This method is ideal for many of our summer residents, whose land plot consists of only a few hundred square meters. After all, even in a small garden, you want to grow as much harvest as possible. To grow potatoes in trenches, you just need a relatively small area. But with proper care and favorable weather conditions, about a ton of potatoes can be harvested from one hundred square meters..
An equally important point in this method is that potatoes grow without the use of chemical dressings. The trenches contain all the necessary organic matter, which provides the plant with all the necessary nutrients and warms the roots.
Preparing trenches for planting potatoes
The preparation of the beds for potatoes should be carried out after harvesting, already with the onset of autumn. Decide on the choice of a site and start with digging trenches. All trenches should be in straight strips from north to south. For ease of use, you can pull the cord through the section.
You determine the length of the trench yourself, and the depth is about 40 centimeters. The earth from the trench is folded along the edge on one side. The next trench is dug after about 70 centimeters. In this way, you need to dig up the entire area prepared for potatoes..
The next stage is filling the trenches with various organic materials. Suitable for this purpose: weeds and all herbaceous plants, vegetable tops and husks of sunflower seeds, any food and paper waste. The tops of tomatoes and potatoes are not suitable for these purposes. She can bring great benefits to currants and gooseberries as top dressing. It needs to be buried right under the bush and next season the berries will noticeably grow larger..
The trenches filled with plant residues are covered with a layer of fallen leaves and lightly tamped. Birch leaves will be of great benefit to the soil, because they have the property of destroying harmful bacteria. The topmost layer will be regular earth. Trenches remain in this state until spring..
Preparing potato tubers for planting
Potato tubers selected for planting must be germinated half a month before planting. This will require small boxes in which the planting potatoes and greenhouse conditions will be located. For better germination of roots and shoots, water spraying is required (about once a week). And directly on the day of planting, sprouted tubers are sprayed with a solution of “Fitosporin”. This drug will reduce the risk of infectious diseases.
Planting and hilling potatoes
The contents of the trenches will settle a little until spring. This is where the land that was left along the edge of the grooves comes in handy. It is poured into the trenches until it is completely filled. For each potato tuber make a kind of “bedding” every 30 centimeters. It includes: a small handful of onion husks and dry bird droppings, as well as a tablespoon of wood ash. Tubers are laid out directly on the ash layer and sprinkled with ordinary earth from the site.
The time for planting potatoes is associated with climatic and geographic features. Some summer residents are guided by the flowering of lilacs. It is on these days that it is recommended to start planting..
Young shoots that appear may still suffer from night frosts, so it is better to sprinkle them with a small layer of soil right away. This procedure is repeated several times as the potato bush grows and thereby turns into hilling.
Watering and feeding potatoes
The acute need for watering a plant arises only during the formation of potato tubers and during a particularly dry period. Sometimes just one watering at the flowering stage is enough..
This watering can simultaneously become a top dressing if table salt is added to the water. For one large bucket of water (10 liters), add about 650 grams of salt. Such fertilization contributes to the enlargement of tubers and an increase in yield..