Often in vegetable gardens or summer cottages, the same place is used for planting potatoes. Some people do this for years.
This leads to the next problem: the soil gradually becomes depleted, which, accordingly, leads to a reduction in the volume of the harvest obtained.
How to restore soil fertility in a given location? By renewing seed material, sowing green manure and following crop growing rules.
Tops
About half a month before harvesting, you should mow and burn the tops, which, yellowed and dried, may be affected by late blight.
After digging up potatoes, it is recommended to treat the soil with a biofungicide.
If the tops were infected with late blight, then treat the tubers with fungicides before storing them, and then dry them.
Green manure
Immediately after the potatoes have been dug up, you need to sow green manure (legumes, cruciferous plants, cereals).
Experienced gardeners recommend sowing cold-resistant and fast-growing crops, such as oats or mustard.
When the seedlings reach 10-12 cm, they should be mown down and buried in the soil.
By the way. Green manure prevents the spread of many pests and diseases, improves the soil, saturates it with organic matter, and restores its structure.
Fertilizers
After harvesting, we clear the area of tops and weeds, then apply fertilizer, and then dig up the soil.
In autumn, it is recommended to apply the following fertilizers:
– compost or humus (a large bucket per 1 square meter);
– peat for heavy soils (20 kilos per 1 square meter);
– ammonium nitrate (20 grams per 1 sq.m.);
– double superphosphate (50 grams per 1 sq.m.);
– potassium sulfate (30 grams per 1 square meter);
– ash (1-2 glasses per 1 sq.m.).
Preparing tubers and planting
After applying fertilizer, the soil must be dug up or carefully leveled with a rake.
Before planting (about a month in advance), prepare the tubers: take them out of the cellar and place them in a light room where the temperature is 12-18 degrees plus.
We carry out planting as soon as the soil warms up to 7-8 degrees Celsius.
