➡I accidentally bought Balut eggs: 2 live ducks! Now a Chat Thread!

[PirateGirl]

Well I hope you find her soon then @Cyprus !

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

Well my wish was granted for some time! I have two hours of nothing to do but my laptop is almost dead so I have to hurry to make the thread.

 

[Molpet]

One plant in particular that was a volunteer (I did not plant it) produced enough potatoes that I had my mashed potatoes including a 4 1/2" potato that weighed 1 lb. 3 oz. That plant is still doing well and producing more potatoes.

I never had a potato make it, in the garden, over winter.. they always freeze and are mush when I plant something else there ... so what conditions helped it survive? a foot of mulch? .. in the compost pile?

 

[jwyles]

Pardon if you've mentioned this before.
Are you in HS or College/University?

No prob. I'm in college but I'm 34. I only act like a teenager.

 

[Cyprus]

No prob. I'm in college but I'm 34. I only act like a teenager.

Never too old to act young

 

[RUNuts]

I never had a potato make it, in the garden, over winter.. they always freeze and are mush when I plant something else there ... so what conditions helped it survive? a foot of mulch? .. in the compost pile?

@PirateGirl Potatoes don't grow in the swamp. I mean the plants grow and the tubers rot. Those and the other plants that "require well drained soil" are no good here. Rice, otoh, is all over the place. 1 foot standing water? Plant rice.

Depending on the rain, raised beds are possible. Hay bale gardens are possible. We get too much rain for potatoes. This may have been a good year for potatoes. We are in drought.

So, I have a raised bed with one, a single, lone sweet potato plant that survived the transplant shock the others succumbed to. I'm gonna have to make a green house to start my plants (with quail underneath!!!) because the kitchen window sill isn't working for sweet taters or peppers. I've massacred 12 baby peppers this summer trying to harden them off for outside. Well, the cut worms helped. I've only got one plant producing jalapenos. No pequins. No banana peppers. We are not happy. The drought is not helping.

 

[RUNuts]

No prob. I'm in college but I'm 34. I only act like a teenager.

Strange. I have teenagers that act like me.

 

[PirateGirl]

@PirateGirl Potatoes don't grow in the swamp. I mean the plants grow and the tubers rot. Those and the other plants that "require well drained soil" are no good here. Rice, otoh, is all over the place. 1 foot standing water? Plant rice.

Depending on the rain, raised beds are possible. Hay bale gardens are possible. We get too much rain for potatoes. This may have been a good year for potatoes. We are in drought.

So, I have a raised bed with one, a single, lone sweet potato plant that survived the transplant shock the others succumbed to. I'm gonna have to make a green house to start my plants (with quail underneath!!!) because the kitchen window seal isn't working for sweet taters or peppers. I've massacred 12 baby peppers this summer trying to harden them off for outside. Well, the cut worms helped. I've only got one plant producing jalapenos. No pequins. No banana peppers. We are not happy. The drought is not helping.

Colorado is in the worst drought since 1952 So while I have had SOME gardening success this year, a normal rain year might be an entirely different ball game! In the past my failures often came during the delicate transfer of plants started inside to their outside home. This year I tried starting everything outdoors instead to let it do it's own thing. Some things thrived this way, others didn't even sprout, others sprouted and wilted or got eaten by birds. Gardening has been far more difficult than I'd ever imagined it would be

 

[Missyblue]

I failed with my sunflowers. Many sprouted and were a few inches tall and then one day they were all gone. I'm convinced something ate them.

Have you planted potatoes? This is my first year. They got big and bushy. Now the leaves are turning yellow. I'm not sure if it's just the life cycle or something is wrong or how to know when it's time to harvest?

Totally normal, once they start dieing back quit watering, leave be, then in a few weeks to a month, dig up, nutrients are now going into making you taters and not leaves, once you dig up you want to lay out to cure

https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-living/green-health/growing-potatoes-made-easy/

 

[R2elk]

I never had a potato make it, in the garden, over winter.. they always freeze and are mush when I plant something else there ... so what conditions helped it survive? a foot of mulch? .. in the compost pile?

It's a sand dune. Water drains extremely well so that missed potatoes don't get frozen as hard as they could if they were in a higher moisture content. The size of the potato may also contribute since most come from potatoes that were 1/2" or less in diameter. Some of mine come from potato seeds that the blossoms produced. Some of them come from my procedure of collecting all compostable waste from the kitchen including half rotten potatoes that I bury in the garden in the spring.

It gets so dry here that I have never had any luck with a compost pile but burying the compostable waste in the garden does work as it decays quickly rather than just shriveling up in a compost pile.