I spent most of Sunday digging up 7/8 ths of my South potato garden.
It rained hard the day before and even harder a few days before that but the vines were dead and if I waited they would disappear and I would be guessing where there were.
Ground was very wet; as I dug them out often it was just large clumps so I broke them by hand and searched for potatoes.
I did half the digging literally by hand as it was surprisingly easy to dig at the bottom of the hole searching for taters.
A few times I just saw the tops so I took the shovel dug another 8 inches down often popping out a large cluster of potatoes.
These were mostly carry overs from last year and there were no truly large potatoes mostly varying from baseball to ping-pong ball size with a number of marbles.
I got about a bushel,with the most common being a purple from last year.

The ones left still had large green vines.
I am assuming that the carry overs were mostly early potatoes as this is the earliest I have ever dug up this many in August.
Normally I rarely dig any before Sept.
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North garden which was put in over a week before the South, some were still blooming ten days ago and they are, at least the vines looking very, very good.
A month ago I was worried as they looked OK but since they have exploded in size.
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Had one cob of sweet corn down South, it was an oddball or some I planted I thought were DOA sprouted as I have some plants , quite a few growing where six weeks ago there were none.
I know it is different as its, and few others that are not supposed to be there, stalk had red tinge to the leaves
and the majority do not.
Ate it raw and it was good.
Wind broke off all but one of my volunteer sunflowers; I propped two up on broom sticks, tied one to a long iron rod and trashed one.

This past weekend, I dug up one-half of the remaining 1/8th of my potatoes down South.
I am putting the reason for mostly small, to me, egg to tennis ball size potatoes to A: mostly carry overs from last year, B: Variety of carry over, C: It is on the East side of the garden which Dad always said was damned poor for potatoes.

Now the the crop , from years I have put it there, is best I have had.
As I add three inches of years old mulch two years ago,and some old chem. fertilizer, that seems to have made a difference or maybe it was just this year, in which you had to have been cursed ,up here, to have a bad garden.
I was surprised those planted in the old rose garden were no better than those in the forbidden zone.

When I do the last few plants still there, I will have a approx. a bushel and one-half, which is partly due to small size as if they were the size I usually get I would have at least one and one-half bushels already.

I started to clean out my North garden weeks earlier than normal as the extremely healthy chiles were shading out the potatoes, squash, some tomatoes and actually anything behind the berm .
Sharon said: Why did you plant so damned may peppers?

I told her it was the number I had last year; it is just this year they went bonzo.
Although she is correct as during a normal mediocre crop, I still had more than we could use and we have frozen chile base in the freezer three-four years old.
Squash , vines, went as wild as chiles, they covered and killed the Purple Peruvian Potato vines,( which were still going nuts down South where they volunteered in the empty part of the rose garden, so I cut most of the vines off so the SOBs die.) but as they are so thick I do not want to do more than trim the endsm so squash started can fill out, much less dig the potatoes under the vines ; as it looks I have far more vine than squash.

Getting curious why my potatoes planted one week before those planted down South were still green and some flowering, I did go out and start gather the vines together so I could see just how many plants I had.
I discovered and one row had covered the the outermost row, of which, the vines were already dead.
I have to check which variety was in that row, white or maybe yellow but three of the five plants did very well.
A dozen, or more, potatoes , sizes between baseball and jumbo chicken egg on those.
On the other two there were three and four, baseball sized potatoes.
After I dig the first shovel out, I dig, literally by hand (on this side of the garden up North, it is easy to do as the soil, especially as deep as I plant is easy to dig in) now I am very glad I do that.
After getting out the the first four or five, I dig with my had to see if there are more and found, A: I planted these REALLY deep, and B: the majority were way down low.
It is nice that on this side of the garden the soil is still most like sandy clay it was twenty years ago, as the potatoes are easy to clean off.
I am now debating as whether or not to cut the remaining vines to speed of die off.

While reducing garden clutter, i.e. plants, I found a Cauliflower head.
Now I planted three plants at the same time in spring; one was ripe way back in July and a second in August.
This one was in the midst of squash, tomato, Cleome jungle; I half-heartedly gave it room to breath , some times not being able to even see it, in in the sea of green.
It was tall and spindly later on and I though it would bolt.
Well last week when I was hacking away there it was, a nice big white cauliflower head.

Taters now look more like they should this time of year as I am assuming my rough handling and stringing out the vines, so you can see each separate plant, causing the ground/mulch to be much drier is part of the reason.
I had shut off the irrigation system but having seeded gaps in the lawn, it is now back on.
Down South it had rained 2 inches shortly before I dug up potatoes, and in parts of the garden the shovel made that slurping sound it does when digging in real we soil but the when I got down 8 inches the soil was moist yet not near as wet as the top six.
Night Crawlers and Angle Worms are very numerous this year though you sometimes wonder why , while digging potatoes you see many each hole then suddenly, no one is home, next hole, they're baaaack

I am extremely surprised, the leaf mulch this year, maybe because of variety but I doubt it, had not reduced in volume , in either garden to the degree it usually does.
Normally by now 12 inches would be down to a dry 1/2 to 2 inches; it is still thick 4 inches in place and wet.
I would have thought the very warm humid weather would have reduced it greatly.

I was weeding the boulevard hill for reseeding yesterday, pulling dandelions, crab grass and Spotted Spurge.
When I got down to my Buffalo Grass patch I found you have to be real careful as Spotted Spurge and Buffalo Grass seem to like to live together.
Sp. Sp. sends out runners just as Buffalo Grass does; I had mowed it the day before so I had very short grass, including crab grass .
The runners from spurge and B. Grass were tight and I would pull a spurge plant by the root but end up with multiple B. Grass runner coming up with it plus short , very, cut Crab Grass looks just like short cut B. Grass and I had to be careful to not pull B. Grass plants rather than C. Grass.
I also seeded this part of the hill thirty years ago with genuine pasture grass, the Broadleaf Fesucue seems to be spreading also so it looks kind of weird with B. Grass and the Fescue together in patches.
I should treat this part of the hill with weed preventer but am not sure if B. Grass is immune to these products.
I should have treated the bare lawn for Chinch Bugs again but it is too late now seed is down.

Always a work in progress, eh?
Hooray for the cauliflower, and finding it in time too

I have been doing some major fall work in the North garden.
Lady Bug time, and I got bitten by one of the native varieties and a lot of the foreign invaders.

I have my potatoes 98.6 percent out of the ground.
My one Anushka hill had 15 potatoes with 12 as large as a goose egg or bigger and three marbles; my one Clearwater Russet had 15 potatoes with none smaller than a chicken egg.
Most large potatoes I have ever had in one hill.
I got one-half bushel out of my 4 russet hills.
The North garden's potato production was excellent this year.

Green Zebra tomatoes are still producing far more than I can use; I covered them from the frost so they will ripen on the vine.

South garden is doing well also , the one tomato down there has five tomatoes that should ripen this week; the corn did well so the squirrel will be fed well.
Cucumber, not sure why I put it in, but it is one of those Lemon Cucumbers, seed bombs, but it is still producing and they do taste good.

Squash was the only failure; I got one good one down South, other two rotten.
Up North, the vines covered over 1/3 of the garden and I got a whole two squash.
I ripped out the vines and they had a fair number of small one but they would never get near ripening.
They were flowering already in July where the first roots were but not one squash in that part of the garden; all were six or more feet over on the edge of the vine growth.
I may get one more along the fence if the frost did not zap the vine too badly.

I am assuming too much vine as it did not let the flowers get pollinated but it did seem to kill the volunteer Purple Peruvian potato that had covered the same area but at the same time there were very few insects flying around this summer, such as bees or even wasps like I normally would.
Did not see many Bumble Bees really till certain flowers they like started blooming.
Now they are numerous.

I did some digging where the potato vines were before squash covered them, and they were there for months, and got only about a dozen very small PP potatoes.
Down South I have not dug up the ones I let grown in the empty Rose garden space and I am curious to see what comes out of that.

It was a very good year for gardening but some plant cycles seemed out of whack too me. :o 8)

I tried some russet potatoes this year. I just planted pieces from 2 large russets. I put them in a 5 gallon bucket and gradually filled it to the top with soil. It had a beautiful set of leaves and flowered. When it all died down, I went to harvest my potatoes. All I found were a bunch of marble sized ones and one tomoto hornworm pupa! Why don't I have any large full size potatoes?

There are more than 200 varieties of potatoes sold throughout the world. Each of these varieties fit into one of seven potato type categories: russet, red, white, yellow, blue, fingerling, and petite potatoes. There are 3 major and beloved countries in respect of growing delicious and juicy potatoes Holland, Lebanon, and Pakistan potato exporters like saremco international are renowned all around the globe

Saremco,
that's interesting. In US I always assume they come from US, Maine and Idaho ?

My potatoes didn't seem great this year either. We had so much rain, I didn't dig them till August. And they were on new ground, kind of hard, not well worked.

plantmanager said:I tried some russet potatoes this year. I just planted pieces from 2 large russets. I put them in a 5 gallon bucket and gradually filled it to the top with soil. It had a beautiful set of leaves and flowered. When it all died down, I went to harvest my potatoes. All I found were a bunch of marble sized ones and one tomoto hornworm pupa! Why don't I have any large full size potatoes?

Potatoes need space to produce large potatoes
This is why when a grower wants most potatoes of a certain size, and not larger, they plant them closer together.
I plant mine sixteen inches apart, occasionally more and at least eight inches deep , often more.
I have not used hilling for forty years as I found simple planting deep produces larger potatoes, with less chance of potatoes sitting on the surface of the ground, and less effort (I have few problems with weeds in my potato patches) , though , depending on variety, even that does not stop it.

I mulch my potatoes with leaves, quite deeply and even then this year I had a few sitting on the top of the ground even with the seed potato down over eight inches with at least of foot of mulch on top.
I rarely fertilize for potatoes often just tossing excess fertilizer, I simply want to get rid of the bag, on top of the mulch.
It might be worth it to invest in some fertilizer dedicated to potatoes and add some thing to make sure the soil is acidic.

I do not plant russets too often but did this year and got at least a third bushel, of large russets out of two plants , planted deep .
Did you put two seed pieces in one bucket?

I do plant left over potatoes from the year before, some times putting two small, half-dollar size or smaller in the same hole.
When I do that , I get few, rarely more than four, small potatoes from such a hole.
Having paid closer than normal attention the past few years, I will probably stop planting carry overs that are even as small as one half dollar as the yield is not worth the effort unless you want truly small potatoes.

I have found the larger the seed potato, the greater the chance of numerous larger potatoes out of a hole.
I , now, rarely do more than cut a potato in half, often breaking off some eyes if I think there are too many on the piece but at least two healthy eyes per piece is a very good idea.
Your pail did not give the potatoes enough room and as I said crowded potatoes produce smaller potatoes.
Potatoes like water but the soil must have good drainage.

I dug up the last two Anushka Potatoes in my garden.
I got 36 potatoes out of those two hills with only one marble.
Several were the size of a large man's fist.

Best ever yield out that side of the garden or the North garden period with the possible exception of the first year I broke ground there.
I am down to 4 tomato plants in the garden now as I pulled out all but the last Green Zebra and with a hard freeze coming in two days the garden will soon be gone, although I may leave the tree large Kale now held upright by stakes because I can.

I should not have any hold overs come next spring and by actually paying attention have learned using left over marbles for planting is not worth the effort.

I have only approx. 2 and 1/2 bushels of potatoes this year.
In an odd way, much better than the , what am I going to do with near seven bushels I had a few years back.

I have decided , next spring, I will once again plant mainly in the lessor side of the South garden but this time use only newly bought potatoes and see how well they produce at home.
I should just get some new Anushka, which were prolific up North but I like variety and will get different varieties.

I will put in some sweet corn, probably old standards I have not had for years, and once again giant dent corn because it looks cool.
Also I am going to put in squash, but actually pay attention to it for once, and maybe some Zinnias and Marigold, like dad used to .
I have major work on the garage; if the winter is not too snowy I can start putting some new siding on as it is already sitting in one auto bay but trimming the Locust in the middle of the rose garden and fixing the arbor with the grape vines , some over 2 inches in diameter is a definite 2 man job as I have to trim the tree and grape vine twenty feet up in the tree, then lift the large stout vine back up to where a heavy rope they grew along and once held them till it rotted out and fasten the vine up in the tree some how.

I am getting pre-catalog posts from some potato sellers, in which they also include early offers for onions and garlic.

A few new, new ones; ones I have not seen other U.S. seller offer before.
I want to send out early this (next) year so I do not end up deciding I want a certain potato , or onion, and find all gone, so right now I am contemplating whether I want a newbies next year, or stick mainly with been there, done that.

Potato Garden is now gone, sold out to a firm , I have little enthusiasm for.
I liked and miss them.

I a, wm putting this here because (rim shot) I can.,

Three yrears ago, we went to Windsor , Canada so I could get my glasses that had been waiting for year, actually lenses.
In the Chinese Fire Drill, nasty but better than their virus, they had ordered two sets of lenses for me.

When I was there I did the eye test etc. and found that fitting, they had fit earlier once by guess and by gosh photos, they were only off by millemeters. but now I could have said thank you, and taken the one set a cruised but in my old age, my orneryness tain't what it used to be, SO, I said is there another set in you dusty shelves some where?

The dude said, WHY YES, I think there might be and did the search, SO, (I like saying so, I had a second set of old , these are 100 years old plus or minus, but a bow was missing that were near identical to what I wore.
Now I just happened to bring them along as I knew they had messed up, this dude was an eye glass collector, or old frame hoarder really and he said leave them here, we will fit the lenses and when I get time I will dig through and find a bow that fits.

Time went on and approx. a year plus or minus God only knows how long, one day in the maik , shizzam, there was my second frame complete , so I gave them to Sharon and said store this.

Yesterday, I was sitting here wastin time on this electronical fetish when , PLOP, my one lenses fell on my shirt.
I thought , crap not only does the bow need retaping, (been doing that on that frame for years) but the screw is loose or fell out that hold the lens in.
NAW, I wish, the frame had broken, snapped just above the eye pad.
SO, I love that word, SO, I told Sharon where ever you put my second set , I need them now.
Approx. 20 minutes later after she first gave me a set that made a coke bottle look thin, she found them.

Now with the pittance the Weimar Republic of China Joe is giving us, I may just call them , as he wanted to sell me as close as a modern version get to the old ones that are now hard to find in antique shops, for 600 Canadian.
Not cheap but that one would have the setting , slightly different from this/these and I like the place a lot.


Other historians point to flaws in the Weimar Constitution, such as the provision that allowed rule by decree and the suspension of constitutional rights in a national emergency.

Well now I am debating whether I should get any new varieties this year as I have a LOT of carry overs from last year and there is no way I/we will eat them all but I hate to throw them away.
I threw away some last year for the first time ever that I can remember but that was just a dozen or so marble size and these are not marble size.
I should go out and do some garden work today but it is only 37 degrees at noon hour and I just do not have the oomph to do so.

On a sad or at least life biting one in the buttocks, several gents I knew well have died: I found out one gent who was my go to place for garden equip. died of the Corona Virus two weeks ago; over thirty plus years I would go to his shop three to four times a year and beyond business just sit a BS for several hours about snowmobiles and life in general.
The day before I found out he had the Virus, I was going to go to his shop and check on a new snow-blower, and BS

When I told my Cousin at home Wayne had died, he thought I meant a gent that I graduated with and I found out that , that Wayne had died also.
This got me to looking at obits online to find his , which was not there, but I found out his older brother had died the day before Christmas and his one sister had also died earlier plus, I found out that a dude I went to Vo-Tech with, whose ex-wife I still saw fairly often, had died earlier this year..

I am not one to read obits in the paper, but when I do, and there is no reason I do, I just decide to do it, there is usually some one I knew quite well ,at some point in life, listed.
I had 9 living cousins for decades, the past ten years have reduced that to 4, only one in good health and he is the only one older than me now.
Que sera , sera.

Sounds like the circle of life has come around to bite you in the behind..

Right now I am listening to the Album station we have here, while I RARELY listen to rock music this early in the day I got tired of the same old, same old crap on daytime talk radio (although yesterday I listened to the Farm Radio station and heard so good old polka and waltz music after the farm news.)

It is odd that this early in the day the Album station is playing music that reminds me of KQRS, an underground rock station till the Mo-Money types took over, KAAY -- Beaker Street and music you used to hear in the head shop record stores 40-50 years ago.

This year has been good to me but I am still in a funk too often, anyway, while ordering Sharon some English Cucumber seeds last night I got a hair up my buttocks to see if there were any potatoes still available from seed sellers.
Between Grand Teton Organic, Fedco and Irish Eyes I ended up ordering 7 different varieties, all but one , new to me, so my seed buying is done for the year.

RpR, the entire world is in a funk, I believe. The smell of fresh dirt and things breaking through the soil to see first light is excellent medicine!

Thanks for some good info on growing 'taters, too!!

I run out of steam quickly when , I start oddly, as the day goes on, the steam gauge does not drop as quickly. :blinking:

Got the roses in (as much as sloppy - globby heavy soil is to work in, roses are seeming to like it.)

What went in down South:

Corn:

Sweet:
Breeders Choice
Country Gentlemen
True Gold
Gold Cross
Kandy Korn
Silver Queen

Dent:
Lorenzo's Corn
Blue Ridge White Cap
Paraguayan Chipa
Dia De San Juan

I put in one more block of corn as I have space, at that, these are blocks that are approx. five by five with four rows each .Record Yellow -- corn planted for tall corn competition.

Kartoffeln:

Cal White
Ramona
Montana
Genesee
Sapiro Mira
And about twenty or so plants of carry overs while still tossing over a dozen of good chicken egg sized tubers as I simply have no need for what I plant.

I also put in Black Sweet Potato Squash and English Cucumbers as I have space to do so.
Down there when I was planting the Tree Peonies were just starting to bloom, when I got back one week later to finish, they were already bloomed out.
So now that the herbaceous are at blooming point I WILL go home and not miss them like I did last year.
Gardens are responding very well this year which makes me glad I did it.

Working out in this heat , probably because both gardens , and roses so far, are doing well has given me the impetus to go out and get the work done, though mowing the steep hill here is nasty as it got so dry that even in bare feet it is extremely slippery (but hot and hard on bare feet).

Sharon's nephew is having his graduation party this weekend , her sister is staying the night, and next weekend is the yearly Water Carnival feed that has been a tradition at my house since I was born so stuff has to be done for a good reason.

Potatoes are now popping out of the mulch and the corn has gone from three inches to a foot high in one week.
Only thing in the garden that seems to have gone pffft, is the English Cucumber seed, from Sow True Seed I planted; no sign of life and they are in good soil.
Oh well Que Sera, Sera.

Some times there is a silver lining behind dark clouds; after spending many hours on my knees weeding this past weekend, my ankle problems, which now seems to be connected to the bad knee, is the best it has been for four months. Not painless but I no longer hobble when ever I stand up.
Doctors are great things, some times, but as I have seen a specialist with the ankle twice and got a , near literally -- your guess is as good as mine -- response.

At the same time spending hours in an odd position, loosens and developes muscles not used sitting on one's buttocks playing with a lap top.
I generally go out in the heat of the day as that is the ONLY way you can get your body to adapt to it.

Potatoes plants look to be thriving now; if the spuds are as good as the plants , it will be a good yield this year.
Corn is over knee high down South and up North is now armpit high.
Taking aluminum cans in today as they are now .45 cets a pound and I have no room to put them any more.