How to prepare the soil for growing potatoes

If you think that preparing the soil for potatoes is easy - you dug a hole, threw a tuber and you're done, then you are mistaken!

After all, if we choose a place on our site where the soil for potatoes is lean and depleted, then we will not get a good harvest, even if we choose the best varieties of potatoes and diligently take care of the plantings.

- the nature is sensitive and tender. This plant requires us to know how to properly plant, and most importantly, the choice of soil and its preparation.

For a rich harvest, an integrated approach is important, the basics of which we will study.

Choosing a place to land

If you dig into Internet resources, you can often read that potatoes love loose, light soil.

But such ideal lands are rarely found in our gardens. With a certain approach, potatoes can grow on almost any land.

What about sandy soil? Such land is not particularly favorable, but with a competent approach, a rich crop of root crops can be grown on sandstone.

Sandy loams and loams are considered suitable.

Important acidity. The ideal soil for potatoes should be slightly acidic (with a pH of 5.1-6.0).

The vegetable does not tolerate acidic or alkaline soils.

Do you know how to determine the acidity of a site without much effort?

Gardeners reveal their secrets:

Weeds will help you! If the site is abundantly overgrown with wheatgrass, clover, coltsfoot or dandelion, then potatoes will readily take root on such land. Weeds are excellent indicators of the fertile layer.
An excellent helper is bird cherry. Take 4-5 bird cherry leaves and steam them with a glass of boiling water. Wait for the infusion to cool and throw a small lump of soil from the site into it. After a few minutes, consider the color of the infusion: if it has become reddish, the soil is acidic, greenish is slightly acidic (the most suitable for a root crop), and bluish indicates the neutrality of the earth.

But do not be afraid that the acidity of the soil for potatoes in the area is not suitable for planting a root crop.

Any environment is easily corrected by the application of certain fertilizers.

Which area is suitable

As for the choice of site, select an unshaded area. The potato needs the sun, a constant shade adversely affects its root growth.

If the soil for potatoes is darkened all the time, then the crop will be, but small, with small tubers.

Advice. Protect the area under potatoes from the north with plantings of dense shrubs. Rigid shoots will reliably protect young plants from cold winds.

Humidity also plays a big role. Lowlands are not suitable - they dry out late from melting snow, and potatoes love early planting.

It is categorically not recommended to sow the root crop in wet soil - the potatoes will rot without starting to grow.

When choosing a site, adhere to the following recommendations:

Do not plant potatoes after bell peppers, tomatoes and eggplants. After such plants, pathogens of diseases dangerous for potatoes remain in the soil. The best predecessors: greens, beets, cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, oats and wheat.
Do not plant potatoes in the same area more than 2 times in a row. The soil will already be exhausted and weakened. On depleted lands, potatoes will not please us, they will grow frail and barren. But, if it is impossible to comply with such advice, you can abundantly feed your site with peat, compost and manure.

Potatoes can grow in any soil. But be prepared to work hard to carefully prepare a "problematic" place for potato plantations.

Plot processing tricks

For a rich potato harvest, tillage begins already in the autumn months.

Remember that the root crop especially requires excellent drainage - its roots must breathe well!

In this case, the potato quickly forms healthy tubers.

Autumn preparation

If the soil under the potatoes in your garden accumulates melt water in the spring, the lowland should be “raised” and given a slightly convex shape.

So the flood will leave the site faster, and the soil will warm up sooner.

Advice. Along the edges of the potato ridges, additionally dig several grooves to remove moisture and lead them into a common deep channel.

Such an event is worth doing even if the garden has a high location of preferred groundwater. Otherwise, the soil will begin to "sour".

You can understand that the earth is turning sour by the following signs:

the soil is gradually compacted;
abundantly overgrown with moss, sorrel;
acquires a slightly bluish tint;
the consistency becomes similar to viscous clay;
begins to smell repulsive ("aroma" gives off sour).

How to grow soil for potatoes? It will be cheaper to pour crushed sand into the ground.

But you should not fill it directly on future ridges (if the site is not entirely clay).

It is necessary to pour sand under the beds:

At the site of future potato plantings, discard the top layer of fertile soil with a shovel.
Dig a trench 40-50 cm deep.
Pour sand there, but not to the very top. Try to leave 35-37 cm to the required level of the future ridge.
Turn over the fertile soil dug earlier.

Do not throw away unusable acidified land. Loosen it and leave it aside.

For a year, such soil is aerated and loses acidity. Then it can be used for beds.

Advice. Soil cultivation for potatoes (if it is acidified) is carried out annually. After 3-4 years, the site will rise well and improve its fertile qualities several times.

Digging for the winter. An important procedure if the soil for potatoes is rough and waterlogged. Such a site must be carefully and deeply dug.

But do not break large clods - they themselves will be crushed under the influence of oxygen and frosty air.

After digging, scatter the manure. But be sure to sprinkle the cakes with soil or sand with a layer of up to 5 cm.

This method will lure a lot of earthworms in the spring (you yourself will pay attention to their abundant number).

Worms are active generators of fertility, they will help turn any, even the most impoverished area, into fertile.

Attention! Fresh manure can only be used for pre-winter digging! In the spring, it can not be used, this leads to the development of fungal infections in plants..

Fertilizers. In autumn, you need to fertilize the ground in advance. Use organic matter (8-10 kg / m²).

If the soil is poor, doses can be increased to 15-17 kg. The effect will increase if potassium-phosphorus additives are added to the organic matter (4-5 kg per ton of manure).

Phosphorus-potassium additives can also be applied separately just before digging the soil for potatoes.

Better to use:

superphosphate 20 g;
potassium sulfate 25 g.

Potassium will help loosen the soil in the garden and make it crumbly. But chlorine can negatively affect the quality of the soil - it should be applied only in the fall.

When the soil is perfect. If you are lucky with the site and the land on it is fertile and has a suitable pH, you can do gentle preparation in the fall.

Instead of deep digging, plant ground-blooded plants (green manure) on the site.

They will help protect the mineral soil additives from spring washout.

In the spring, green manure is dug up. Use sweet clover, peas, alfalfa, lupine, vetch.

spring preparation

When the soil thaws in early spring and dries, the soil for potatoes must be well loosened 10-12 cm deep.

This procedure will save moisture and accelerate the germination of weeds (so it will be easier to destroy them during subsequent loosening).

The nuances of spring preparation of the garden depend on the quality of the land:

Sandy and sandy soil. In dry weather, such areas should be loosened 10-15 cm deep without overturning the upper layer layer.

Loamy, soddy lands. They need to be processed twice:

As soon as the soil dries up. You need to loosen 15 cm deep.
Just before planting potatoes. The soil is dug up to 30 cm.

Then fertilizers are applied to the soil and leveled with a rake.

Advice. If the winter period is snowy and harsh, draw drainage grooves from the beds. But if the winter and early spring turned out to be dry, deep digging is not required. In this case, the soil is slightly loosened with a rake.

Deep loosening is done in the following way: the forks are deeply stuck into the soil and tilted towards themselves, while planting the forks deeper into the ground.

Then the handle of the tool is pressed forward, shifting the upper layer of the earth away from itself.

Then the top layer of soil is loosened 15-20 cm deep.

At the same time, compost, ash, mineral fertilizers and organic matter (soaked manure or humus) are introduced into the soil under the potatoes.

Finally, the area is leveled with a rake.

How to improve the soil for potatoes

Each land requires an individual approach, special tactics and strategies.

What soil pleases you in your area?

Loamy/clay. Heavy and cold soil, it has little oxygen, quickly hardens and dries.

Such soil for potatoes requires abundant application of loosening products: compost (dung-peat), sawdust or sand.

Advice. It is better to store manure in heaps 80-90 cm high. Before entering potato plantations, it is better to withstand it for 2-3 years, mixing it with straw, peat and soil from the site.

Pour water over organic manure and put worms in there (try to find California ones).

Such worms multiply rapidly and ennoble the future compost fertilizer.

And so that the manure is not empty, grow pumpkins or zucchini on it.

Sour. The quality of such soil is improved by adding dolomite flour, lime or ash.

Digging acidic areas should be to a depth of 35-37 cm (shovel bayonet).

Organics should be applied the first year in a full bucket per m², in subsequent years - ½ bucket per m².

Advice. If you have insufficient manure, you can save rotted fertilizer. In this case, put manure only on the bottom of the hole and sprinkle it a little with soil (plant a potato tuber on top).

Sandy. It is difficult to “drink” this soil for potatoes with water, the moisture is rapidly leaving.

To improve the quality of the land, manure-peat fertilizer is needed.

Compost retains mineral fertilizers and life-giving moisture well.

Bog-peat. Such a site can please the owner if it is fertilized with manure mixed with potassium salts, ammonium nitrate and superphosphate.

These soils are characterized by low thermal conductivity, they are cold.

Advice. In the presence of cold soils (loamy, marsh-peat and clayey), it is better to grow potatoes on warm ridges.

Lay bark with wood chips on the bottom of the prepared trench, on top - a layer of manure, and then a soil layer on top of it. Then the potato will please the owner with a big harvest!

Let's summarize. Our potatoes love the warm sun and do not tolerate shade well.

If you place it in a shady place, you will not wait for the harvest.

The ideal soil for potatoes is light, warm and airy soils, sunny, illuminated loams. The acidity of the soil is about 6.5 pH.

How to use fertilizer

All the necessary fertilizers for the soil for potatoes can be applied at different times (autumn / spring).

But only autumn fertilizer will be different from spring.

Autumn work

The best fertilizer for a garden plot for potatoes in the fall is compost or manure.

Autumn organics:

It will help save the owner valuable time. Spring is already a lot of work!
If the earth receives organic matter in the fall, the fertilizer will have time to overturn well during the winter period, which will help young potato tubers to fully absorb all the nutrients.

It is better to scatter autumn top dressing evenly over the site and do this before plowing.

In autumn, mineral supplements are added simultaneously with organics (for each m²):

saltpeter: 12-13 g;
potassium sulfate: 25-30 g;
double superphosphate: 50-60 g.

Planting green manure is considered an excellent way to increase soil fertility for root plantations.

Such a “live” top dressing helps to preserve all useful trace elements for young potato sprouts.

The secret of the northern gardeners. If the soil for potatoes in your garden is located in areas with a cool climate, use one trick of St. Petersburg gardeners.

For many years they have been successfully using sphagnum (marsh moss) saturated with a solution of mineral fertilizers as autumn dressings.

How to do it:

Dissolve potassium chloride (7-8 g), superphosphate (10-12 g), copper sulfate (3-4 g) and urea (6-7 g) in water (bucket). Instead of urea, you can use nitroammofoska (20-25 g).
Sphagnum is dipped into the prepared solution and placed in the prepared holes, covering the moss with soil.

In the spring, when the potato begins to grow, its young roots themselves will find the rotted nutrient mixture.

This method is very good for increasing the yield and health of young potatoes.

spring work

In the spring, top dressing for potatoes is carried out according to the following standards (the amount is given for each hundred square meters):

ash: 4-5 kg;
potassium sulfate: 1.5-2 kg;
double superphosphate and ammonium nitrate: 0.5-1 kg each;
complex fertilizers (nitrophoska: 4-5 kg, nitroammophoska: 2-3 kg).

If in the fall you did not have time to fertilize the soil with organic matter, this can also be done in the spring (at the rate of 5-10 kg / m²).

For a rich potato crop, the soil for potatoes requires mineral and organic top dressing.

With the advent of the first young sprouts, the plants will actively absorb the nutritious ingredients found in the ground.

By applying certain fertilizers, you can adjust the yield:

The mass of tubers depends on potassium, nitrogen. If there is a lack of these substances in the soil, the potatoes will not be large.
Phosphorus affects the number of root crops. With its insufficient amount, the mass of tubers will not change, but their number will decrease.

Therefore, if the plans are to grow potatoes for seeds, gardeners reduce the introduction of nitrogen supplements and increase the amount of phosphorus.

In addition to root nutrition, potatoes absorb useful additives through the leaves (by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air).

Evaporation of organic matter introduced into the soil in a timely manner helps to increase carbon dioxide in the air layer.

Important! The more humus in the ground, the richer the soil for potatoes in microorganisms that release carbon dioxide into the air. The more effective the nutrition of our potatoes becomes! Therefore, the use of compost, bird droppings, humus and manure is so important.

Choosing the right variety

Successfully choosing a potato variety for a particular area is a responsible and difficult task.

Breeders have created many varieties of potatoes, focusing on the characteristics of the soil.

What kind of soil is in your area?

Sandy. Such soil mainly consists of sand with a small amount of humus and clay.

Sandy soil is very loose, but this makes it easier to work with.

These lands pass air and moisture well, warm up quickly, but cool down just as quickly.

Suitable varieties for sandy soil: Minerva, Rodriga, Slavyanka, Volzhanin, Rosara, Picasso, Typhoon, Latona, Ramona, Red Scarlett, Nevsky.

sandy loam. Sandstones are similar in many ways to sandy soils, they also have excellent water permeability, but retain moisture and nutrients much better.

Such soil contains good reserves of oxygen and nutrients.

Sandy loamy soil for potatoes is suitable for the following varieties: Priobsky, Adretta, Istrinsky, Ulyanovsky, Sedov, Bimonda, Early Rose, Nikita, Detskoselsky, Romano.

Loamy. Loams are distinguished by a high content of clay with a slight admixture of sand.

Loamy soil suitable for gardening, although it differs in some "heaviness".

Such soils have excellent moisture capacity and breathability.

For loamy soils, experienced gardeners recommend planting the following potato varieties: Russet Burbank, Zhukov's Anniversary, El Mundo, Bafana, Colomba, Panther, Bettina.

Clayey. Clay soil is considered fertile, but it is the most difficult to process.

Such soil poorly retains moisture, quickly cakes and coarsens.

In spring, clay soil does not dry out for a long time, so spring sowing in these areas is carried out later than in others.

peaty swampy. Peaty soil for potatoes is poor in mineral components; plant residues decompose very poorly in such soil. In order to improve the quality of peat-boggy areas, gardeners add sand and fertilizers, these lands are drained and limed.

Suitable potato varieties include: Alpinist, Early Belarusian, Luck, Lyubava, Vodogray.

Sod-podzolic. Podzolic soil is unfavorable for growing any crop on it.

In such soil, there is practically no fertile humus layer, and there are very few nutrients in it.

These lands simply "swim" after the rains and form a dense crust.

The owner will have to try to ennoble such areas.

Rocky. Most of the soil is made up of dense rocks and small pebbles.

These lands are extremely infertile, although they warm up well and keep warm for a long time.

A significant disadvantage is the fact that there are no microorganisms in it, they are washed out too quickly.

Water also does not linger in stony soils.

But even such soil for potatoes can be adapted, you just need to make an effort. Experienced gardeners recommend the following varieties for sowing: Altair, Zhivitsa, Breeze, Vesnyanka, Atlant, Dubrava, Zhuravinka.

Pay attention to such potato varieties as: Archidea, Blakit, Vetraz, Vytok, Kolorit, Lasunok, Lileya, Neptune, Odyssey, Rosinka, Temp, Uladar, Universal, Yavar, Yanka.

They are versatile and adapt well to any type of soil.

Successful preparation of the soil on your site!

And how to prepare yourself, we will tell in the next article.

See you soon, dear readers!