necessary to carry out the necessary measures for protection against pests and disease prevention. Big damage to the potato causes viral diseases. To combat this scourge, only healthy seeds should be planted. You can grow them on your site. To do this, after harvesting the early crops, you must destroy all diseased plants that were identified during the growing season. The greatest danger is represented by fungal diseases. Therefore, for prevention, you need to spend one or two spraying - at the beginning of flowering, and then at the beginning of bud development. For potato tubers should be monitored during storage, since in a couple of weeks cleaning field may cause a problem. The most dangerous for potatoes is the Colorado beetle. He himself, and his larvae, are very gluttonous. The damage to the leaves caused by them significantly affects the yield. To combat the Colorado potato beetle, the plant is treated with biological and chemical preparations. Other ways of fighting are used. The leaves of potatoes and the soil around the bush should be checked regularly. Zhukov, oviposition and larvae are collected in a bowl containing kerosene or a saturated salt solution. Timely weeding, hilling and loosening also help in combating the Colorado potato beetle.

Cleaning and storage of potatoes

With proper preparation of tubers and literatecare of soil and shoots a good harvest of potatoes is provided to you. Summer plantings are collected in early autumn. Tubers from her are better kept, and germinate only in April. It should be noted that the potato tuber is a living organism in which physiological processes continue after harvesting. It is necessary to remove them carefully: you can not throw them, you should carefully pack them in sacks or boxes. Caution is also needed when transporting. Storage temperature is reduced gradually, bringing it to 1-3 ° C. At minus temperature potatoes can die, therefore it is inadmissible. At zero temperature, the starch in potato tubers turns into sugar, from which the tubers become sweet. But this process is reversible, and the taste of the potato is restored if it is kept for several days at room temperature. Stored potatoes in dark storages with a relative humidity of 80-90%: cellars, cellars, underground. In dry storage, the weight of the tuber is lost. Inadmissible and high humidity. Therefore, the room should be well ventilated. Potatoes can also be stored in temporary storage facilities - trenches, pits, burs. In them the potatoes are also kept well.

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