Author: KarenO

Fries, dumplings, gnocchi, puree – and have we already mentioned chips? These dishes consist of potatoes – hardly any crop is represented as richly on our menu as you. At least part of our potato needs can be easily attached in your own garden.

Basically, you can take any potato and use the next generation of plant and tuber to grow. However, it is advisable to choose from the variety of varieties those that are also suitable for cultivation in the private garden. And that’s quite a few: around 100, reports Kim Sharon Leary, specialist advisor for the allotment garden from Mülheim an der Ruhr.

The plant trade also offers so -called seed potatoes. “Compared to the food potatoes that are grown for consumption, the so-called seeds or plant potatoes come from special cultivation,” explains Martin Nickol, Custos of the Botanical Garden of the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel. Certification certifies that the potatoes are virus -free and have the quality for cultivation.

The culture’s culture begins in spring when the floors have heated up to almost ten degrees. From April 15th is a good time. But beforehand, the tubers have to develop the first shoots, which then accelerate the growth in the ground.

This development is known: potatoes in the kitchen are stored too warm or too bright, eyes show their eyes first and over time they turn from it. But: If these shoots become long and light green, they are worthless for culture, says Leary.

It therefore recommends putting the seed potatoes in egg boxes from mid -March and set up as bright as possible at temperatures of 12 to 15 degrees. “This is how strong, dark green shoots form.”

These tubers come best in sandy and sandy loamy soils. Heavier floors have to be prepared, Kim Sharon Leary recommends compost. He not only loosens the floor, he also enriches it with nutrients. Because potatoes are medium to strong consumers.

All floors have to be loosened again in front of the plants, then the promoted tubers come in ten centimeters deep furrows. A distance of 35 centimeters should remain between the individual potatoes, 70 centimeters between the rows. A thick layer of earth comes over the tubers and until there are no longer any late frosts, which is usually possible in Germany until mid-May, light and water-permeable growth films should protect the plants.

The plant now forms herbaceous, above -ground shoots. And with increasing size, so -called plagiotropic axes develop in the lower part of the stem, explains Martin Nickol. These are horizontal foothills in the ground that gradually become thicker and finally the tubers.

“The accumulation creates even more of these shoots,” says Nickol. This means that you keep taking earth from the spaces of the entire planting and gives directly to the individual plants – so they then grow on walls.

With a floor temperature of 15 degrees, the tubers develop best. “They stop growing in cool summers and also at temperatures above 30 degrees,” explains the custle.

The early varieties can be harvested in July and August. The medium -early tubers are brought out of the earth in early September and the late can be excavated until October. “The best thing to do is take a grave grinder and sieve the soil after tubers,” explains specialist advisor Leary.