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Early young potatoes. Already in June you can enjoy its refined taste. During this period, last year's potatoes lose their taste and appearance. The period when you can dig up young tubers depends on the region, variety and technique of planting potatoes.
Tubers are formed during the budding period of potatoes. However, harvesting young potatoes does not begin immediately after the green mass begins to bloom, because the tubers must grow and increase in size to at least 5 cm in diameter. The first root crops can be dug up at the beginning of the flowers falling off. The thin skin remains in the potato for about a month from the beginning of flowering. The taste of young tubers depends on the intensity of watering and soil temperature. If the potatoes have practically no taste and contain a lot of water, then it is too early to dig them up even for cooking.
How to determine the readiness of tubers
Potatoes have a certain ripening period. The main indicator of full maturity is the wilting and yellowness of the green mass, as well as the subsequent dryness of the tops. Hilling promotes the ripening of root crops, so if you want to enjoy young potatoes, it is important to earth up the potato beds on time.
You can get out of this situation by calculating 60–70 days from the day of planting. After this time, the top of the green mass must be cut off, leaving 10–15 cm of tops from the ground. This way, the peel will form faster.
Now we need to determine when to dig young potatoes, because we have already dealt with digging up mature root vegetables. Most often, the period of tuber growth coincides with the flowering of the tops. However, since these two processes are not related, tubers may begin to form before color appears.
In the central zone of the Russian Federation, early potatoes begin to be harvested at the end of summer. That is, the period for collecting young potatoes for food depends on the region in which you live. In the cold part of the country, potatoes ripen later, in the warm part - earlier.
If, after digging up young potatoes, you find that they are large in size, then the harvest will be excellent. This is due to the fact that the tubers still take 30–40 days to grow to full maturity, and accordingly their size will increase further.
Determining tuber maturity by date
External signs can be deceiving. Weather conditions can be confusing. For example, in the Moscow region it often rains, and in the Krasnodar region it is constantly hot. When can you start in this case? dig potatoes for food? It is necessary to carry out calendar calculations, and for this you need to remember the date of planting the potatoes.
Potato beds are filled with sprouted tubers immediately after frost subsides - in April - May.Shoots appear 2–3 weeks after planting, and after another 2–3 weeks the green mass begins to bloom. As a rule, 30–35 days pass from the day of planting to the receipt of new potatoes. A mature harvest can be harvested 60–75 days from the date of planting. The latest potato harvest is harvested 75–80 days after planting.
Harvesting methods
How to harvest young potatoes after flowering so as not to damage the tubers? There are several basic ways to harvest from garden beds.
Shovels and pitchforks are used as tools to dig up young potatoes. However, this technique requires strength and health. If you have already reached old age, then this method of digging up tubers will most likely not be up to you. Digging by hand will immediately hit the lower back, as it bears the heaviest load. If you are in poor health, take care of your musculoskeletal system and choose a different harvesting method.
If you are growing young tubers for sale on large farms, then manually digging up potatoes is out of the question. For this purpose, specialists have developed machines to facilitate harvesting work. These include a walk-behind tractor and a potato digger. Before starting work it is necessary mow the tops and remove it from the garden. Harvesting work can begin only a few days after harvesting the green mass. Since we are talking about young potatoes, you can only dig them up en masse if you are growing potatoes for sale.
Cleaning work
First you need to prepare a place where the new potatoes will dry.To prevent your young and tender crop from suffering from mechanical damage, drop the potatoes less, and if possible, try not to throw the tubers at all, since young potatoes have very thin skin. When damaged, potatoes become more vulnerable to disease and spoil faster.
The harvested crop should be stored in a dark, dry place. But remember, new potatoes do not last long and if they are not used, they will quickly begin to deteriorate. So dig it out as needed. For cooking, you can dig up as many tubers as you need at a time. The same rule can be applied to digging up potatoes for sale. Collect as much harvest as you can sell in one day at the market.
Already in the garden you need to distribute the harvest by variety. Otherwise, this work will have to be done at home. And this, as you know, takes longer. There is no need to dig up the soil after harvesting potatoes; this can be done in the fall, after the final cleaning of the garden. Young as well as mature potatoes should be stored in the dark. Sunlight will cause the tubers to turn green, making them unsuitable for cooking.
So, if you see that the potato tops are in bloom, then soon you will be able to enjoy dishes prepared from new potatoes. If you follow the advice outlined in the article, you will harvest the young harvest no earlier and no later than the appointed time.
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