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Post by macmex on Jun 8, 2019 5:41:22 GMT -6
For some years I had a terrible problem with potato beetles. I spent hours hand picking. And then, the wheel bug population took off and, pretty well, wiped them out. Now, I see that I have few wheel bugs. I guess they ran out of food.
This week I did find about 10 potato beetle larval. I killed about three of them and then... left the rest, in hopes that the wheel bugs find them and that it helps them to survive and thrive.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 9, 2019 21:23:37 GMT -6
I had lots of wheel bugs back in 2011, but they have all but disappeared since then. I don't use pesticide. I don't know why they left? I still had plenty of pests to eat at the time.
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Post by john on Jun 11, 2019 6:03:07 GMT -6
Ron that made me laugh about the Pyganic being like Dom Perignon! Yeah when you pay 50 dollars for something, you really need it to work.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 13, 2019 21:09:07 GMT -6
I used the Pyganic-Pro on a severe White-fly infestation in my tomato patch this week with a great deal of success.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 27, 2019 14:53:11 GMT -6
The Colorado Potato Beetles are just now making a second appearance on my potato vines. I saw about a dozen adults yesterday while pulling weeds and squished a couple of egg clutches on the leaves. I've not seen any more larvae yet, but I don't imagine that will be long in coming.
Fortunately, the potato vines are almost done for the year. They'll be laying down within two or three weeks time, due to my delayed planting date because of heavy rains, but I don't think they will be around long enough to be very much affected by the coming CPB infestation.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 3, 2019 21:09:57 GMT -6
I guess I squished all the Colorado Potato Beetles a week or so ago because I haven't found any more adults or their larvae lately.
The heavy rains and high winds in mid-May drowned both the adults and their larvae in one bad storm. There hasn't been more than a trickle of bugs in all that time since. Things like that make me wonder if they could be controlled by a heavy watering with a good hose sprayer to knock them off the vines.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 23, 2019 12:45:08 GMT -6
I began the potato harvest this morning after the garden had a chance to dry out a little. I have red clay about 8" inches below the surface, so it really retains the water when we get heavy rains. I thought there was a good chance I would get the tractor stuck on the way to my potato patch, but it slogged right on through to the other side.
My Daughter-in-Law, to be, and I harvested 200 pounds of potatoes on the first run. We were kind of getting sunburned by 11:00 am and decided to come back later in the day when the sunlight was not as direct. All we were trying to do was to get the potatoes right on top of the ground after plowing, so that the sun wouldn't turn them green. I have Kennebec potatoes and they don't do well in direct sunlight.
Finding potatoes after plowing with a tractor is kind of like looking for arrowheads after the Spring tilling; no matter how hard you look, it seems like you find just one more after a good rain. We'll probably be finding potatoes for a couple more weeks. It was kind of scary driving out into this after sinking over the tops of my shoes it the same spot yesterday. It was a long, muddy drive to the potato patch, but we made it. This time, we used our brains and loaded the potatoes into old feed sacks rather than just dumping them in the back of the truck. There are still a few potatoes out there, but we were too busy today to do everything at once. I have over 200 pounds of tomatoes to pick still, and we processed several pints of elderberry cordial today, after the potato harvest.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 23, 2019 19:41:07 GMT -6
Buried Treasure! When you see things like this, it makes all the effort worth while!
This is the extra row that I squeezed in along side my Gorilla Style, Three Sisters, Corn, Bean, and Squash planting. Some of these potatoes were pretty impressive! All the weeds out here really sucked up the surface water, so it was not as muddy out here, away from my garden, as is was inside my garden. The potatoes must have liked these growing conditions, despite the fact that I didn't.
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Post by john on Jul 24, 2019 17:07:26 GMT -6
Those are some nice potatoes! Potatoes definitely like the moisture. This year we had too much rain early and we didn't get any when the potatoes were sizing up. In years that we get lots of rain from Mid June through mid July.(when the tubers are growing) The potatoes can grow very large.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 14, 2020 14:38:25 GMT -6
I just plowed my garden, right in time for it to get drenched with two day's worth of heavy rains. So much for being ready to plant potatoes by Saint Patrick's Day, 2020.
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Post by mountianj on Mar 20, 2020 20:51:59 GMT -6
hopefully the rains slacks up some were can get yours planted and so mine doesn't rot in ground.i hope everybody has big harvest this year.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 22, 2020 0:50:54 GMT -6
100% chance of rain again today ...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 14, 2020 3:31:11 GMT -6
Store-bought potatoes (that are not sold as seed potatoes) are often treated with hormones to keep them from sprouting, so if you don't scrub them off really well before planting, what little growth they produce will be fighting the chemicals they have sprayed on their skins all season. The anti-sprouting hormones really hamper their production.
If you keep your own homegrown potatoes covered all winter and in a cool, dark, place they'll sprout for you by about February, so you can cut them up and plant the eyes. Be sure to cut them up with one eye per chunk a few days before planting, and spread them apart, so they can cure and heal over a little or they will rot when you put them in the ground.
I store my homegrown potatoes under a big tree out in the woods. They are covered with leaves about a foot deep and have a tarp over them to keep the leaves from blowing away. The ambient soil temperature and the insulation of the leaf cover protects them from freezing. The moisture of the soil keeps them plump and crisp all winter long.
It's really important to keep them from any sunlight because the sun will turn them green and make them inedible. Potatoes are in the nightshade family along with tomatoes, so every green part is mildly poisonous to some degree.
Potatoes will usually produce about 8-fold for you, so each eye planted will usually bring you about 8 whole potatoes. If the plants are healthy and are hilled well, they should produce well. If potato bugs get them or disease, the harvest will be poor. Also, too much nitrogen can cause them to bolt and go to vine and not produce spuds. I found that out the hard way one year by putting too much compost on them. They made beautiful plants about 3' feet tall and lush as all get out, just not hardly any potatoes. Since potatoes form along the lower vines, be sure to keep the stems hilled up well with topsoil all season long.
I've never planted potatoes in a pile of old tires, but that method looks very promising. The trouble here where I live is that topsoil is so scarce, I would be hard-pressed to find enough extra to fill the tires. That's the main reason I spend so much of my time making compost.
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Post by mountianj on Apr 29, 2020 20:51:21 GMT -6
kennebec potatoes red pontiac french fingerlings look to be doing good.they got knocked down from frost but their back up going good again.
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Post by macmex on Apr 30, 2020 14:37:51 GMT -6
Looking good, Jesse!
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