Nice blue hubbard. Were there a lot of flowers on the vines?
2023 garden season
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Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing any. So there must not have been many.
Hubbards do not grow well here! -- I gave up on them many years ago!! You have a nice sized one all things considered! Thats about max size for this area too so you did great!
My second plantings are in the ground. Sweet peas, are starting to bare. Broccoli just planted last week. My June pot planted taters havent bloomed yet, but nice vines. carrots up about 5 or 6 inches. Dug my march taters last sat. 2-300lbs out of 10-15 lb of seed. I think they did good and we have been eating on them since early summer. Okra is all but done. We where picking every 2 or 3 days and vaccuum sealing for the freezer. Only reason its done is because I stopped picking and letting it go to seed. Dont have a real opinion on my candy roasters. I have one roaster on 8 vines. Growing fast, but I dont know if I will have many or if they will mature before frost. My corn is almost ready to pick. I will be making corn meal in a few more weeks. Most of all my mater vines have made it to the compost pile. I have 3 potted plantes that are producing nice maters still. Picked my italian cayenne peppers and have dehydrated them. Now we are dehydrating taters for the first time. So far I am pleased with the results. We have been slicing them like taterchips and it takes about 6hrs until dry. We plan on trying some shredded taters next. Then its time for apples. Wife will make apple sause and apple butter. Might do some apple jelly, but we have made a bunch of different jellies already, and I aint supposed to be eating it. Actually, I think my wife is trying to kill me, fresh jelly, home made biscuits, and real butter, I am a goner for sure.
jollygreengiant
ArboristSite Member
Man, I wish I could share some of the rain we have had over the last 2 months with some of you guys. We were constantly wet here in July/August so it's really taken a toll on things. I plant all blight resistant tomatoes and yet the blight absolutely devastated them this year. I didn't even get half of the tomatoes that we did last year.
Sweet corn looked like a great crop coming but apparently I should have sprayed them for rootworm beetles. They clipped all the silks so all the cobs are very poorly filled out. That's what I get for being tooo busy with other stuff I guess.
I did manage to get some fall plantings in recently and they are coming up now. Mainly lettuce but also trying some direct seeded broccoli, will see how that does. I've always only done broccoli as a transplant in the spring. Also trying some fall planted brussels sprouts, never planted them at all before so will see how they do.
We dig the potatoes last weekend and they yielded less than last year as well. And a lot more rotten ones because of the rain. But they are out of the ground now. Letting them dry in the shop before storage.
Sweet corn looked like a great crop coming but apparently I should have sprayed them for rootworm beetles. They clipped all the silks so all the cobs are very poorly filled out. That's what I get for being tooo busy with other stuff I guess.
I did manage to get some fall plantings in recently and they are coming up now. Mainly lettuce but also trying some direct seeded broccoli, will see how that does. I've always only done broccoli as a transplant in the spring. Also trying some fall planted brussels sprouts, never planted them at all before so will see how they do.
We dig the potatoes last weekend and they yielded less than last year as well. And a lot more rotten ones because of the rain. But they are out of the ground now. Letting them dry in the shop before storage.
Two toms...2.8#, lol
Tried a sweet potato experiment this year. Very disappointing. Any ideas on what I did wrong.
hope this won't add too much 'sweetness' to ur dish... but sounds like u got a sweetie!!!
from the size of ur soil base, i would say u did great!! my exp with s spuds is they do well out in the open and in ground...
I have two more beds made from IBC totes that I still need to dig. Maybe they did better.
Dont think small containers will grow sweet potatoes very well,---not enough dirt and not deep enough. Open ground works the best for potatoes. I did a few tests on container potatoes and it didnt work for me either.
Our potato crop was small this year too despite Easter plantings. I couldnt haul enough water to them for one thing AND now they are not keeping in storage! ----- We are freeze drying as many as we can as soon as we finish the onions which were not keeping either! NOT a year for quality produch so we make due with what we did grow!
Our potato crop was small this year too despite Easter plantings. I couldnt haul enough water to them for one thing AND now they are not keeping in storage! ----- We are freeze drying as many as we can as soon as we finish the onions which were not keeping either! NOT a year for quality produch so we make due with what we did grow!
I've tried planting potatoes in my garden digging deep trenches and filling with composite/dirt and I think the ground was still too hard. Small potatoes. So I thought container growing of my sweet potatoes would work. Soil was really loose.
Really miss the garden after ten years of not having it. Green with envy here.
The taters usually do better in fifty-five gallon drums from what I've seen. Trying it this fall. Planting a drum with drain holes and red spuds. If it fails we get more compost.
I read some people say that container grown taters dont do well. I have been growing in bags and pots for three season now and I am making decent size and lots of taters in pots. I started with 8gal bags, I found the bags dryout to fast in the summer months. I experimented with placing plastic trays under the bags to hold water and that helps, but still needed to water twice a day. I went to pots last year. still had problems with keeping them watered. I also put to many chits per pot. I had plenty of taters, but no real size. I attribute this to over crowding. This season, I tried a different approach. I got new pots and instead of drilling drain holes in the bottom, I drill four 1/2in holes around the side, about 3 inches from the bottom. That 3 inches held moisture so the pots didnt dry out. I also limited the pots to just 3 chits per pot. Thats one tater cut into three pieces. I had lots of decent sized taters per pot, not as good as my graden plot, but several softball size in each pot and lots of medium and small size spuds. I certainly made my seed back, probably 10:1. I didnt grow a truck load of taters, but I didnt plant a ton either. Harvesting is easy in pots. I just pull my tractor up to the site and dump the pots in the front bucket. Scoop out the taters and once the pots are all dumped. I throw in a handful of 0/46/0 and 0/0/50. Mix the dirt up real good and put it back in the pots. I add chicken poop and compost later. This is my first year of trying to grow a second crop of taters. My pots look really good, plenty of vines. I figure I have at least a month left to make taters in these pots. Have to wait and see. In the mean time, I have broccoli and carrots growing in some of the tater pots that I didnt plant more taters in. I Just stuck a few onion sets in amongst the broccoli to see how that will do. Wife planted some ornamental peppers and panseies in a couple of the pots. Got to have that color to keep the miss's happy.
Oh , just to inform one reader, once I harvest my potted taters for the second time, I am going to replant them before or on Christmas, just to prove that it can be done..
Oh , just to inform one reader, once I harvest my potted taters for the second time, I am going to replant them before or on Christmas, just to prove that it can be done..
Probably planting to deep. Biggest taters I ever grew I planted on top of the ground and then raked the soil over them. One year I planted in the tractor tire tracks and just covered up. After the plants emerged, I till the middle of the rows and raked more soil to cover the plants. I have never grown big taters if I buried them deep when planting. I want them growing close to the top of the ground with just enough covering to keep them from sunburning. Hilling when you see the ground crack and the sunburning wont be a problem. Granted I aint growing acres of taters every year where I would have to spend half a day plowing and digging.
My onions seem to have hardened off fine this year, but last year's didn't store worth a darn. What do you suppose causes it?
I only plant taters here about 3 inches deep 16 to 20 inches apart with rows 72 inches wide. After they get up and growing I start pushing dirt up around them and keep pushing till they completely cover the middles and I cant get thru any longer. At harvest I just knock the ridges down and pick up the spuds. No digging below ground level at all.
We gotta freeze dry all our onions this year since they are not going to keep at all. Red Norland potatoes ,---- same deal gonna have to freeze dry them too. Kennebecs storing o.k. for now so no hurry on them.
Been a rough garden year here this time! Hope next year is a bit better!
We gotta freeze dry all our onions this year since they are not going to keep at all. Red Norland potatoes ,---- same deal gonna have to freeze dry them too. Kennebecs storing o.k. for now so no hurry on them.
Been a rough garden year here this time! Hope next year is a bit better!
I need to clarify a little. I dug wide trenches, put in the seed potato and barely covered with soil. As the plant grew, I'd back fill a little at a time. Thought the trench would be full of potatoes.
Some folks are not aware that there are two kinds of potatoes, Determinate and Indeterminate. Indeterminate will keep puting on new taters as long as you keep covering up the tops. Determinate wont put on new taters no matter how deep you bury them. I grow Kennebec and red Pontiac and have tried the keep adding soil over them. I found that neither the kenebac nor the pontiac will grow taters deep. I laughed at a buddy of mine a few years back, he had made a big box out of concrete blocks inside his green house to plant his taters in. He would add a nother layer of blocks and top off with soil as a method of hilling. He was showing the box off and it was about 3 maybe 4 blocks high. The tater vines where just starting to die off and should have plenty of taters. I told him he was wasting his time and there wouldnt be any taters down deep. Bets where made and we started digging in his box. What taters he had where at the top layer of blocks and we found nothing deeper than that. Now, he was expecting to find taters from the bottom all the way to the top, and thats when I told him about Determinate and Indeterminate potatoes. I dont know if he tried his concrete box tater bed again after that
jollygreengiant
ArboristSite Member
I don't think it's an issue of your soil being too hard, I think it's more to do with adequate moisture and fertility. Big potatoes take a lot of nutrients and water.
The area where I plant potatoes is quite heavy. Heavy enough that I thought I was going to snap my pitchfork handle this fall while I was digging them. I plant potatoes 4-6" deep, hill them once, and that's it. I've always managed to grow nice big potatoes, but I always fertilize them well and irrigate them when needed. Except for this year, I was too busy and didn't notice how dry the garden was getting. Some people may remember my post from a few months ago of wilted strawberries. After that I kept on top of watering but I think that was enough to impact their size, as when I dug them a couple weeks ago they were smaller than normal.
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