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How to mulch potatoes after planting: not all summer residents know why this is necessary
05.01.2023 09:04
Updated: 13.04.2023 06:58
Experienced gardeners assure that the potato harvest depends not only on collecting beetles, weeding and watering.
Some of it is about preparing the seeds for planting, the soil, the weather, timely hilling. But mulching the potato bed after planting plays an important role in this matter.
To properly prepare a bed for planting potatoes, you had to start in the fall.
How to act in autumn
1. First you need to remove all weeds and plant debris.
2. Then spread onion peel over the surface – this is necessary to protect against pests, and then dig up the soil.
3. Then add ash at a rate of 200-300 grams per 1 square meter of soil and urea - 10-15 grams per the same area.
4. Next, lay fresh hay in a layer of up to 50 cm, and on top of it, manure - 1 kg per square meter.
Even if the autumn is warm, weeds will not grow in the future garden bed, and pests that do not like urea will not settle in for the winter.
What to do in spring
During the winter, hay and manure should be compacted. If this does not happen, they are tamped down with feet or in some other convenient way. The layer should be 20 cm thick.
Then this mulch is moved to the edge of the bed so that the soil warms up, after which the mulch is laid out again, immediately marking out future rows.
Now all that remains is to wait for suitable weather and plant the potatoes in shallow holes – 10-12 cm at a distance of 40-50 cm from each other.
Pros
Mulch will retain moisture in the soil, prevent weed growth, prevent crust formation on the soil, eliminate the need for hilling, and also serve as fertilizer.
