The teacher of kindergarten No. 120, Elena Churilova, was among the first to agree to take a plot for planting potatoes.
“I like gardening, and besides, I have a big family,” says Elena.
Almost all kindergarten workers decided to recall the good traditions when they went together for potatoes. They were joined by three more preschool institutions in the Soviet district and submitted a collective application for 50 acres.
“I wanted to organize employees for a mass event that would combine both useful and pleasant. In May, we will have fun on buses to plant potatoes,” Maya Vasilenko, head of kindergarten No. 120, explained.
The trade union of the SB RAS helped to purchase seed potatoes. The workers paid only for the land: 450 rubles per hundred square meters.
“I was satisfied with the price and the location. The family consulted and decided to plant,” shared the teacher of kindergarten No. 305 Tatyana Bakhmanova.
Land for planting potatoes in the suburban area of Novosibirsk began to provide in 2009, during the economic crisis. Several thousand applications were received from the townspeople, but over time, the excitement subsided. In 2022, the farms allocated about 70 hectares of land in the Iskitimsky, Kolyvansky and Toguchinsky districts. Applications submitted for 150 acres.
The demand for land for planting potatoes remains the same, says Vitaly Vitukhin, Head of the Department of Investments, Consumer Market, Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Novosibirsk City Hall.
In Morozovo, the fields for planting potatoes were allocated by farmer Oleg Kochnev. There were many requests from Novosibirsk residents, he even had to create a WhatsApp group to solve organizational issues.
For several years, the farm planted potatoes for their own needs. In 2022, the land was provided to Novosibirsk residents, mainly residents of the nearby Sovetsky District. The plot was plowed, now it should, as the farmers say, rest for 3-4 days. After that, a tractor will pass through it again, and the earth will be soft as fluff. It remains only to cut the furrows.
Planting potatoes in Morozovo is scheduled for mid-May, in the summer the seedlings will be treated for pests. The second time Novosibirsk will come to the field in the fall to harvest.
