Potato harvest time depends on various factors. The selected variety, planting time, weather conditions are taken into account. When to dig potatoes? This question is asked by many farmers. There is no definite answer to it.
Experienced gardeners know that harvesting depends on planting time. If you planted potatoes at the end of April, you need to harvest before August. But according to statistics, the most successful landing time is May-month. Therefore, potatoes are usually harvested in early September. Although harvesting is started from mid-August.
The vegetable variety also affects the harvest time. When and how to dig potatoes of early ripe varieties? Usually they are collected 4-6 weeks earlier than the rest.
When answering the question of when to dig potatoes, one should also consider how it is planned to use the vegetable. This means whether it will be immediately eaten or left for winter storage.
Young potatoes are eaten, and for this they dig it at the end of July. If it is planned to store it in the winter, then the collection is better to postpone a little. In this case, the peel will have time to become dense, and the potatoes will be better stored.
Is it possible to determine maturation by external signs?
Potato is a fairly popular crop in gardener beds. It is grown in large quantities. It is very important not to miss the time of digging and harvest on time. There are external signs that help to understand whether it is time to harvest.
Here are the main signs of potato ripening:
- The bushes begin to dry, turn yellow instead of green.
- The peel of the tuber becomes dense, thick, does not peel off, like a young one.
- The tubers contain the required amount of starch, which will allow the vegetable to be perfectly stored in the winter. You can find out by dropping a drop of iodine into a slice. If the starch is enough, the flesh turns purple.
- When digging up the tubers are easily separated from the root structures.
Do I need to harvest in time?
How to dig potatoes quickly? Much depends on the right harvest time.
Why is it important to harvest on time? If you collect potatoes earlier than a certain period, then the skin of such tubers is easily peeled off and you can’t save them for a long time.
For long-term storage, it is important that the peel harden. But overexposing a vegetable in the ground is not worth it. There are several reasons for this:
- Vegetables can be damaged by insects or pathologies.
- Tubers dry out and lose weight.
- They can rot from waterlogging.
- Vegetables can freeze in the event of cold weather.
How to harvest?
How to dig potatoes quickly is not an idle question. There are several ways to collect vegetables. Often, gardening tools are used, including forks and a shovel. Special agricultural technology is also popular.
You can dig with your hands, but such a process is too laborious. And gardeners at an advanced age also do not allow their health to stop on this method. If the site is large in area, it is more reasonable to use a walk-behind tractor.
Motoblock application
Agricultural machinery can be used if the entire tops of crops are cut throughout the site. It is worth waiting 2-3 days, and you can begin to harvest.
Equipment is prepared in advance. Check the rotation elements, lubricate with oil if necessary. Parts that directly loosen the soil are cleaned of dirt. Blunt blades sharpen.
When using a walk-behind tractor, the following recommendations should be observed:
- Bushes should be in orderly rows, this is taken into account when planting. Then you do not have to make uncomfortable maneuvers around the site.
- The intervals between the rows are 70-80 cm, so the wheels of the walk-behind tractor will not damage the landing.
- When harvesting, it is worth using special nozzles to adjust the depth.
- The machine is pre-configured so that plowing is easy.
- For uniform driving of the walk-behind tractor in the area, digging is done through the garden bed.
If you are alarmed by the question of how to dig potatoes properly and not get tired, the walk-behind tractor will certainly help in this difficult process.
Do it yourself or a potato digger?
Digging potatoes quickly and easily with your hands, of course, will not work. In this case, a shovel or "digger" is used. A similar method is relevant if the land is not more than 5 acres. If the area is larger, the technique should be applied.
The manual way to collect potatoes is as follows:
- One gardener drives a shovel under a tuber and lifts up.
- The second collects vegetables, following the first.
Using the manual method, it is convenient to immediately sort the crop. You can let the tubers dry on the beds.
Sometimes gardeners use a manual potato digger. This is a tool that is easy to assemble and disassemble. In a potato digger there are forks that work automatically. The tool is placed next to the bush, while the teeth go into the ground, the button is pressed with the foot. The teeth rise with tubers, and the earth goes down. Such a digger does not damage the tubers, since digging is done from below and on the sides.
Before you start collecting manually, prepare a place for storage. When collecting vegetables, it is worthwhile to ensure that the tubers do not fall and are not damaged.
So, we examined how to quickly dig out potatoes manually, without the use of technology.
How to prepare the land for plowing?
When cultivating potatoes, when and how to dig are not the only questions. Preparing the land before planting is equally important and will also affect the characteristics of the collection of tubers.
When planting, the earth is saturated with oxygen, using advanced processing. So the root structures and fruits can better form.
There are different ways to prepare the soil for planting:
- Deep cultivation by cultivators and plane cutters.
- Plowing with a plow.
- Recessed machining.
Spring training
If in the fall the main question is how to quickly dig up potatoes, then in the spring you should think about competent preplant land preparation.
When spring planting, it should be understood which soil is best suited for the plant. Clay soils are not suitable. It is also not worth planting where water constantly accumulates. These are various lowlands.
The most favorable soil for growing crops is loose, sandy. It is good if the soil is black soil, peat. If the earth has an acidic reaction, ash, sand and manure or compost are mixed into it before planting.
The processing method is determined by the composition of the soil and the region. Plowing by 30 cm is possible almost everywhere. If you dig deeper, the soil can become very oxidized.
Preplanting preparation of soil
To get a good crop, you should saturate the earth with oxygen. Loosening will help in this direction. You need to deal with it on a dry day. Dig the soil 15 cm.
Before planting a vegetable, a number of events are carried out:
- the soil is dug up by 15-20 cm to saturate with oxygen and destroy pests;
- enrich the land with phytophthora drugs;
- contribute minerals and organic matter;
- a year before planting, green manure plants are grown in the garden.
Spring and autumn tillage
With the onset of spring, after complete melting of snow and warming the earth by 10 cm, you can begin processing. The measures taken are related to the composition of the land:
- Sandy soils are loosened.
- Wet clay soil loosens twice - after drying and a day before planting potatoes.
By planting potatoes, the land is freed from weeds, insects. Fertilize and level the surface.
To saturate the soil with mineral and organic substances, you can apply the following options:
- 5 kg of decayed manure, 100 grams of ash, 50 grams of nitrophoska are added per square meter.
- For each meter take 5 kg of compost, 30 grams of nitrophosphate, and between the rows mixed ammonium nitrate and potassium salt in the amount of 20 grams each.
If there are diseases or pests in the soil, organics should not be used. Then you need to take care of the preparation with the help of green crops. This is a great way to improve soil structure and get rid of pests.
Autumn autumn topsoil plowing is relevant. With it, it is possible to improve the arable layer and increase the soil potential.
To raise the fertile soil level after harvesting, manure is scattered across the beds. Can be fed with superphosphate and potassium sulfate. Leaves must be collected and burned behind the garden.
Now it becomes clearer when and how to dig potatoes. Some recommendations should be considered in this process. Then collecting a decent potato crop will not be difficult.