Content
Potatoes are a crop that must be grown even in the smallest garden to obtain early produce. In addition, its calorie content per 100 grams is only 61 kcal, and the content of nutrients is much higher than in the old one. You don’t need to do any magic on it to make it tasty, just boil it and sprinkle with dill. The only drawback of young potatoes is that this product is seasonal, very expensive, and when buying it in a store, we cannot be sure that ripening has not been accelerated in a way dangerous to health.
It is best to grow young potatoes yourself and eat them from your own garden. But what should residents of regions with cold climates do? Planting potatoes in April in those areas where summer comes late will be the topic of our article. Of course, if you plant potatoes in greenhouses or greenhouses, you can get an early harvest without any tricks, but our article is intended for those gardeners who do not have this opportunity.
What you need to grow potatoes
In order to get a good potato harvest, you need to properly prepare it and plant it in warm soil in a sunny place. In cold soil with temperature below 12 degrees it will not germinate, but will lie as if in a pantry until the soil warms up.
About, how to prepare tubers for germination we described in detail earlier.
Then it needs to be germinated and can be planted.
Planting potatoes in April
There are probably many ways to grow potatoes early; we present to your attention the three most popular and proven ones.
Landing under the ridges
This is not the best method; it allows you to start planting no earlier than the soil warms up to 8 degrees. But even a week stolen from unkind weather makes a difference. The combs need to be cut in the fall, since if you do this in the spring you will have to wait until they warm up in the sun. The top layer of soil on autumn hills warms up quickly after the snow melts.
In the depression between the two ridges we place a layer of organic material - rotted manure is best, but if this is not available, compost or rotted straw will do. Place the potatoes with their sprouted eyes up on a layer of organic matter, lightly pressing them into the surface of the substrate, and sprinkle with a thin, about 2-3 cm layer of humus. Let's take the top, well-heated layer of earth from the surface of the soil and sprinkle our planting with a layer of 5-8 cm.
We will use the remaining soil from the ridges as the soil warms up for hilling the potatoes. You will have to do more hilling than with conventional cultivation as the potatoes sprout. At the end of the season, the entire ridge will move onto the potatoes.
The northern weather is treacherous; frosts are possible after germination. Cover the planting with lutrasteel or agrofibre, if you have enough of them; if not, place the tops in a groove and sprinkle with earth from the ridges.When the frosts have passed and the sun comes out, she will stretch up on her own.
Planting potatoes under covering material
Spunboard or agora fiber can be used as a covering material for early planting of potatoes. They easily protect plants at temperatures of minus 5 degrees, and denser and more expensive varieties can keep temperatures lower. They are lightweight and easy to use, allow heat and moisture to pass through, and can be used for many years. Their only drawback is the cost - after all, in order to cover a potato field you need a lot of material.
Before planting potatoes, it is good to warm the soil. To do this, cover the soil with cardboard, old newspapers, or even better, black plastic film or black agrofibre. If we plant the tubers in preheated soil, we will save a few more days.
Growing potatoes under straw
The beauty of this method is that it does not require loosening the soil. You can make small furrows or lightly loosen the soil with a rake, but many gardeners do not even do this.
The potatoes are laid out evenly on the heated soil. in rows and sprinkle a little with heated soil, rotted humus or compost. A layer of hay or last year's straw 20-30 cm thick is placed on top. The advantages of planting potatoes in this way are obvious:
- If necessary, to collect young potatoes, you do not need to dig up the entire bush, which will still have many small, unsuitable tubers.It is enough to stick your hand into the straw and pick up as many tubers as you need, and of the desired size.
- Harvesting is very easy - you just need to turn the straw over with a pitchfork.
- It is much easier for sprouts to grow through straw than through soil.
- There are no weeds, therefore we get rid of weeding.
- Straw holds moisture well, watering will be significantly reduced.
- The straw, continuing to slowly rot, will provide the potatoes not only with warmth, but also with useful substances.
There are also some disadvantages here, but they are not as significant as the advantages:
- In windy areas, the straw will have to be secured somehow to prevent it from being blown away by the wind.
- You need to get straw somewhere, you may have to buy it, and this is an additional material cost.
- An area filled with straw will look unsightly. I think we can survive this.
Conclusion
As you can see, you can plant potatoes in April even in the North-West. There are several methods that are very different from each other. Choose the right one and perhaps, after trying it once, you will no longer want to plant potatoes the “old-fashioned” way. Watch a short video about early planting of tubers under dry grass:
And for lovers of lunar calendars, we note that there are no favorable days for planting potatoes in April 2019. Wait May.
