the soil i'm using is brand new, mixed as i need it, 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost.

:)

really-

:(

Dody, no advice....but I am so sorry for your poor taters.

Jo

i hope i didn't kill them. paul will be heartbroken. taters are darn near his favoritiest thing in the world. next to me, of course. :(

Hi Dody,

Well, potatoes are nightshades and I've noticed that a bunch of my nightshades (tomatoes, garden huckleberries, and eggplant...when it was outside getting hardened off) did not like the crazy wind or temperature fluctuations. One of my tomatoes also did not like the amount of water I gave it. Admittedly, I was trying to compensate for the drought, so I think I waterlogged it. Anyway, it is now out of its misery. Poor thing. My potatoes are doing fine, but I think that's because I've been growing them in cardboard boxes and they are still in the dirt covering phase.

But here are a few observations I've managed to pick up from growing my nightshades in this crazy weather.

1. They're not fond of sudden temperature changes. The huckleberry and tomatoes drooped significantly in the heat.

2. They don't like being waterlogged. I give my potatoes a good soaking every 3 days. Then I leave them dry out a bit.

3. My potatoes had been growing slowly until I put a ring of green sand around them and watered that in. Ever since then, they've been growing like gangbusters. Potatoes are high in iron. Green sand adds iron to the soil, giving potatoes what they want to absorb, thus making them grow better.

4. General observation about root crops in red dirt/clay: They never grow that well for me. (The main reason I planted potatoes in cardboard boxes, actually). Sometimes if you don't aerate your soil well enough or deep enough, potatoes tend to die a premature death. I had that happen to me once when I planted sweet potatoes in the ground.

But if you're worried that they're dead, it's not too late to plant cardboard box potatoes. Plus, you get twice the yield of ground potatoes. One fairly large-ish cardboard box can give you 100 lbs of potatoes. Sorry your potatoes are sick. Try adding some iron. And water less. Hope that helps.

Kelly

"Scooby",
Sorry your potatoes are acting up. I, too, have no advice, but if they don't recover, maybe it is not too late to follow Kelly's advice in starting new crop in secret so DH won't even notice and drop you further down his fav list. HA. Made me laugh.......

well, this am i went out with the intention of cutting off the stems that were looking puny, when lo and behold! one came right out of the ground. hmmmm....seems someone might have been having potatoes as a snack.

we've seen a few tunnels, and harley (the dog) has been digging furiously at them, thereby making her daddy furious at her for digging up the yard. well- he's steaming now, and i think he and harley will be going hunting this afternoon.

no use in me trying to 'splain to him that you don't get gophers/moles/whatevers by putting your shotgun down the hole and pulling the trigger. the man is mad, (and irish)- there's only so much i can do!!!

so, we'll try and get some hardware cloth under the bin. would it be possible for us to gently remove the plants, place the cloth and quickly replace the plants without doing too much damage ?

or perhaps we should start over, but i don't remember seeing any taters left in the stores...if someone knows where (in tulsa) to get some this time of year, that'd be great, otherwise, i guess we'll just wait till fall....

(i haven't told DH yet that those varmits like to eat other things as well, like his broccoli, and carrots and such...i remember "wild turkey" being mentioned in another thread....)

dody :)

Dody, From the picture, it looks like they rotted off. Can you see evidence that they were eaten. Has all of the seed potato just disappeared?

well, darn it all!!! i was really hoping it wasn't my fault. but i guess it is (hangs head in shame). i dug around and sure enough, the seed potato were there at the bottom of the bin, with stems still coming up off of them.

drat! i'd apologize to the underground critters, but that's just not in my nature...

so, if they rotted off, do you have any idea of the cause, what i can do about it, and if i can save the entire bed?

waa....don't wanna tell on myself, but i guess i'm gonna have to :(

dody :)

Thats odd... I had something similar happen to a couple of my lettuce plants this year, everything was growing like gangbusters and then all of a sudden the base rotted off at the soil level... top was fine (but wilted horribly) rootbase was fine, at the soil was rotten... I blamed wind damage at the time, I think the wind blows some of those plants around enough to damage the stems and then the microbes go to town at the site of the injury... just my theory.. maybe(probably) nothing to it. Has it been spreading or was it just that one plant?

Dody,

Did you use certified seed potatoes? If so, I'm surprised to be seeing this.

I think your potatoes have a bacterial infection called blackleg, but I've never seen in person, only in photos, so that's just a guess.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Black Leg & Soft Rot

you could cut the seed potato in half and see if it has rotted out...

Oh Dody, I'm sorry! But look at the bright side. No gopher means the rest of your gorgeous garden is still safe!

I had a %$&&!!#$ bleep gopher pull every dang thing I planted along the fence last year.

Hopefully you can find the cause and save your potatoes!

jo

super duper. yeah, it's the black leg, soft rot stuff. all the potatoes in the bin have it to one extent or another. so, they're all coming out :(

i bought the seed potatoes at lowe's, but the label didn't distinguish them as certified or not. so i assumed they were. yeah, i know. i didn't cut them, just planted them whole.

so, now i guess i'll order seed that IS certified, and start again. i hate to waste all that soil, as it's contaminated now. ah well. live and learn, eh?

dody :)

oh that sucks

Can you compost the soil to kill the bad stuff?

Jo

DH just said - "the tater's are dead. i'm leavin'"

bwahahaha!!!!

jo- i'm thinking i might be able to put it in a black trash bag and sterilize it over the summer, but i don't know how hot it would have to get to kill the bacteria. or i'll nuke it 1 cup at a time. :)

Dody,

Blackleg does not survive easily in soil without potatoes to survive on. So, if you pulled out all the potatoes and don't leave any tuber or plant parts behind, the soil should be good to re-use right away. However, I wouldn't use it for anything related to potatoes (like tomatoes, peppers or eggplants) for a couple of years.

When commercial growers have blackleg in the field, they just leave it alone because it can hit one plant and skip the next and so on. I guess they deal with it after the harvest is done, although I'm not sure what they'd do.

I would assume that any seed potatoes sold somewhere like Lowe's would be certified....I think all seed potatoes sold as seed potatoes are certified no matter what. Some people (and I've done this and never had a problem) plant regular organic potatoes from the grocery store that aren't treated with any chemicals and they grow just fine most of the time. I just think you had the misfortune to purchase some infected potatoes, and then the weather didn't help because it got so hot so early, which was great for the bacteria though not for the potatoes.

It is too late to replant potatoes for a summer harvest and expect a good harvest as they grow best at temperatures between 45-55 at night and 60-75 during the day, and need to set and size their tubers before soil temperature reaches 85 degrees. You can plant potatoes in late summer for a fall harvest, and if you choose to do that, it is better to plant early-season types so they can set and mature tubers before frost arrives.

I'm sorry this happened to your potato crop this year. I hope your husband decides to stay with you anyway. : )

Okiepokie, When lettuce rots at the ground like that it often is from a fungal disease called botrytis. One sign of botrytis is a little bit of fuzzy gray mold right where the rot occurred. It is soilborne, but there are fungicides you can use to treat it so lettuce can be grown there again in the future. It probably would be best to grow your lettuce in a 3-year crop rotation to keep the fungi from getting the next batch.

Dawn