Potatoes grown organically

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#81

Well my attempt to once again grow potatoes organically is beginning to fail . . . . again.
Three of my four 42 gallon garbage can growers are blighting.

Only sterilized organic sourced growing media, and certified disease free seed potato’s and still it is happening.
Why? I speculate because we’ve had a nightly air cooling down into the the 36-42F range. Dew point has been at 48F. The daytime 75-85F temps and the general area ground moisture’s are carrying up the fungal spores from around and about. Night air dew-down depositing these then onto the garbage can plant leaves.
The six in-the-ground potato hills are so far unaffected. I speculate that the much greater ground heat-mass is mornings drying these out much quicker. With a much later nightly dew-wetting allowed.

Past experience shows that commercial copper metallic based anti-fungal’s are what is needed here to get spuds to maturity. PITA to have to reapply after every rain, sprinkling, heavy dew wetting. And I do not want the copper accumulating into the limited volume growing cans.
Ha! Ha! So as a failing “science experiment” anyways I am now trying a new-to-me anti-fungal spray.
Dr Earth Final Stop / Disease Control Fungicide
rosemary oil, clove oil, peppermint oil combined at 1.2% of total.
rest “inert” of cargeenum, cellulose, citric acid, citrus plulp, glycerin, vitamin C, water, yeast.
I stem pulled up all of the cell-mushed weakend plants. Doused down still visible unaffected survivors with Dr Earth until dripping wet. Overnight now they have perked right up. Didn’t over-spray kill’en . . . yet.
Of course the real measure will be just what come out of these garbage-can-growers later??

Ha! And this Dr Earth combo kinnda hard on the hands. And REALLY eye stinging with any rub transferring. About like a low percent capsicum spray. Be warned.
IF it works effectively this combo mix could be home grown and made up.

J-I-C Steve Unruh

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#82

Steve I hope the spray works for you. Here potatoes are one of the easiest crops to grow as long as you can control the bugs. I pick the Potatoe bugs everyday in the morning and when I see a new outbreak of them I use an organic approved spray. I wonder if a different kind of potatoes would grow better. One thing I do is plant a bunch of different verities of everything to lower my risk of one type not growing.

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#83

Sorry to hear about the blight, if that is what it is. It is my understanding that blight is viral? Maybe even prion? It appears to spread on the wind throughout regions. We have late blight blowing around, last year I had beautiful tomato plants, 4ft tall black Krim, setting fruit, then they looked like burnt with a torch, they yielded nothing. There are blight resistant tomatoes, but I opted to plant up north, no blight there.

And no potato bugs either! A tremendous blessing, otherwise I would have to plow down my half mile of rows. Hopefully for next year Yukon Gem can give you better results.

I agree with Dan, multiple approaches is always good. I have 12 varieties growing this year. It seems there’s a potato variety for every climate condition and soil type. And then there’s the applications each kind can be used for, practically endless. I have seen very different results in growing seed potatoes on a colder flat compared to their field results.

Ag Canada has 200 listed / licensed varieties, I expect the US selection is similar or larger. Some of the newer ones might have promising characteristics. Goldeye is one promising strain, introduced in 2006, might suit a short growing season and be disease resistant, good yield. I have some growing, I will know more in the fall.

http://www.solanum-int.com/potato/goldeye/L

Edit.

I found this:

http://articles.extension.org/pages/18361/organic-management-of-late-blight-of-potato-and-tomato-phytophthora-infestans

There is a GMO variety, Innate, which should address the issue, not sure how you would feel about that. Various others have natural bred resistance, Orla, Elba, Sarpo Mira, Colleen. Just a cursory search result. Very thankful I don’t have that difficulty.

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#84

We spray blight with hydrogen peroxide solution. Have to do it after big rains, and often though. Mostly on tomatoes. And usually as a preventative measure.

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#85

Potato and tomato blights as the info links GaryT put up will show these to be fungal.
I planted the two best supposedly resistant available to me varieties in Yukon Golds and Kennebec whites. Earlier I’d said Pontiac Reds. Mind-slip. One of my favorite’s to bake. Couldn’t get the certified disease-free seed for this year.

This moring a very heavy wetting dew-down here. Evne as late as 9:00 AM the west-side leafs on the garbage can potoato plant were still glistening wet.
The organic oils spray so far now on the second day seem to be doing fine.
As I’d said the in-the-ground tow varitiy from the very same seed batches are so far fine.
And we did plant eight indiviual varities of PNW recommended tomato plants. ALL fine too.
In fact be harvesting the one with vine ripened tonight.
This is about 30 days early for us.
The sun warmed watering to helping a lot on the tomato’s, corn/maize, and squashes.

Pole beans lagging very much this year. My first year rutabaga’s doing well. S-t-i-l-l having difficulty desrening my/our first year of parsnips sprouts from weeds starts. Wifie said she could tell. No. Not any better than my guesses.

My goal is a local reliable we-grown starch source. This proved impossible for the Native First Peoples here too. They knew about corn and tomato’s. Wet-side Cascades here could not get them into maturity either.
Camas roots, fish and more fish. Finned and shell. Ha! Ha! And I am sure some river-come-up salmon eating fattened sea-lion meat to go with the salmon eating bears meats.

We are now on our official 30 days with no rain. I did get one very local thunder showering in there.
Expectation is we will hit 50 days with no rain.
More on this linked onto another topic.
J-I-C Steve Unruh

#86

I have grown those same verities of potatoes. I find fingerling potatoes and Germany Butter balls are my favorite. The fingerling might work well for you. They are smaller potatoes but they have a high starch content I like them because I can add alot of milk and butter when I mash them.
jerusalem artichoke is one I have debated growing. I haven’t tried it because my grandfather always called it a weed and said if it gets into the soil here you will never get it out. Maybe some day I will get brave and try it anyway.
Can you grow items in the cabbage family there? Krobri is in that family one of my favorites. I saw them somewhere and just had to try it. I freeze a bunch of it for srews.
Parsnips I stopped growing them a last year. They start soo slow I had a very hard time weeding them out. In the end I decided they where just letting weeds have a foothold in my garden. I think next year I might try to start them inside. I haven’t had much success with that though.

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#87

Parsnips are notorious for being difficult to germinate. They start quite early, should be planted as early as radishes. One year old seed.
If that is done I get good results. Roots left over winter will produce abundant seed.

Jerusalem artichoke is hardy and productive, but has weed characteristics, persistent. If you give them their own patch to play with not so bad, but never count on eradicating them in one season.

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#88

Find seed for an heirloom corn variety called Gaspé flint. It is the most exceptional variety I have grown, produces miniature dry cobs on 3ft plants in maybe 70 - 80 days. It would be cultivated more like a grain than regular corn, but it performs in cool conditions and seasons that no other corn can.

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#89

I was thinking of making a patch for them but I worry about them spreading all over the place.

Parsnips freeze well you get most of the sweetness, can use them all winter and don’t get the warm spring rot issues.

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#90

Parsnips are best after frost, or even better left till early the next spring, freezing solid does them no harm at all.

#91

I just harvest them in the fall yes i do wait for the frost and freeze them. My grandfather always left them in the ground till spring but in the spring sometimes we get a spell of warm weather before the ground actually thaws out enough to harvest them and they rot. I ate enough parsnip mush as a kid to last a lifetime.

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#92

We have more abrupt change of seasons, I’ve never seen them deteriorate over winter.

They could probably be frozen whole, bagged in a deep freeze, I gather that is what you describe.

Regarding Jerusalem artichoke, I suspect they might make a productive feed stock for ethanol fuel, or perhaps animal feed. Skorospelka is the most outstanding variety I have grown, but with a longer growing season you may tend towards others.

#93

Don’t know how they would do where you are, but we have no problem getting rid of them here. In fact, I wish they would be easier to keep going. I guess some do come back as weeds for a year or two sometimes…
But I have heard horror stories of people planting huge crops of them for bio-diesel? ethanol?? not sure exactly what kind of fuel bio-matter…but then not being able to get them out…

I just try to give them a patch somewhere off to themselves to keep coming back. They’re great for a honey crop too.

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#94

Jerusalem artichokes… love them. Hardy and dont nead any attention at all. harvest all winter, althugh they do produce gas problems to some people.

As for bioethanol, yes, it can be done, our antcestors produced vodka like spirits from it, but l dubt it being economical for fuel. I think l remember the roots contain about 5% carbohydrates, so after fermentation you are left with a mash of about 2,5% vol. Alcohol solution, so you end up with 25l of ethanol from a tone of the rhizomes. Thats at most!

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#95

Would that figuring be correct? Roughly 1.5 kg of sugar per imperial gallon yields a theoretical maximum 17 / 18%. Starch in Jerusalem artichoke is produced as inulin, I’m not sure how efficiently yeast will metabolize it, but a WAG tells me that you could get a fair amount of carbohydrate in a gallon mash. Generally mash for distilling is designed to yield in the 5% range after a rapid fermentation, like a beer.

A large volume still would be the key to efficient processing. The spent mash should serve as animal feed.

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#96

Appologys, my memory was wrong on this one! Turns out the yelds are higher.
But still, l am not a big fan of burning food. Burn wood. Better, and more fun :wink:

However, l do plan to plant a feald (in the next few years) with them, one of my 2 freerange sows gave birth to 6 piglets, and they are all hungry for anything remotely looking like food :smile: Hope to make them look after the feed them selfs In winter too. Acorns, chestnuts and jerusalem arthichokes is what l am ameing for.

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#97

I agree Kristijan, I also have a very strong aversion to burning food stuffs. But if the processed mash is used for animal feed, couldn’t it be argued to have little loss, just as a properly integrated charcoal production system to supply fuel for charcoal gasification? And the processed mash may be higher value feed for animals, thus legitimizing part of the processing energy.

Regarding pigs, that is also my aim, that should be a beautiful system. The plant tops are quite edible, deer will eat them off to the ground. Pigs should do well on a plot, and thoroughly turn over the soil, the soil should end up richer as a result.

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#98

Make fuel and feed… perhaps.

Yes! Thats what l was thinking about. Pigs shuld harvest, till and fertilise by them selves. No need for planting, its done by its self. A topic for SteveUs Do more with less thread :smile:
Some say you can allso do one hay or silage harvest a year of the greens, so there is this allso.

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#99

I wonder if the pigs will root so thoroughly to thin out the patch? I plan on 2 patches in rotation, with possibly reseeding from a reserve source. I guess it may depend on how big the patch and how many pigs. Very close to permaculture though.

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#100

Yesterday was also beet pickling day #2. We usually plant, thin to eat, pick most of the rest to process, and let the stragglers grow a while until it’s about time to get ready for cover crops. That’s the last of them for now.
Great for adrenal function, not so good for kidney stones…In-laws were here too.

Ended up with 47 more quarts. It’s hard to have enough…

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