New potatoes quickly satisfy our longing for this tuber. Before the gardener knows it, they are ready to harvest. Of course, everything has to be well prepared before planting and the seeds have to be planted correctly.

New potatoes are planted in early spring

Only choose suitable varieties

The numerous potato varieties are divided into early, medium and late bearing varieties. If you want to harvest potatoes early, you should also choose special early potato varieties.

The variety of varieties is large and requires a close look to see which of them best meets your own requirements. The following features help with the decision:

  • Cooking properties: from waxy to mealy
  • Differences in crop yield
  • Deviations regarding shelf life
  • flavor and color characteristics

tips

Garden centres, hardware stores and well-stocked supermarkets offer some pre-germinated varieties in good time in spring. The online trade can fulfill special variety requests.

Pre-germinate seed potatoes

In order for the harvest to start as early as possible, you should pre-germinate the seed potatoes if you did not buy them already pre-germinated. Pre-germination leads to vigorous plants that yield about a fifth more harvest.

  • germinate in March
  • Place tubers in boxes with moist soil
  • store at 15 to 20 degrees Celsius
  • keep cooler after sprouting
  • from a seed length of 3 cm put it in a cooler place again to harden

planting time

The ideal time for planting new potatoes is in early spring. They are placed outdoors at the end of March or April. They only need about 90 days to be ready for harvest, so the harvest time is already in June.

tips

If you plant early potatoes in the greenhouse, you can plant about 3 weeks earlier.

ideal floor

Potatoes are so-called heavy feeders. During the three months of their vegetation period, new potatoes must have all the nutrients they need for tuber formation. Therefore, the bed should be supplied with compost or horn meal in good time before planting.

The location should also be sunny, because heat and light are two other factors besides water that affect the harvest, to our delight.

planting guide

New potatoes are not planted as deep as other potato varieties, otherwise the planting process is no different.

  1. Clear the bed of weeds.
  2. Mark the rows with string. The distance should be 30 cm.
  3. Dig a hole about 5 cm deep along the string for each potato. The distance between two holes should be 30 cm.
  4. Place a seed potato in each hole, shoots facing up.
  5. Cover the seed loosely with soil.
  6. After 2-3 weeks, the first shoots appear above the ground. Wait until they have grown to about 15 to 20 cm.
  7. Pile up the potatoes and remove any newly grown weeds in this step.

care until harvest

The bed is weeded and richly enriched with nutrients. Enough precipitation falls from the sky this early in the year to provide the potato plants with water. So after piling up there is not much to do other than wait for the harvest time in June.

If a long dry period unexpectedly occurs, it can be watered. Weeds should also be removed from time to time, as they take away nutrients from the potatoes.

Category:

Vegetable garden