The main methods of planting potatoes under straw
Planting potatoes under straw is not an agricultural novelty at all. In this way, potatoes were grown in the 19th century. Then he was unjustly forgotten. Now many summer residents return to the old technique and note that the harvest is getting better, and much less time and effort is spent on caring for the plants. If you have the opportunity to buy inexpensive shelter material or get it for free, be sure to try this growing method.
The main methods of planting potatoes under straw
Advantages and disadvantages of the method
How do we grow potatoes under straw. The technology, by and large, is mulching. The soil is covered with a layer of mulch, which protects it from drying out, overheating or hypothermia, excessive loss of moisture. Like any other technique, growing potatoes under straw has its pros and cons.
According to the famous gardener Galina Kizima, the method has much more advantages. So let's take a look at the main advantages of this technology:
- Organic and ecological material is used, which can partially replace manure.
- If you plant potatoes under regular straw, care and harvesting for them is greatly simplified.
- Mulch protects the beds from weeds and many pests.
- The ground under natural shelter does not overheat and does not dry out.
- The beds do not need to huddle during the summer and weed.
- You don't have to dig up the garden before planting.
- You can collect tubers without much hassle, just with your hands, or with a garden pitchfork.
- There is no need to loosen the soil during the cultivation process.
- The harvest after using the technology of planting potatoes in straw can be grown very large, in a good year 1:10.
According to the same Galina Kizima, it has a method and its disadvantages. Although they do not exceed the merit of the technique, they must be taken into account. So, planting potatoes under straw has the following disadvantages:
- The question arises as to how you can grow potatoes using this technology on a large plot. This will require a large amount of cover material, which entails significant costs and makes cultivation unprofitable.
- It is not always possible to get dry grass even to cover a small area.
- If the mulch is too thin, the tubers can turn green.
- In a grassy shelter, voles, mice, slugs are often found, which can destroy the crop.
- In a rainy summer, the coating can rot.
Very often, the technique is used by people who practice natural farming, which is environmentally friendly and without chemicals. After weighing all the positive and negative aspects of the technology, you can decide for yourself whether to start growing potatoes under mulch, or stick to the usual methods.
Main cultivation methods
There are several ways to grow potatoes under cover, each with its own characteristics:
- The classic method of growing any potato under straw without burying the tubers.It is the simplest one, it greatly facilitates planting and maintenance. But it requires a lot of material, the tubers sometimes turn green, the yield is lower.
- The combined method, when root crops are sprinkled with earth. More yielding, but planting is a little more difficult.
- With a thin layer of mulch. In this case, we bury the tubers in the ground, and much less mulch is used. The yield is quite high.
In dry climates, for example, in the Kurgan region, the first technique can be used. Where it is humid, as in the Smolensk region, it is better to dig in the tubers. Rains can erode the mulch and rot along with the crop. If the tubers are in the ground, they will better survive and grow.
It is also good to use hay as mulch. Potatoes under the hay are preserved and grow no worse, and dry grass is cheaper. The hay should not be too moist and fresh, so that the tubers do not rot. Weeds with seeds should be discarded before planting, otherwise they will germinate in the garden.
Classic way of planting
Potatoes in straw ripen quickly
How to grow potatoes under straw or hay in the classic way? It is necessary to properly prepare the site in the fall. If this is virgin soil, on which nothing has grown before, you can simply dig it up by turning over clods of earth with grass so that the roots of the weeds stick up. During the winter, the grass will rot and fertilize the site. If the garden has been used, you can plant siderat plants at the end of summer. These include lupine, mustard, oats, rye, phacelia. In the spring, the earth is dug up and you don't even need to fertilize the beds. Such bio-farming allows you to grow environmentally friendly products without special costs.
The next step is to prepare the tubers for planting potatoes in hay. To get a harvest faster, the seed should be germinated. To do this, the tubers are folded into boxes, lightly sprinkled with earth or sand, and placed in a cool, bright place. After a few days, weak shoots will appear in the place of the eyes. Large tubers should be cut, small tubers can be planted whole.
The next step is to prepare the cover material. It does not have to be fresh, some of the mulch can be preserved even after last year's planting. Before planting potatoes under the straw, you need to check for rot and mold.
Then they moisten the site, slightly loosen the top layer with a garden rake, and then spread the tubers. The potatoes are planted at a distance of 30 cm between tubers and 70 cm between rows. Sprinkle them on top with ash, as a potash fertilizer. Then the potatoes are buried in the hay. The layer of mulch should be at least 25-30 cm. Some gardeners advise pouring about 50 cm of mulch so that the tubers do not turn green.
Growing further potatoes under the hay is very simple. It is necessary to ensure that the mulch does not give too much sediment, add an additional layer in time. When the height of the stems is 10-12 cm, a small mound is created near them. You also need to make sure that the ground under the shelter is not too dry or wet. In the first case, the beds are carefully watered so that water does not fall on the leaves of the stems. In the second, the mulch is loosened a little and turned over.
Straw potatoes ripen very quickly. The harvest can be obtained in 12 weeks. Harvesting potatoes grown in such an interesting way is very simple. It is necessary to remove the casing layer, and collect the tubers with gloves. Some can be partially buried in the ground, they can be dug with a hoe or hoe.
Combined method
This method of growing potatoes under straw involves a more sophisticated technology. Since autumn, the land is being prepared in almost the same way as in the first case. You need to loosen it a little better. Before planting potatoes under straw in spring, furrows are dug in the garden bed, up to 5 cm deep. Ready sprouted tubers are spread at a distance of 25-30 cm from each other and lightly sprinkled with earth. The soil layer should be no thicker than 3-4 cm.
Sprinkle on top of the beds with a layer of mulch, 25-30 cm thick.Some gardeners advise putting a little humus, compost or wood ash in the holes so that the potatoes grow better under the straw. This method of growing any potato on straw is more reliable. Tubers root better, they do not turn green under the sun, they rot less under rain. But shoots may appear a little later, especially with a thick layer of mulch.
If you grow potatoes in this way in hay, you don't need to care for them. Soil moisture is not as critical as in the first case. The earth absorbs excess water better and retains it in case of drought. But there is also a negative nuance to this method, seedlings and crops appear later. To speed up the process, you can make the mulch layer a little thinner.
After this method of planting, the crop can be obtained in 14-15 weeks. Much also depends on the variety. For example, early Antoshka ripens faster, but its yield is lower. Late varieties are well stocked for the winter. They keep well and give a higher yield. Digging potatoes out of the ground is a little more difficult. But a shovel is not needed here either, it is enough to take a garden pitchfork or a hoe. After harvest, the straw is mixed with the soil and becomes fertilizer.
Growing potatoes with a little straw
Plants need to be fertilized
To grow potatoes in the two previous ways, you need a lot of material. It is not always possible to get or buy it. If the field is large, then the costs themselves simply do not pay off. How to grow then potatoes in straw? There are methods in which its consumption is much less. They can be used even over a large area.
How can you grow potatoes in straw if there is not enough mulch? The order and sequence of steps is almost the same as for the combination fit. Only the grooves into which the tubers burrow should be deeper, approximately 7-10 cm. It is better to germinate the seed before planting. A little compost or humus is poured into the holes, since it will still not work to grow potatoes under straw without fertilizers at all.
The tubers are planted at a distance of 25-30 cm from each other, the distance between the rows is 65-70 cm. They are sprinkled on top with a layer of earth so that it completely covers the planting material. Then hay or other material is poured over the rows, forming something like houses or pyramids. It looks like the potatoes are buried in the hay. Row spacings can be left free or sprinkled with a thin layer of hay. This will prevent weeds from growing, protect against aphids and the Colorado potato beetle.
Why is it better to plant potatoes under the straw in this way? First of all, this is cost savings. In a few days the thatched houses will sit down, after which they will not be dispelled by any wind or downpour. Tubers will not turn green due to lack of mulch. Hay between rows will effectively prevent weed growth. The main thing is that there are no seeds of harmful plants in dry grass.
Once the potatoes are planted under the straw, there is no need to care for them anymore. In autumn, the "houses" are dismantled and dug up the grown tubers. The soil will be loose enough so that harvesting is not difficult. It is very convenient to grow potatoes this way in hay on clay soils. After harvesting, the mulch can be left, it will rot, and after a couple of years the soil will turn into real black soil, it will be fluffy and easy to work with.
Useful Tips
You have read how you can plant potatoes under straw and what growing methods exist. Now, here are some helpful tips to help make the process even more efficient.
- If you have nowhere to get your cover material, you can grow it yourself. To do this, the garden is divided into two parts. On one of them vetch, oats and peas are mixed, and on the other potatoes are planted in the usual way. In autumn, do not remove the mixture of cereals and legumes from the first half, in spring you will plant potatoes under the hay that will remain from last year.
- You can plant plants under hay, and cover with cardboard on top.Cross-shaped cuts are made above each tuber in the cardboard. This method is suitable for a small area, since cardboard is a rather expensive material.
- So that late blight does not attack the plants, you need to water it with whey or skim milk ten days after sprouting.
- If you want a really good harvest, run under earthworm mulch. They loosen the soil well and fertilize it with the products of their vital activity.
- Potatoes in the hay and growing them can be prepared in the fall by laying mulch on the beds. In the spring, they raise it, plant the tubers, and again return it to its place. You can refresh the mulch with fresh dried grass.
- Burying the tubers, you can add ash to the holes, 1 tablespoon under the bush, and also pour a bucket of slurry on 3-4 bushes.
- You can plant potatoes under straw and not only. A good option is chopped stalks of corn, sunflowers, pea and bean tops, flax.
- You can apply hay in two steps. First put the tubers, then sprinkle them with a layer of humus and 10-12 cm of mulch. In a few days, when the hay has settled, add another 15-20 cm. This kind of growing potatoes in hay is more efficient, you can harvest a lot.
- If the soil in the area is alkaline, a little peat is mixed into the mulch. Acidic soil is neutralized with wood ash.
- If we plant potatoes under straw in a rainy year, they can rot. Therefore, it is worth slightly moving the mulch away from the stems so that the leg remains completely free, to make the layer of hay thinner.
How to properly plant potatoes under the straw in spring can be seen in the video tutorial, where the entire algorithm of actions is shown step by step. There are no particular difficulties in this. You just need to have a sufficient supply of mulch. Unfortunately, on large fields this method is not very acceptable, it is too expensive. Therefore, growing potatoes under mulch is more popular among summer residents.
Conclusion
If you go to any agricultural forum, look at the 2017 harvests, you can read very different reviews about this growing method. How many people, so many opinions. Some write about very high yields, others speak of technology as a fairy tale. Try to explain in more detail how the critics planted their potatoes, and how much the crop was received by those who leave positive reviews. Then you can draw at least rough conclusions for yourself.
If in further doubt, ask an experienced agronomist. He will tell you that the technique has a completely scientific basis. In industrial conditions, methods of planting potatoes under ordinary straw are not used. But similar technologies are used - planting under agricultural film. This technique is cheaper, but has its drawback. The film does not become fertilizer like dry grass or plant stems.