Vegetable Gardening
to post a new discussion.
23,821 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

What type of potatoes did you plant? Potato DTM can vary by about 30 days from the earliest at around 70 days to the later types around 100 days. Tuber size also varies by type. Soil conditions can make a big difference with sandy, loose soil being ideal and heavy clay not so much.

Can't say without seeing them but Google images of 'leaf edema potato leaves' and see if it matches.
Dave

The EPA has no warnings about toxins from whole tires. I think the assumption is that they really aren't bad. That being said, it is understood that *ground up* tires DO leach, and so rubber mulch made in this way is not considered healthy. It is a simplistic argument that you see all the time that because a constituent has some bad stuff in it, that bad stuff necessarily leaches out into the soil if you use it. The available evidence says that's simply not the case here. Yep, there are some toxins in the tires, but they stay in the tires. Tires are actually built to last for decades on cars driving on hot abrasive highways. If they broke down readily, they simply wouldn't do the job.
The Earthship community has thought about this with some care, in that if tires weren't healthy, you really wouldn't want to live in a house made of them. But they seem pretty benign.
The health dangers from whole tires are largely if you burn them or shred them. In addition to the vapors they produce when being burned, the ash is pretty toxic. Plants won't grow well in beds that have a lot of tire ash in them.
I would add that in a cold gardening venue, black tires are probably a big advantage in that they warm up readily when the sunlight hits them. In hot climates, garden beds made with tires might not be smart.

I agree that tire planting can be controversial but there isn't much evidence to support the contamination concerns and lots of folks have done it for years. It is a personal choice between "creating the ideal" and "using what you have available".
Personally I have 4 large, old tractor tires and I have never worried about planting shallow rooted things and herbs in them but choose to not use them for root vegetables.
Dave



I once had my entire potato crop stolen from my yard during the middle of the afternoon. They also stole some tomatoes, but I was really heartbroken about the potatoes which involved hours of patrolling for potato bugs. Now I cover the potatoes with netting to keep the bugs off and I never leave harvested crops anywhere visible from the road.

I personally have not, but I have friends who live in the "not quite gentrified" parts of Atlanta where they have had rose bushes, Mums, Hostas, Veggies and even a porch swing stolen. Basically any flower planted at the mail box would be pulled and stolen within a few days.

As Dave said, "But all the wood chip mulch right up against the plant stems doesn't bode well for the future." Is that mulch or did you mix that into your clay soil to amend it? In either case it can rob your soil of nitrogen. And touching the base of the plant can cause disease.

My lettuce seeds all over the place - I currently have more than 40 Rouge d'hiver lettuces planted in beds that re-seeded themselves in my walkway. Sometimes I just get too busy to pull the plants and lettuce doesn't hurt anything. The way I look at it - free food!



Fish emulsion is one of, if not the most benign supplements out there and it is honestly almost impossible to overdose with it (unless perhaps you used it daily). Not only is it a low dosage of the primary nutrients but it is in a form that encourages a slow and only-as-needed absorption by the plants. Plus it has the advantage of multiple levels of dilution. As many of the past discussions here about it show, many gardeners use it diluted to 1/4 strength each time they water plants or 1/2 strength every 10-14 days.
Lots of discussions about using fish emulsion
On the tomato growing forums it is often recommended as a foliar spray as well as a root drench with no concerns. So unlike many of the mass market synthetics used to excess by so many, fish emulsion has few if any negative side effects (other than odor).
Dave

I've grown potatoes in grow bags. 14" wide seems a little small, but that pic seems fine. It will look crowded, but you will get a lot of small potatoes. That is okay, you will get potatoes. Maybe 3 small seed potatoes should have been the max. Steal some out of the dirt after they flower, eat them new. You could try pulling up one of the groups after they flower and eat the small new potatoes, with the idea of letting the others have space to get bigger. Not sure it will make any difference, but you could try that and see what happens.






it took nearly 3 weeks for my golden beets to germinate, I was positive they werent coming up then I started seeing the seedlings pop up
lolear, why don't you plant some more beet seeds now? They are more likely to germinate now that the temps are getting warmer.
I think that a slug or critter might have eaten them right after they popped out of the soil, though. Beets are one of the few vegetables that have never given me problems. They grow just about anywhere in my yard, so long as the weeds are kept down until they sprout.