In summer, last year's potatoes stored in cellars lose their beneficial properties. And to satisfy the culinary preferences of vegetable lovers, young potatoes are grown, which are dug up in mid-late June. Two weeks after the garden crop blooms, yellowish tubers with thin skin appear on the markets. It is impossible to refuse boiled young potatoes with dill or green onions. But you can grow tubers yourself twice over the summer.
What are the benefits of new potatoes?
Young potato tubers contain hidden benefits and harms for the human body.But there are more useful properties:
- The vitamins and microelements contained in young tubers will saturate the tissues of the heart and digestive tract. Eating five hundred grams of potatoes daily will provide you with a daily dose of ascorbic acid.
- For the smooth functioning of the heart, potassium is needed, which is available in abundance in tubers. The element removes excess water from the body, which leads to losing extra pounds. Potatoes are useful for people with edema, dropsy, resulting from poor kidney function.
- The functioning of the intestines and its mucous membrane is normalized by daily consumption of boiled potatoes in their skins.
- By going on a summer potato diet, a person will improve his mood and improve brain function. Vegetable fruits do not contain fats, but contain a lot of proteins and simple carbohydrates.
The tubers, consumed with the peel, baked and boiled, retain all the substances beneficial to the body. And the amount of starch is much less than in old fruits. Young potatoes are useful for obese people. It contains ten to thirty percent fewer calories than the old one: from 75 to 90 kcal per hundred grams of product.
Who is the vegetable contraindicated for?
There are no absolute contraindications for eating young potatoes. The product must be prepared correctly and used in moderation for those who suffer from diabetes. Carbohydrates in tubers will cause an increase in blood sugar.
Fried young potatoes, beloved by many, are prohibited from being included in the menu for overweight people. Metabolic disorders after fried potatoes are guaranteed if consumed daily.
Mashed potatoes are also considered heavy food due to the high starch content in the dish. Elderly people with impaired intestinal function should especially avoid purees.
If stored incorrectly potato tubers harmful substances accumulate in them. Greenish fruits should not be eaten, otherwise the body will be poisoned.
Is it possible to get two potato crops in the summer?
In temperate regions, young potatoes are grown twice per season. First, tubers planted in spring are harvested in mid-summer. Then they are planted a second time and harvested in September-October.
Breeders came to the aid of vegetable growers and potato lovers and developed varieties of vegetables that produce two harvests per summer.
Ultra-early ripening varieties
So that potatoes can reach technical maturity, vegetable varieties that are ready for harvesting in forty to fifty days are used:
Reddish tubers of the Alena variety are dug up after 45 days. Potatoes are distinguished by excellent taste and the ability to be stored for a long time. The vegetable plant is disease resistant.
Ariel's tubers are light yellow in color and reach a weight of one hundred grams. Potatoes are designed for repeated planting and produce 2 harvests per season.
The Bellarosa variety is suitable for both summer use and winter planting. The rough, dense peel protects the tubers from mechanical damage. And the weight of the fruit reaches two hundred grams.
Early varieties include Impala with yellowish tubers weighing 100–150 grams. A distinctive feature of the variety is the low calorie content of the vegetable: it contains only fifteen percent starch.
For repeated plantings, early Zhukovsky potatoes with pinkish skin and white flesh are also chosen. It is ready for consumption after fifty days.
The advantages of early types of vegetables are their ability to ripen quickly and produce high yields twice.
How to germinate and when to plant vegetables?
Especially growing potatoes includes vernalization of planting material. It consists of preliminary germination of tubers.
A month before planting, healthy tubers are laid out on shelves in a layer of 2-3 rows. The air temperature is maintained at 12–15 degrees Celsius, then the vegetable germinates faster.
Wet vernalization is carried out for ten to fifteen days. The tubers are placed in boxes or baskets and sprinkled with wet sawdust. Sawdust can be replaced with peat or humus spilled with water. The conditions for keeping containers with planting material are an air temperature of 14–18 degrees above zero. It is better to moisten the environment in which the tubers are kept with a solution of mineral salts. It is prepared from thirty grams of superphosphate and twenty grams of potassium salt per ten liters of water.
From the germinated material, you will get forty percent more yield.
Tubers are collected for replanting potatoes during flowering. Sick and infected fruits are rejected.
Tubers with thin skin are not yet physiologically ready for the second planting, so cuts are made on them with a sharp knife. To avoid contamination of planting material, the instrument is treated with a solution of potassium permanganate. The tubers are then dipped into a liquid that stimulates seed growth. Among the drugs, it is better to choose Fumar along with the hormonal agent Gibberellin. Growth stimulants are diluted in a bucket of water according to the instructions. The tuber processing procedure takes three minutes. Treated potatoes should be immediately planted in the ground.
To get healthy tubers, you can plant them in the same place, but after digging up the area and fertilizing it with urea or ammonium nitrate.
Planted potatoes process as usual, not forgetting to weed and hill.
The second time they are planted in furrows at a distance of seventy centimeters and to a depth of ten. Planting dates: early July, no later than 5–7.
Harvesting
Potatoes are re-harvested depending on the time when they were planted. The harvesting period falls in mid-September - the first half of October.
Before digging up the tubers, mow the tops. After harvesting, potatoes are dried in a dry and dark place, removing damaged and diseased fruits.
After going through a two-week quarantine, the potatoes will be covered with a thick skin. It is sent for storage to a cellar or barn. Store potatoes in ventilated rooms at a temperature of 3–5 degrees Celsius and a humidity of sixty to seventy percent.
