How to dig potatoes

Harvesting is a crucial moment. To determine how and when to dig potatoes, it is necessary to take into account many nuances in order to do everything right. It’s not enough just to dig up the tubers, it is important that they turn out to be ripe and tasty.

When to dig potatoes?

It is required to pay attention to trifles and some tricks. The main features of mature potatoes are the following:

1. Dying tops. If the tops are dried, then it makes no sense to keep the tubers in the ground. In this case, do not delay the cleaning. Within 3 weeks, the crop must be collected and laid for further storage.
2. Early frosts. If frost has come and the tops are still green, harvesting should not be postponed.

What affects the maturation of tubers?

Potato ripening is influenced by the following factors:

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1. Fertility of the earth. If the soil is rich in nutrients, then tubers can grow until the fall.
2. Soil moisture. With insufficient watering, the tops die off much faster. Therefore, it is important to take care of soil moisture. Watering should be of high quality and timely.
3. Fertilizer application. With excessive introduction of organic fertilizers, the ripening period of the fruit increases.

Weather

If in some cases a person can affect the rate of fruit ripening, then weather conditions dictate their own rules. Before planning potato harvesting, you need to study the weather forecast:

• start cleaning work immediately if weather forecasters promise heavy rains;
• the optimum temperature for harvesting tubers is 17 degrees;
• for harvesting, it is advisable to choose a dry day;
• to finish harvesting is before the onset of frost.

How to dig potatoes?

The organization of the harvesting process affects the safety of the crop. To tubers lay during the winter period, the following conditions must be observed:

1. For work, it is advisable to choose a shovel, pitchfork. If the soil is loose, you have to pull the tops and harvest. If necessary, the bush can be dug up. Each summer resident chooses what tool to use for work. You can damage the tubers with both a shovel and a pitchfork. The main thing is to work carefully with tools.
2. Manually harvesting potatoes requires a certain amount of time. If possible, it is worth using a walk-behind tractor. This will significantly save time and effort.
3. Potatoes should be sorted during harvesting. Separately, you need to store seed material, healthy tubers. Damaged specimens should be discarded immediately.
4. Before laying the crop for storage, the tubers must be dried. To do this, they need to be scattered on the ground and allowed to lie down a bit.
5. Do not rush to bookmark the tubers for storage. Root crops must be quarantined for a month. For this, root crops need to be poured into bags, and stored at a temperature of 13-18 degrees, with an air humidity of 90-95%. During this period, all ailments will make themselves felt.

After quarantine, potatoes must be re-sorted. Damaged instances will have to be discarded; they are not suitable for storage. Healthy tubers should be removed to the basement for further storage, maintaining a temperature of 2-5 degrees.

Potatoes are grown by all summer residents. The culture is unpretentious, but has some features. It would seem that it could be easier than to harvest.However, if you do everything according to the rules, you can not only get healthy tubers, but also save them during the winter period.