Many gardeners grow potatoes in their summer cottages. During its cultivation, it is necessary to engage in hilling. This procedure is carried out for better development of the planted crop and obtaining a good harvest. Before you start loosening the soil, you need to familiarize yourself with why you need to hill up potatoes and when you need to do it.
Why do people hill potatoes?
Many people ask the question: is it necessary to hill up potatoes? Therefore, before hilling potatoes manually, you should determine the main reasons for carrying out such a procedure. There are four reasons why you need to hill up potatoes:
- Improving the formation of additional shoots. Regular hilling of bushes promotes plant growth. This also has a positive effect on the number of tubers formed, since after loosening the soil, more nutritional components enter the lower part of the plants.
- Providing better protection of seedlings from low temperatures. After planting the plant in areas with an unstable climate, it is recommended to hill up the potatoes with a hoe to protect the root system from night frosts. The soil collected in a mound near the stem of the bushes is a protective “blanket” for them.
- Improved protection against gusts of wind. It is known that after planting, the tallest seedlings begin to break due to strong winds. A hilled plant has a denser base, which reduces the likelihood that it will break.
- Reducing the number of weeds. Some people engage in hilling up potatoes so that there are not too many weeds in the area. This procedure helps get rid of creeping wheatgrass, which damages the tubers during growth.
When to hill potatoes?
The timing of hilling is a serious issue that must be resolved before planting. You also need to figure out how many times to hill potatoes to get a good harvest. Gardeners carry out this procedure three times:
- For the first time, manual hilling of potatoes is carried out after the plants have grown 10–15 cm. If night frosts are predicted for the coming days, you will have to completely cover the seedlings with soil for better protection.If there is no drop in temperature at night, you should hill up the plant a little.
- Hilling should be done a second time after the first tubers appear. Most often, they begin to form two weeks before flowering begins.
- To hill up potatoes for the third time, you need to wait until the plant grows to 25–30 cm. This procedure is already carried out in the first half of summer in the absence of frosts at night. Therefore, the base of the seedlings is sprinkled with a small amount of earth. You can also sprinkle soil between the branches of the bushes to help them grow wider in the future.
How to properly hill potatoes by hand?
Before you hill up the plants with a hoe, you need to quickly pre-prepare the site. First you should completely get rid of all weeds that interfere with the normal development of potatoes. After weeding, the weed grass does not need to be removed, as it will protect the soil from temperature changes in the future.
It is necessary to loosen the soil only after preliminary watering or rain. Potatoes in a rainy summer should bury three days after the last rainfall. You cannot rake soil that is too dry or waterlogged, as this will harm the bushes.
It is not difficult to dig up plants by hand using a hoe. You can do this in two ways:
- In the first case, the earth is raked up to the bush from all sides at once. This is done to compact the auxiliary stems of the plant.
- The second method differs from the first in that in this case you will have to pour soil into the center of the bush while the potatoes are flowering. This method is used to make the bush grow wider.
How to hill potatoes with a hiller?
Often, not a hoe, but a special manual hiller is used to carry out the procedure.Experienced gardeners claim that this is the most convenient and affordable device that helps rake the ground when growing various crops. This device can be purchased in special stores for summer residents or you can try to make it yourself. Such hand tools consist of two blades, the angle between which should be 45 degrees, and a handle. To make your own hiller you will need the following materials:
- 2 hollow pipes;
- millimeter-thick steel sheet;
- lamp for heating metal;
- Bulgarian;
- welding machine;
- lanyard
The manufacture of a manual hiller is carried out in three successive stages:
- Creating a vertical stand. To do this, you will have to make a small bend in one 100 cm long pipe. It should be located about 25–30 cm from the top of the pipe.
- Making a plow. Any manual hiller must have one plow. To make it, you will need to cut two steel plates with a grinder. They are installed at right angles to each other and connected by a welding machine.
- Making a trimming knife. This element is the most important part of the design, since it is the knife that takes on all the resistance during cultivation of the land. It is also made of two steel sheets. They are welded at a 45 degree angle and attached to the plow structure.
It is easy to cultivate the land with such a hiller. To do this, you simply need to deepen the plow into the ground and slowly pull the device along the area with potatoes.
How to properly hill potatoes with a walk-behind tractor?
Some gardeners are surprised: why do you need to buy a walk-behind tractor if you can do without it? Its purchase is justified by the advantages of this device.The walk-behind tractor is universal, which means that it can be used not only for loosening the soil, but also for collecting ripe tubers. The main disadvantage of a walk-behind tractor is its too high cost, which is why not everyone can afford it.
Before using the walk-behind tractor, you need to make sure that all plants are planted at the same distance from each other. Two bushes should be 60–70 cm apart from each other.
To loosen the soil with such a device, you should install two rippers, which are located in the front part, and one hiller at the back. It is used to cover bushes with soil. Some people recommend using three-row attachments, which allow you to process three rows at once.
Conclusion
Many gardeners do not know whether it is necessary to hill potatoes and whether this procedure can be carried out when the plants begin to bloom. To figure this out, you need to find out why and when to hill potatoes for the first time.
