5.5 degrees c (42f) this morning, wonder if it will be cold early this year. I removed the leaves from one variety of potato a few weeks ago, the other variety looks good, but it is supposed to be quite resistant to leaf mold.
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This potato variety is supposed to have medium resistance to blight and I probably should switch to another variety with higher resistancy but I like these ones so most likely I will hold on to it a bit longer. If it becomes more of a problem I would change to a more resistant variety, otherwise I would be stuck in a loop buying in stuff that is already present in the soil and spraying forever (or making it myself).
I feel like crop rotation and adapting to natureās changing conditions is the way to go, of course I could be wrong.
@Jan beautiful looking potatoes there, what variety is that?
(I planted Folva)
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From what I understand, the biggest infection is the risk that the spores from the leaves run down and infect the seed potatoes, and therefore you get leaf mold early next year.
That is why you should remove the blast as soon as you see the leaf mold.
It is the Carolos variety, on which I still have the leaves.
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You guys and Tone grow a lot more potatoes than I do so that becomes much more of an issue when dealing with something like blight. As I mentioned, for the past five years Iāve been growing them in containers and living with somewhat smaller yields offset by a lot less work to harvest and less disease problems. I do grow a lot of tomatoes though and the two crops are from the same family with the same disease issues. I planted half of my 125 tomato plants in the open ground this year although with 36 in spacing and half using weed cloth and leaf mulch and there was much less blight damage to those with ground protection. It would be difficult to plant potatoes in weed cloth though. I doubt Iād try that. Here is a bunch of youtubes from a guy in England that grows a lot of container potatoes. He has 33 videos on potatoes you can find in the side bar. I never thought I would become a garden geek. It must have just happened when I wasnāt paying attention.
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What do you do with all the tomatoes?
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What do you do with all those tomatoes? I only plant 4 to 6 plants each year and still have too many tomatoes.
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Thatās a lot of spaghetti sauce and tomato juice.
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Also @Jan if you continue to have issues with your tomatoes overproducing you could try to fry the unripe green tomatoes. Itās a delicacy here in the southern USA.
Ingredients by proportion:
- 4 large green tomatoes
- 2 large eggs
- Ā½ cup milk
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Ā½ cup cornmeal
- Ā½ cup bread crumbs
- 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
- Ā¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 quart cooking oil for frying
Step 1: Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.
Step 2: Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium-sized bowl. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper on another plate. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat. Then dip tomatoes into milk and egg mixture; dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.
Step 3: Heat oil in a large deep skillet to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Place tomatoes in hot oil in batches of 4 or 5, to prevent them from touching; fry until crisp and golden brown on one side, then flip and fry on other side.
Step 4: Transfer fried tomatoes to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Repeat with remaining tomatoes.
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I donāt get all of the stuff I produce. I have hundreds of tomatoes that some rodents have taken a bite out of and move on to the next. A lot of these plants are determinate so the fruits stays pretty close to the ground. There are many disadvantages to gardening right next to a swamp. The other reason is I donāt really care much about cuisine. Seldom have a sit down meal. I live on supplements and filler like bread products, and pasta. My main interest is in nutritional values. They have long had a tomato juice produce in the US called V-8. Tomato juice with, I guess, 8 other vegetables mixed in. I make my own and try and can at least a hundred quarts of juice a year. I dry and powder everything else. Beets, onions, kale, chard, broccoli, peppers, ect. It all stores for a long time in that form. Then I mix it into the tomato juice depending on what vitamin values I want to take in. Prepper food. Canāt really taste anything but the tomato juice. Same with soups which are our main food source in the winter. Potato, split pea, bean. You can add a lot of various powdered veggies into them without really altering the taste. Havenāt eaten a bite of meat in over thirty years. Protein from eggs, milk products, and commercially prepared protein supplements. Different strokes I guess. Havenāt been to a doctor in 40 years and no dentist in over 30. Still have my own teeth so not suffering from any ill effects from my weirdness.
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Is this your personal fried green tomato recipe?
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Iv been drinking v8 all my life, still very cheap to purchase widely available and draws dirty looks by the sheeple when I drink it. Why is it considered weird to want to eat and drink clean healthy foods instead of corn syrup seed oils and micro plastics? Coffee 2 cups water a gallon with liquid Iv and v8 make up probably 80% of my daily diet for the last year and Iv never felt better since I was a teenager
And in the occasion Iād like a refresher, v8 makes for a darn good red beer
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No, itās one from an article I pulled but didnāt want to link the site because it was cluttered with unnecessary advertisements.
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TomH. mentioned split pea soups.
My this-year accidental discovery that we can rapid grow, then dry at least two crops of peas-to-dry here a summer season:
The accident was the wife not climbing grid installing on her first planting of peas in the tall raised beds. Them tall reaching, and then falling over; metal edge strangulation themselves:
Peas I can digest tolerate well. Dried beans . . . not so well.
Steve Unruh
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I love split pea soup. 
But it reminds me of going to the dollar store and buying peas and beans to plant in the gardenā¦ They are typically self-pollinating, and it was a dollar for seed vs seed company prices, granted, they werenāt inocculated with rhizo-bacteria but they grew.
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I have been meaning to try to make itā¦ but I am afraid it tastes like tomatoes, and I donāt really like them.
My aunt used to make bloody marys with v8 if you are looking for a change of pace. she also drank it daily without the alcohol.
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I hate to brake conversation, though I have a needed questain answered, I think many of you farm folks knowāIF I buy grazon and or pesticide contaminated cow manure, black soil, to mix in my all sand soil, how long before potato,sunflowers,amaranth,QUINOA will grow good,/safe/.food.THANKS
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If I remember correctly, it was 4-10 years, depending on what and how much you planted to absorb the Grazon. As to when it would be safe, thatās a tougher question.
You should look it up, though. Even I donāt completely trust my memory.
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Yeah, I hear you. My wife made raw dried bean powder many years ago. It went into a lot of quick meals. First time I ate it, I lost it. Second time I ate it, I still couldnāt keep it down. The third time hasnāt taken place yet.
Iām hoping when we get the grain puffer, that I can puff the beans and then grind them. Ten minutes at ~160 psi should cook them. I really liked the recipes, but they didnāt like me.
edit: letās make that 160 psi, not 160F. Substantial difference.
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THANKS MR,POTER- I heard in one place it was at leaste 3 or 4 years, and another place 6 month to a year if one mixed in non contaminated manure, to help brake down the pesticide gazon, hopefully we might get some experiance with it, I guess most cows eat grass or hay and corn that all seem to be sprayed with grazon, so it gets in the manure that way. SO how is the best way to fix my all sand soil I donāt know, I have not bought any soil YET, just seeing what or what I better not buy.OR pick up cheap if it has grazon in the soil,its usless.
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Your BEST bet is to spread it as thinly as possible (>5mm) and expose it to sunlight. It breaks down in sunshine, called photolysis (photons hit and split the chemical). Itās photolysis half-life is around 12 days. So think on a tarp, and flipping it over. In the soil, it has a much much longer half-life, 55-100 days or more.1-2 parts per billion and you may see some effect. It also will bind with humic acid, and then it still has to oxidize, and they didnāt specify that process and they werenāt clear on the mechanism in the 80s. when this paper was written:
Summary: Picloram is metabolized slowly by microbes and can be degraded through photolysis when directly exposed to sunlight. The half-life of picloram in soils can vary from one month to three years depending on soil and climate conditions. Other methods of chemical degradation do not occur readily.
Minute concentrations of picloram, clopyralid and aminopyralid, as low as 1 ppb (parts per billion), can be lethal to sensitive garden plants such as peas, beans, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and potatoes.ā Which incidentally would make a good test to see if it is still in the manure. peas and lettuce grow fast so you can tell fast.
for sunflowers:
Picloram (Tordon) has been used in North Dakota for years at low rates to control persistent broadleaf weeds in hard red spring wheat, barley and oats. Even at the low rate of one fluid ounce per acre (one-fourth ounce active), picloram residue can severely injure sunflower, according to Berglund. He recommends that only grass, small grains or flax be planted in 1996 on fields treated with picloram in the spring or summer of 1995. Sunflower, soybeans, dry edible beans and potatoes are among the crops especially susceptible to picloram.
Picloram also is somewhat mobile, so its residue can be at one- to two-foot depths if leaching has occurred in areas of higher rainfall. This creates a problem, Berglund notes, since sunflower seedlings will not display the usual injury symptoms (stunting, enlarged nodes). But once the plant roots reach the picloram residue zone, the herbicide will be transported to the terminal or top developing bud of the sunflower and may cause abnormal flower initiation and poor development.
the Amaranth or pigweed family, includes quinoa, but also includes spiny and palmer amaranth are invasive and extremely hard to control weeds, and have developed resistance to several classes of herbicides.
ā
Apparently Picloram kills off soil microbes as well. or at least that was the conclusion in a brazillian study. Now, whether the picloram is broken down by the microbes before dying didnāt appear in that study. i have found my culprit as to why the all important soil microbes are getting killed off.
On the bright side, all animal tests in dogs and rats, they can recover over 95% of it in pee and poop so the body is probably not absorbing any of it. roughly 80% was coming out in urine, so if you just have cow patties you reduce the susceptibility quite a bit.
Literally I would be putting that on a tarp spreading it 5mm or less, and letting it sit for a month(36 days), then flip it over for another month. As near as I can tell the photons can penetrate the 5mm of soil. If it fully penetrates it would be reduced to 1/64 (1/2^6) of the original concentration if it isnāt quite even and slightly thicker then 1/8 (1/2^3).
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