Ways to quickly dig potatoes by hand. How and when to dig potatoes for storage

Harvesting vegetables, fruits, fruits and berries is quite simple. We see whether the color of, say, the fruit we are picking is typical, we can pick it (after all, there are many more of the same on the tree, and we will not harm the plant in any way) and taste it, finding out by taste whether it is ready. With root crops, and in particular with potatoes, everything is different: in order to dig up potatoes correctly and so that in the end the tubers turn out to be ripe, tasty, large and, most importantly, preserved as long as possible, right up to the new harvest, you need to know a number of subtleties and features of this crop . Let's try to figure out how, when and what is the best way to dig potatoes.

Digging up potatoes. © Sara

When to dig potatoes?

Every gardener must firmly understand that the process of final ripening, including potato tubers, is influenced by a huge number of different factors. These are the characteristics of the current season, the condition of the soil, the degree of infection by pests and diseases, and, finally, varietal characteristics, which also dictate their own rules.

For example, if you planted potatoes on the May holidays (or at the end of April, if the soil was well warmed up and was ready to work with it), then you can dig up potatoes around mid-August, until the end and beginning of September. This is the usual ripening period for the vast majority of the most different varieties potatoes.

Naturally, do not forget, or better yet, when planting potato tubers in the soil in the spring, write down the varieties of what ripening period you are planting: early, middle or late, because the period when you begin harvesting your crop will also depend on this. Don't think that the difference will be small. So, if it is indicated that the potato variety is early, then you can start digging it up for a whole month earlier than grade mid-season and one and a half months earlier than the late variety.

In addition, take a look at your plot: if you are a conscientious owner and weeded out the weeds on time, then perhaps your potatoes received the maximum amount of nutrients from the soil, bypassing absent competitors, and they can be dug up at least a couple of weeks earlier. And if there are so many weeds that you can’t even see the potato tops, then perhaps your potatoes have been starving and they need a little more time to finally “ripen”.

How to check?

Of course, you can always stop guessing and check whether it’s time to dig up the potatoes. To do this, choose a bush that is simpler and closer to the edge and dig it up entirely, inspect the tubers and the skin on them. If the tubers are easy to separate and the skin on them is dense, then it is quite possible to start digging up all the potatoes.

Important! This applies to beginners who are trying to grow potatoes on their own plot for the first time and on their own. Often, due to inexperience and ignorance, they begin to dig up potatoes right in the middle of summer. The harvest is good, but these tubers have a thin skin, they cook quickly, that is, they are ready for immediate cooking, but they will not be stored for a long time.

Let's take a look at the tops

If you don’t want to dig up the bushes, then take a look at the potato tops: have they turned yellow or fallen down? If this happens at the end of August, then the potatoes themselves tell you that it’s time to get them out of the soil, otherwise, unevenly, the frost will strike and the potatoes will become sweet.

It happens that part of the potato tops has died and the time in the yard is appropriate, and part of it is green and green, as if it were not the end of August now, but some June. Why is this happening? This happens among gardeners who were too lazy to sort early, middle and late varieties and plant them in different plots.

In this case, you need to dig up that part of the potato whose tops have fallen down and begun to dry out, and try not to touch the young tops, of course, if the digging is done with a pitchfork or shovel. With a walk-behind tractor, everything is more complicated: you shouldn’t go around these late bushes, you’ll have to sacrifice them and this will be a lesson for you for the future.

Phytophthora, which is not at all on time

By the way, by the time the potatoes are harvested, you can see the following picture: some of the bushes have already died, the tops on them are clearly dead, and some are “gnawing” on late blight. It has been noticed that such bushes may also have tubers affected by this dangerous fungal infection. And imagine what will happen if you dig up such bushes and place the affected potato tubers for storage along with healthy ones? True, nothing good: the whole or most of harvest.

Therefore, I advise you to dig up such potato bushes first, and either destroy the tubers removed from the soil or use them as livestock feed; I would not recommend eating them.

Do I need to remove tops when harvesting potatoes?

The debate about removing tops before harvesting potatoes has not subsided to this day. Personally, I firmly decided that everything is good in moderation: complete removal of the tops (to the soil level) will simply make it difficult to dig up potatoes - you will have to look for the place where the bush was.

The second problem is the same late blight: when you mow all potato tops entirely, spread the infection throughout the entire area, and when you dig up the tubers, you will also embed the fungus into the soil - which is what the infection needs. In principle, tops can be harmful, but in farms where potatoes are harvested by machines, hard tops can simply damage the tubers.

At home, I advise you to do this: first of all, we remove and destroy all living plants that are eaten by late blight. Neither tubers nor tops of such plants are needed. Next, we mow all the tops to a height of 12-15 cm, not lower. This way you will see the bushes and give an impetus to the tubers: they say they need to get out of the soil soon, which means you should stock up on a strong “crust”. After a week, you can start harvesting potatoes. By the way, healthy tops, devoid of late blight, make good compost.

Digging potatoes

First, choose a suitable day. It’s great if it’s hot and windy, if it hasn’t rained a couple of days before and the weather forecasters don’t promise it for the same number of days. Next, we carry out a control excavation: the potato peel is hard, the tubers are easily separated - that means everything is ready.

Step three - we estimate the probable amount of the harvest in order to know how many people, bags, wheelbarrows, bins or storage boxes and other equipment are needed. How to find out? A simple method: we dig up five potato bushes, select every single tuber from each, divide by five, and get the average yield per bush, which is quite accurate.

Next, we multiply it by the number of bushes on the site; again we have, albeit approximate, but close to the real yield from the plot. If there is something missing to transport or store this vegetable, we urgently buy it in addition. Remember: the sooner you dig up your potatoes while the weather is good, dry them and put them in storage, the better.

When going out to harvest potatoes, I advise you to take with you four lots of bags, a pitchfork (if the soil is hard to dig) and a shovel (if it will be easy for you to dig). You can also take a walk-behind tractor, but we’ll talk about it later. Not everyone has it and not everyone knows how to manage it, but progress is inexorable and this moment of cleaning cannot be missed.

Why so many batches of bags? It’s simple, I advise you to divide it into four batches immediately after digging up the potatoes. The first batch will be giant tubers, the largest ones, which can either be eaten or left for seeds. Place potato tubers in the second bag normal sizes, up to 80-90 grams, in the third - tubers, which are even smaller (40-50 g, no more), and finally, in the fourth - all the little things, trimmed, pierced with a pitchfork, damaged tubers, which will either be used for food immediately, or for livestock feed.

Potato digging tool

Shovel. This is a reliable tool, but it is advisable to have several of them, as the handles may break during the process. I wouldn’t recommend taking an all-metal shovel; it’s better to take one with cracks in the body; soil will spill into them and it will be easier to dig.

The disadvantages of a shovel are that it often spoils potato tubers - it cuts, leaves cuts, but the choice is yours, which also depends on the soil (personally, I could dig in clay with a shovel for no more than a couple of hours).

Pitchfork. It is also advisable to have a pair of pitchforks. Take forks with four or five teeth, no more, this will make it easier to reduce the risk of damage to potato tubers to a minimum. Be careful with the pitchfork, especially when you plunge it into the soil, you can easily pierce a rubber boot, so here I would advise wearing tarpaulin boots, they will be stronger. In principle, digging with a pitchfork is no different from digging with a shovel (although for me personally, digging with a pitchfork is easier, but that depends on who knows).

When digging potatoes, you need to stand so that the sun is looking at your back, so you can see what and where you are digging. Be sure to dress thoroughly, so that all parts of the body are covered from the sun, there is a Panama hat with a brim on your head, and on the surface of your clothes persistent aroma spray against mosquitoes and horseflies. As for shoes, then perfect option- these are boots (they may be hard to wear, but it will be very difficult to accidentally injure your leg). Several people should follow you, no more than a couple of holes behind you and wearing gloves, they should select potatoes and sort them into bags.

Cultivator. This is already from the area modern technology, it is designed for those who have the available funds and the ability to operate such equipment. A cultivator, in my opinion, is relevant if at least a hectare of land is planted with potatoes. A smaller area can be slowly dug up by three people. When working with a cultivator, it is advisable to remove all potato tops, leaving nothing on the site. But first of all, use a pitchfork or shovel to dig up the bushes infected with late blight, and at the same time, the tubers with it. Next, you need to wait a few days so that the grass settles down and does not interfere with work.

The weather is still the same - warm and dry for a couple of days. Regarding the choice of potatoes: here, most likely, you will have to do everything together and at the end of each row that the cultivator passes or, in general, after harvesting the entire area.

In order for working with a motor-cultivator when digging up potatoes to be a pleasure and not a chore, it is necessary that all the rows are level and the cultivator does not have to “walk” in different directions. Further, it is also desirable for the distance between the rows to be the same. Naturally, when digging potatoes for a cultivator, you need to use attachments, intended for digging up potatoes and nothing else. You should adjust the speed of rotation of the nodes so that they select the tubers, but do not throw them forcefully to the surface.

From my own experience, I can say that when digging potatoes with a motor cultivator, you should not dig row by row, it is better to dig potatoes through one row, otherwise one wheel will always move on the plowed ground, and the other on the compacted ground, which makes it more difficult to work.

What is good about a motor cultivator: it usually allows you to select all potato tubers from the soil, rarely spoils them, makes work easier and speeds it up incomparably. A couple of people behind the cultivator can also go and sort the tubers or do this later, when the work of the motorized cultivator is completed, as we mentioned above.

Drying and storing potatoes

After harvesting all the potatoes, you need to dry them before storing them. For this you need to choose a sunny and preferably windy day, but you cannot pour the potatoes in an open and well-lit place: they can accumulate, albeit a little, the poison solanine. Most best option- This is a canopy located on the south side.

Potatoes can be dried in fractions, since drying only takes 4-6 hours. Each fraction, after drying in one layer, with a turn to another barrel after two hours, must be placed in the cellar. An ordinary standard cellar has a depth of 2-3 meters, four walls whitewashed with lime and whitewashed every year, and bins - essentially large wooden boxes or standard apple wooden boxes, always new and dry. When pouring potatoes, you must not let them hit each other or fall from a height of more than 10 cm, this can lead to negative consequences, cause anything, even rot.

It is necessary to sort each batch, as we did on the field. It is advisable to have access to all potato fractions to check what condition they are in.

For normal maintenance of potatoes in storage, it is necessary that the temperature in it be at a level of plus 2-3 degrees Celsius, and the humidity should be at around 85-90%.

After storing all the potatoes for storage, pay attention to the field: all the tops and weeds, if they are disease-free (and weeds without seeds), can be collected and stored in compost heap. If you notice signs of fungal diseases, it is better to burn the tops.

That's all that can be said about when and how to dig potatoes.

Harvesting vegetables, fruits, fruits and berries is quite simple. We see whether the color of, say, the fruit we are picking is typical, we can pick it (after all, there are many more of the same on the tree, and we will not harm the plant in any way) and taste it, finding out by taste whether it is ready. With root crops, and in particular with potatoes, everything is different: in order to dig up potatoes correctly and so that in the end the tubers turn out to be ripe, tasty, large and, most importantly, preserved as long as possible, right up to the new harvest, you need to know a number of subtleties and features of this crop . Let's try to figure out how, when and what is the best way to dig potatoes.

When to dig potatoes?

Every gardener must firmly understand that the process of final ripening, including potato tubers, is influenced by a huge number of different factors. These are the characteristics of the current season, the condition of the soil, the degree of infection by pests and diseases, and, finally, varietal characteristics, which also dictate their own rules. For example, if you planted potatoes on the May holidays (or at the end of April, if the soil was well warmed up and was ready to work with it), then you can dig up potatoes around mid-August, until the end and beginning of September. This is the usual ripening period for the vast majority of different potato varieties.

Naturally, do not forget, or better yet, when planting potato tubers in the soil in the spring, write down the varieties of what ripening period you are planting: early, middle or late, because the period when you begin harvesting your crop will also depend on this. Don't think that the difference will be small. So, if it is indicated that the potato variety is early, then you can start digging it up a whole month earlier than the mid-season variety and a month and a half earlier than the late variety. In addition, take a look at your plot: if you are a conscientious owner and weeded out the weeds on time, then perhaps your potatoes received the maximum amount of nutrients from the soil, bypassing absent competitors, and they can be dug up at least a couple of weeks earlier. And if there are so many weeds that you can’t even see the potato tops, then perhaps your potatoes have been starving and they need a little more time to finally “ripen”.

How to check?

Of course, you can always stop guessing and check whether it’s time to dig up the potatoes. To do this, choose a bush that is simpler and closer to the edge and dig it up entirely, inspect the tubers and the skin on them. If the tubers are easy to separate and the skin on them is dense, then it is quite possible to start digging up all the potatoes.

Important! This applies to beginners who are trying to grow potatoes on their own plot for the first time and on their own. Often, due to inexperience and ignorance, they begin to dig up potatoes right in the middle of summer. The harvest is good, but these tubers have a thin skin, they cook quickly, that is, they are ready for immediate cooking, but they will not be stored for a long time.

Let's take a look at the tops

If you don’t want to dig up the bushes, then take a look at the potato tops: have they turned yellow or fallen down? If this happens at the end of August, then the potatoes themselves tell you that it’s time to get them out of the soil, otherwise, unevenly, the frost will strike and the potatoes will become sweet.

It happens that part of the potato tops has died and the time in the yard is appropriate, and part of it is green and green, as if it were not the end of August now, but some June. Why is this happening? This happens among gardeners who were too lazy to sort early, middle and late varieties and plant them in different plots. In this case, you need to dig up that part of the potato whose tops have fallen down and begun to dry out, and try not to touch the young tops, of course, if the digging is done with a pitchfork or shovel. With a walk-behind tractor, everything is more complicated: you shouldn’t go around these late bushes, you’ll have to sacrifice them and this will be a lesson for you for the future.

Phytophthora, which is not at all on time

By the way, by the time the potatoes are harvested, you can see the following picture: some of the bushes have already died, the tops on them are clearly dead, and some are “gnawing” on late blight. It has been noticed that such bushes may also have tubers affected by this dangerous fungal infection. And imagine what will happen if you dig up such bushes and place the affected potato tubers for storage along with healthy ones? That’s right, nothing good: all or most of the crop may be lost. Therefore, I advise you to dig up such potato bushes first, and either destroy the tubers removed from the soil or use them as livestock feed; I would not recommend eating them.

Do I need to remove tops when harvesting potatoes?

The debate about removing tops before harvesting potatoes has not subsided to this day. Personally, I firmly decided for myself that everything is good in moderation: complete removal of the tops (to the soil level) will simply make it difficult to dig up potatoes - you will have to look for the place where the bush was. The second problem is the same late blight: when you mow down the entire potato tops, you will spread the infection throughout the entire area, and when you dig up the tubers, you will also embed the fungus into the soil - which is what the infection needs. In principle, tops can be harmful, but in farms where potatoes are harvested by machines, hard tops can simply damage the tubers.

At home, I advise you to do this: first of all, we remove and destroy all living plants that are eaten by late blight. Neither tubers nor tops of such plants are needed. Next, we mow all the tops to a height of 12-15 cm, not lower. This way you will see the bushes and give an impetus to the tubers: they say they need to get out of the soil soon, which means you should stock up on a strong “crust”. After a week, you can start harvesting potatoes. By the way, healthy tops, devoid of late blight, are good compost.

Digging potatoes

First, choose a suitable day. It’s great if it’s hot and windy, if it hasn’t rained a couple of days before and the weather forecasters don’t promise it for the same number of days. Next, we carry out a control excavation: the potato skin is hard, the tubers are easily separated - that means everything is ready.

Step three - we estimate the likely amount of the harvest in order to know how many people, bags, wheelbarrows, bins or storage boxes and other equipment are needed. How to find out? A simple method: we dig up five potato bushes, select every single tuber from each, divide by five, and get the average yield per bush, which is quite accurate. Next, we multiply it by the number of bushes on the site; again we have, albeit approximate, but close to the real yield from the plot. If there is something missing to transport or store this vegetable, we urgently buy it in addition. Remember: the sooner you dig up your potatoes while the weather is good, dry them and put them in storage, the better.

When going out to harvest potatoes, I advise you to take with you four lots of bags, a pitchfork (if the soil is hard to dig) and a shovel (if it will be easy for you to dig). You can also take a walk-behind tractor, but we’ll talk about it later. Not everyone has it and not everyone knows how to manage it, but progress is inexorable and this moment of cleaning cannot be missed.

Why so many batches of bags? It’s simple, I advise you to divide it into four batches immediately after digging up the potatoes. The first batch will be giant tubers, the largest ones, which can either be eaten or left for seeds. In the second bag we put potato tubers of normal size, up to 80-90 grams, in the third - tubers that are even smaller (40-50 g, no more), and finally, in the fourth - all the little things, trimmed, pierced with a pitchfork, damaged tubers, which will be used either for food immediately or for livestock feed.

Potato digging tool

Shovel- This is a reliable tool, but it is advisable to have several of them, as the handles may break during the process. I wouldn’t recommend taking an all-metal shovel; it’s better to take one with cracks in the body; soil will spill into them and it will be easier to dig.

The disadvantages of a shovel are that it often spoils potato tubers - it cuts, leaves cuts, but the choice is yours, which also depends on the soil (personally, I could dig in clay with a shovel for no more than a couple of hours).

Pitchfork. It is also advisable to have a pair of pitchforks. Take forks with four or five teeth, no more, this will make it easier to reduce the risk of damage to potato tubers to a minimum. Be careful with the pitchfork, especially when you plunge it into the soil, you can easily pierce a rubber boot, so here I would advise wearing tarpaulin boots, they will be stronger. In principle, digging with a pitchfork is no different from digging with a shovel (although for me personally, digging with a pitchfork is easier, but that depends on who knows).

When digging potatoes, you need to stand so that the sun is looking at your back, so you can see what and where you are digging. Be sure to dress thoroughly so that all parts of your body are covered from the sun, you have a brimmed Panama hat on your head, and there is a persistent scent of mosquito and horsefly spray on the surface of your clothing. As for shoes, the ideal option is boots (they may be hard to wear, but it will be very difficult to accidentally injure your leg). Several people should follow you, no more than a couple of holes behind you and wearing gloves, they should select potatoes and sort them into bags.

Cultivator. This is already from the field of modern technology, it is designed for those who have the available funds and the ability to operate such equipment. A cultivator, in my opinion, is relevant if at least a hectare of land is planted with potatoes. A smaller area can be slowly dug up by three people. When working with a cultivator, it is advisable to remove all potato tops, leaving nothing on the site. But first of all, use a pitchfork or shovel to dig up the bushes infected with late blight, and at the same time, the tubers with it. Next, you need to wait a few days so that the grass settles down and does not interfere with work.

The weather is still the same - warm and dry for a couple of days. Regarding the choice of potatoes: here, most likely, you will have to do everything together and at the end of each row that the cultivator passes or, in general, after harvesting the entire area.

In order for working with a motor-cultivator when digging up potatoes to be a pleasure and not a chore, it is necessary that all the rows are level and the cultivator does not have to “walk” in different directions. Further, it is also desirable for the distance between the rows to be the same. Naturally, when digging potatoes for a cultivator, you need to use attachments designed for digging potatoes and nothing else. You should adjust the speed of rotation of the nodes so that they select the tubers, but do not throw them forcefully to the surface.

From my own experience, I can say that when digging potatoes with a motor cultivator, you should not dig row by row, it is better to dig potatoes through one row, otherwise one wheel will always move on the plowed ground, and the other on the compacted one, so it’s more difficult to work.

What is good about a motor cultivator: it usually allows you to select all potato tubers from the soil, rarely spoils them, makes work easier and speeds it up incomparably. A couple of people behind the cultivator can also go and sort the tubers or do this later, when the work of the motorized cultivator is completed, as we mentioned above.

Drying and storing potatoes

After harvesting all the potatoes, you need to dry them before storing them. For this you need to choose a sunny and preferably windy day, but you cannot pour the potatoes in an open and well-lit place: they can accumulate, albeit a little, the poison solanine. The best option is a canopy located on the south side.

Potatoes can be dried in fractions, since drying only takes 4-6 hours. Each fraction, after drying in one layer, with a turn to another barrel after two hours, must be placed in the cellar. An ordinary standard cellar has a depth of 2-3 meters, four walls whitewashed with lime and whitewashed every year, and bins - essentially large wooden boxes or standard apple wooden boxes, always new and dry. When pouring potatoes, you must not let them hit each other or fall from a height of more than 10 cm, this can lead to negative consequences, causing anything, even rot.

It is necessary to sort each batch, as we did on the field. It is advisable to have access to all potato fractions to check what condition they are in.

For normal maintenance of potatoes in storage, it is necessary that the temperature in it be at a level of plus 2-3 degrees Celsius, and the humidity should be at around 85-90%.

After storing all the potatoes, pay attention to the field: all the tops and weeds, if they are disease-free (and weeds without seeds), can be collected and placed in a compost heap. If you notice signs of fungal diseases, it is better to burn the tops.

That's all that can be said about when and how to dig potatoes.

Most gardeners begin harvesting potatoes when the tops turn yellow and dry. But what to do if some of the tops are still green, some have turned yellow, and some are completely dead?

Such uneven drying of the tops is due to the fact that neither during storage nor when planting potatoes do amateur potato growers select root crops according to varieties and ripening periods. All potatoes are planted at one time and harvested after about 70-100 days.

However, wilted tops do not always indicate the ripening of potatoes. It can lie down when there is an excess of moisture or nitrogen - then the upper part grows very powerful, while the root crops do not have time to fully ripen.

In some varieties, the tops remain green until the end of September, although the tubers can already be dug up. Therefore, the best option is digging potatoes, starting from the end of August until mid-September.

If you are in doubt, just try digging up one or two bushes and see how ripe the tubers are. Having found enough potatoes in the hole large size with a thick peel, you can start harvesting the entire crop.

Useful tips for harvesting potatoes

Firstly, with mown tops nutrients from the aboveground part they will begin to move into the tubers, due to which the peel will ripen faster and the shelf life of the potato will increase.
Secondly, diseases accumulated on the tops over the summer will not penetrate the tubers, which will also have a beneficial effect on the quality of crop storage.

After digging up all the potatoes, do not leave pulled out weeds and tops in the field, especially if you grow potatoes in the same place every year. Scattered plant waste will become a reserve for various viral, fungal and bacterial diseases, which could damage the new harvest next year. And the small weeds remaining in the soil will mature and complicate your work in the new season. Therefore, the tops and weeds are collected, dried and burned after a couple of days.

Potatoes are harvested, if possible, in dry, warm weather so that the dug up tubers can be ventilated and dry right on the field.

Dried potatoes are laid out in bulk (in a layer of no more than half a meter) or placed in bags in dark place for a couple of weeks - the so-called healing period, during which the skin of the tubers will become denser, and diseases, if any, will have time to appear.

After the treatment period, you will need to re-sort the potatoes, removing infected or damaged tubers, and you can store the potatoes at a temperature no higher than 2-5 degrees.

How not to lose your health on potatoes?

Before starting “potato work”, be sure to do a warm-up for your neck, back and lower back. It is these parts of our country body that can be significantly damaged when digging potatoes. All kinds of tilts and turns of the body, stretching and traditional deep breaths and exhalations are suitable here. You can simply hang on the horizontal bar if you have one. Stretch your hands too - rub them, shake your hands. You can also walk in place, raising your knees high.

Every 45-50 minutes, take a break for ten minutes. Moreover, it is better to rest not sitting, but lying down - so that the back muscles relax. If you have a hammock hanging at your dacha, that’s great - that’s the best place to load up. Or lie on the floor with a blanket.

Hypertensive patients should carefully monitor their blood pressure (take a tonometer with you to the field) and not work upside down until your eyes completely darken. What to do? Dig the potatoes while sitting comfortably on an inverted bucket. Yes, this will slow down the process, but you will feel great.

We will lift buckets of potatoes like this: we squat down smoothly, take the bucket, and rise up smoothly. No jerks or sharp turns.
Don't put full buckets, have pity on yourself. It would be nice to buy a few plastic buckets - they weigh much less than the old and rusty veteran country buckets.

The bags should contain no more than two buckets of potatoes, and not three or four. Do not lift the bag with a jerk, throwing it high on your back - it is better to sit down first, then straighten your knees: the load will be on your legs, and not on your sore back.

Have a good harvest everyone!

Vegetables must be harvested on time, otherwise the fruits will begin to deteriorate, rot, and become unsuitable for storage and consumption. However, if ripe cucumbers and tomatoes are immediately visible, then when it comes to potatoes, novice gardeners experience difficulties: when to dig potatoes?

What are the signs to determine when to dig potatoes?

It is impossible to name specific dates, since the timing of potato harvesting depends on many factors: what varieties were chosen (early or late), when the potatoes were planted, how you looked after them throughout the summer, and what the weather conditions were.

Some people start digging in July-August, others wait until the end of September. One thing is for sure: in the summer you should dig up individual potato bushes only in order to immediately use them for cooking - boiled young potatoes are crumbly and tender. But dug out for storage ahead of schedule Potatoes are not suitable because their skins are too thin. The slightest damage to the tubers can subsequently lead to their rotting and spoilage of winter supplies.

Most gardeners begin harvesting potatoes when the tops turn yellow and dry. But what to do if some of the tops are still green, some have turned yellow, and some are completely dead? Such uneven drying of the tops is due to the fact that neither during storage nor when planting potatoes do amateur potato growers select root crops according to varieties and ripening periods. All potatoes are planted at one time and harvested after about 70-100 days.

Most gardeners begin harvesting potatoes when the tops turn yellow and dry.

However, wilted tops do not always indicate the ripening of potatoes. She can lie down with excess moisture or nitrogen– then the upper part grows very powerful, while the root crops do not have time to fully ripen. In some varieties, the tops remain green until the end of September, although the tubers can already be dug up. Therefore, the best option is digging potatoes, starting from the end of August until mid-September.

If you are in doubt, just try digging up one or two bushes and see how ripe the tubers are. Having found a sufficiently large potato with a thick skin in the hole, you can begin harvesting the entire crop.

Is harvesting potatoes with a walk-behind tractor really easier than with a shovel?

Digging potatoes with a shovel is long and difficult - if you’re not used to it, you can put a lot of strain on your back. It’s good if the plot of potatoes is small and there are a lot of helpers, but what if it takes two people to dig up several acres? Many vegetable growers have long come to the conclusion that it is easier and faster to dig potatoes with a walk-behind tractor, and planting potatoes can also be done using a walk-behind tractor, which greatly simplifies the process.

Digging potatoes with a walk-behind tractor requires compliance with certain rules:

• the rows of planted potatoes should be even;
• the distance between the rows should be such that the wheels of the walk-behind tractor do not interfere with adjacent rows and thereby damage the tubers;
• Use special attachments for the potato digger cultivator to harvest potatoes, selecting the appropriate digging depth;
• if the walk-behind tractor moves easily along the strip, and dug tubers remain on the surface, it means that the digging depth is set correctly;
• To make it easier to control the cultivator, it is recommended to dig potatoes through a row, otherwise one wheel of the walk-behind tractor will go on plowed soil, and the other on hard soil.

Many vegetable growers have long come to the conclusion that it is easier and faster to dig potatoes with a walk-behind tractor.

You will find a video on how to harvest potatoes using a walk-behind tractor in the corresponding tab to this article. You are unlikely to encounter any difficulties in operating the cultivator.

Before you start digging potatoes, it is recommended to mow the tops along with the weeds 10-14 days in advance, leaving an above-ground part 10 cm high. This step is very important for two reasons. Firstly, when the tops are mown, nutrients from the aboveground part will begin to pass into the tubers, due to which the peel will ripen faster and the shelf life of the potato will increase. Secondly, diseases accumulated on the tops over the summer will not penetrate the tubers, which will also have a beneficial effect on the quality of crop storage.

Video about hand picking potatoes

After digging up all the potatoes, do not leave pulled out weeds and tops in the field, especially if you grow potatoes in the same place every year. Scattered plant waste will become a reserve for various viral, fungal and bacterial diseases, which could damage the new harvest next year. And the small weeds remaining in the soil will mature and complicate your work in the new season. Therefore, the tops and weeds are collected, dried and burned after a couple of days.

After digging up all the potatoes, do not leave pulled out weeds and tops on the field.

Potatoes are harvested, if possible, in dry, warm weather so that the dug up tubers can be ventilated and dry right on the field. Dried potatoes are laid out in bulk (in a layer of no more than half a meter) or placed in bags in a dark place for a couple of weeks - the so-called healing period, during which the skin of the tubers will become denser, and diseases, if any, will have time to appear. After the treatment period, you will need to re-sort the potatoes, removing infected or damaged tubers, and you can lay them at a temperature no higher than +2+5 degrees.