Tennessee 2020 Garden

[TomatoNut95]

I have a laptop and I easily transfer pictures from my phone or camera into it by hooking the cords into the laptops USB drive. After I got a new phone, I don't use it as much except for texting. I prefer to text my friends or family rather than call because I don't like talking on the phone. Besides, I can take my time responding to a message rather than wandering around or sitting with the phone stuck to my ear when I'm busy.

However, I do use my phone for the wifi hotspot to use my tablet for the internet instead of my phone. But I can't upload photos to the forum from my tablet, so I do have to use my phone for that. My tablet takes horrible pictures anyway. The pixels on it are too puny.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried making your own veggie patties? I wonder if I could make my own out of zucchini, tomatoes and peppers...

[Gary350]

I harvested several of my cilantro seeds today then planted about 30 seeds in each of these 2 pots. Cilantro is not easy to germinate in 90 degree weather so pots go in zip lock bags to hold soil moisture then into the refrigerator. Tomatoes are getting ripe slow and most of the cilantro is gone already it is hard to make salsa with no tomatoes or no cilantro I need both at the same time. Tomorrow I need to pick as much remaining cilantro as I can find and hope I can save it until I have enough tomatoes to make 15 mason jars of salsa for the pantry. These little pots will transplant into 2 gallon pots then put in a place so they get a few hours of early morning cool temperature sun then full shade the rest of the day. I will start 2 more small cilantro pots and keep them outside to see which seed cpots germinate first, refrigerator or outside. In the past it took more than a month for cilantro seeds to germinate in 90 degree weather but I was using 1 year old seeds then.

Coriander is made from green color cilantro seeds after they dry out and turn brown there is not much flavor.

[Gary350]

Yesterday I found my salsa recipe a Mexican family gave me about 15 years ago. Put 3 ripe tomatoes, 1 garlic clove, 1 onion, 1 jalapeno pepper in a pan of boiling water for 2 minutes, turn off heat, put lid on pan, let it set & cool naturally for 1 hour to cook the 4 items. I removed tomato skins and put all 4 items in food processor with, cilantro, salt, cumin, pulse a few time, put salsa in refrigerator 24 hours for flavors to marinade and get better. Today I tasted salsa, it tastes good I think 3 tomatoes should have been 3 larger tomatoes and jalapeno pepper should have included the seed to make it more spicy hot. I did not put lime juice in this. Practice makes perfect. Today I picked all the garden cilantro & dry seeds I could find, now I need 15 lbs of tomatoes to make more salsa. My jalapeno pepper came from the grocery store the garden plants won't have any jalapenos for months. I wonder how to tell how spicy hot grocery store jalapeno peppers are from looking at them? Jalapenos are 6 cents each next time I buy $2 worth of them unless there are some in the garden. My garden jalapeno plants are only 2 ft tall. I am not doing good at remembering to fertilizing plants this year.

[Gary350]

I did not know cucumbers climb. Today I see cucumbers are finally growing and climbing up a tomato cage. I have about 10 unused tomatoes cages that could have been used. This is the 2nd time I ever grew Q-cumbers. My grandmother always planted a large cucumber patch. A week of rain 6" long Q-cumber vines are 4 ft long & 20 seeds germinated a few days ago. What is the best way to grow cucumbers?

[TomatoNut95]

Oh yeah, cucumbers are vining. They need at least a five or six foot trellis. Some varieties are bushier than others. I always plant my cucumbers at a makeshift trellis. Get two stakes and run some twine between them. Or a piece of wire fencing. Anything for the vines to wrap around. I've never heard of planting cucumbers in patches without a trellis.

[Gary350]

7 am I sprayed tomato plants with baking soda blight spray. 7:30 am I picked another 1/2 gallon of blackberries. For lunch I made a garden pizza an wife made garden potato salad. What do you do with 2 left over kielbasa sausage cooked on BBQ grill & 2 thick cut slices of Salami, you build a pizza. We are eating our onions early before they are full grown I should have planted 3 times more. I dug up a large soft ball size potato wife made potato salad for dinner. I have a left over grocery store jalapeno pepper plus there are Tabasco peppers in the garden. I diced onion tops for the pizza too. Wife said, no hot spicy stuff on my side of pizza so I put markers on the pizza. I put herbs, garlic powder, powder cheese, black pepper in pizza dough. WOW this turned out to be an amazing good pizza with plenty of hot spicy good flavor.

[Gary350]

I learned something new about potatoes. When I sprouted seed potatoes some sprouted sooner than others. A month later potatoes that sprouted first had sprouts 4" long. Potatoes that sprouted last were 1" long. I planted potato cuttings in rows with 4" long sprouts at the beginning of the row and 1" long sprouts at the end of the row. It is interesting to learn cuttings with 4" long sprouts the plants are ready to harvest but the shorter 1" sprouts are not ready yet. I think that is an indication when potato eyes start to grow that must be the beginning of the potato plants 4 month life cycle. I should be able to harvest 1/4 of the new potatoes every week for 4 weeks.

Corn plants are 6 ft tall with tassels they have filled out fast after 5" of rain with a week of cool over cast weather.

Dill plants have turned to seed. I cut off only the tops with large seeds. I ate some of the greens on sandwiches a month ago it was good but not sure what to do with all these seeds. I never saw so many micro small bugs some the size of a speck of black pepper, some the size of a grain of salt, I see several of this bugs that look like tiny 1/4" long alligators. Little 1/8" round yellow bug with spots. I can not bring these inside the house with several 100 bugs.

I cleaned house rain gutters on the back of the house only and got 2 gallons of very nice potting soil. Not sure what to use it for yet so I will keep it in a 2 gallon pot ready to plant something.

Tomatoes are very slow to get ripe. I tried to count green tomatoes there is about 90 of them in this 1 row. Some are almost ready 2 pick.

Wife made garden mustard type potato salad for dinner. Yummy.

[MsDDC]

I did not know cucumbers climb. Today I see cucumbers are finally growing and climbing up a tomato cage.

My literal favorite gardening moment was YEARS ago when I lived on Capitol Hill in DC. I walked by a house that had a "tiny" container garden out on the curb, in their tree box (where street trees are planted, some have a few feet on each side of them). They had herbs, of course, but also a cherry tomato plant with a cucumber wound up around the tomato cage, growing peacefully together in the same ~20" pot. It was, like, 2007 (I lived on Capitol Hill from late 2007 to mid 2009), so I'm sure I didn't waste space on my storage mediums getting a photo, but trust me that it was an inspiration in small-space gardening!

[Gary350]

We have 2 gallons of blackberries in the freezer and more today. I am trying to pick mostly berries that are still slightly red color because they are tart like pie cherries with the best flavor. If I pick a berry that is soft like mash potatoes I drop it to the ground. Mother Turkey & 7 baby turkeys are here every morning at sun rise looking for berries. There are so many berries I am not trying very hard to search for hidden berries like I usually do. No wonder my back is hurting I have to be an extortionist bend & twist 40 different ways every morning to pick berries. I wake up about 3 am put Aspercream on my back then go back to sleep for 2 hours. I have been eating blackberry Jam every morning for breakfast. Its about time to have a peanut butter & jam sandwich.

I picked a basket full of ripe tomatoes yesterday about 7 lbs.

[Gary350]

We decided it is time to have a good garden dinner so I dug up 2 dead potato plants and found 1 lb 14.9 ounces of new potatoes in a space 6" wide. It was a challenge to find 12 ounces of beans big enough to pick, a few more days there will be lots of large beans. Tomorrow potatoes & beans go into the crock pot with a pork roast and will be ready to eat by dinner time tomorrow evening with sliced tomatoes.

Moles have been very active every where in the yard, when I dug unto potato bed there are mole tunnels every where. I don't think moles eat potatoes? I dug a 6" wide place all the way down following 2 dead plants to the bottom. Most of the new potatoes were near the very bottom, 2 new potatoes were half way up, 1 new potato near the top. Plants grew like indeterminate potatoes but most of the potatoes were near the bottom like determinate potatoes. This 37 ft long potato bed has about 25 ft of red potatoes that should = about 98 lbs of new Red potatoes. Wait and see. There was no rain month of June and I did not water. Many of these plants have been dead for 2 to 3 weeks, I should learn to watch the plants and not the calendar Red potatoes should have been dug up 2 weeks ago.

Today I see white potato plants are dying. According to the calendar they have 2 more weeks to grow.

[TNCatHerder]

Gary your corn looks great! Wish I had a spot to do that.

[Gary350]

Gary your corn looks great! Wish I had a spot to do that.

If you have enough space for a 10'x10' corn patch you can grow 100 corn plants in a 10 ft square. When I lived at the other house and had a tiny garden I had very good luck planting 10 rows of corn with row spacing 1 ft apart and 6" seed spacing. Only bad thing about this it is hard to weed once plants are taller than 2 ft but by then corn is only a few weeks from harvest time.

I also planted a 2nd corn crop Aug 1st in 100 degree heat it took a lot of water to make seeds to germinate and lots of water to get good corn on the second crop.

[Gary350]

I got an early start this morning 6 am trying to beat the terrible heat & humidity. I removed the 10 ft boards in one section of the potato bed then cut off the plants. I slowly and carefully dug into the soil trying to learn how the potatoes grew and how many potatoes I have. 4" below soil bed surface I found only 5 good size potatoes. All the rest of the potatoes were found deep down where cuttings were planted. Growing indeterminate potatoes for the purpose of getting a larger harvest appears to be a complete waste of time and work. We had no rain for a whole month maybe that was a problem. I dug up 7 lbs 2 oz of potatoes, include the potato other potatoes I dug up yesterday evening I there was a total of 9 lbs 1 oz of potatoes in this 4 ft spot.

[Gary350]

Now that I know where the majority of the potatoes are I dug up the next 6 ft of this 10 ft potato bed with a shovel. I found 9 lb 1 oz of potatoes. There are many plants that grew no potatoes and several plants that have 9 to 11 small marble size potatoes. I found 2 large potatoes that were not even in the potato bed roots went under the boards 1 potato was in the walk path on the north side and 1 potato was in the walk path on the south side. 9 lbs 1 oz + yesterday 1 lb 15 oz + 7 lb 2 oz = 18 lbs 3 oz total for this 10 ft long potato bed section.

Do the math if the next 15 ft of potato bed also has 9 lbs of potatoes every 5 ft that will be another 27 lbs of potatoes. I am not digging up anymore potatoes for at least 1 week plants in the next 15 ft are not very dead yet and we have 7 days of rain in the forecast. Plus what will we do with 45 lbs of potatoes all at once.

There is also 15 ft of potato bed with white potatoes that will soon be ready to harvest.

[TomatoNut95]

Nice potatoes, Gary!

[Gary350]

Our first garden dinner of the year, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, meat.

[Gary350]

9 ft tall corn, wow I don't remember every having corn this tall especially from 72 day corn. It was about 15 days go corn was 3 ft tall and I was worried their won't be any corn this year ears won't be any larger than my finger. 5" of rain first week now rain every day makes a big difference for all plants especially corn.

15 cucumber plants are finally getting large enough to make Q-cumbers there are too many blossoms to count and 1 tiny cucumber starting to grow. I replanted 3 times & 5 inches of rain finally made all the seeds grow now there are about 50 plants. This year I will do as my grandmother did, mix up 5 gallons of Bread & Butter pickle brine then, every day, pick & slice cucumbers, then throw slices into the brine. When the 8 gallon pot is full it is time to put pickles in jars.

My Russian Red Kale plant is getting very large planted in 70% shade under east side of a shade tree. When cold weather is here this will be ready to eat and weather here will never get cold enough to kill it.

Roma Flat pod beans are loaded with 1000s of beans & several more days they will be ready to pick. Wife likes these beans much better than Blue Lake plants produce about 50% less than Blue Lake. They don't do well at making a second harvest like Blue Lake either so after first harvest the whole crop will be left to make seeds.

Sweet potato plants are being taken over my grass from all this every day rain. I never have grass or weeds because it can not grow with no rain. This is a strange year no rain for a month and now rain every day for 2 weeks. I usually ignore sweet potatoes for 6 months then dig them up after frost kills the plants in Nov.

Tomatoes are finally getting ripe we have 8 lbs of tomatoes in the kitchen. Let tomatoes age 3 days in the kitchen so acid turns to sugar then we will start putting them in mason jars. Low acid tomatoes are better suited for cooking they taste sweeter in food and much better flavor.

I replanted zuchinni squash 3 times then bought new seeds and planted the whole package of seeds and we still have only 2 zuchinni plants. If we get 6 zuchinni all summer that will be enough.

Yellow squash are doing good plants are large & 3 ft tall. We always have better luck growing crookneck squash that straight neck squash not sure why.

So far I'm having no trouble keeping melon vines under control raked them in a long row. There are volunteer melons coming up all over the garden I have been pulling them up.

Carrot plants are looking good I keep having volunteer tomato plants coming up in the carrot patch. I pulled up several tomato plants but now I am letting 4 plants grow. It is probably a bad idea to let tomatoes grow with carrots big plants will shade the carrots. Wait and see I might pull them up too if I knew for sure plants are beef master I will pull them up for sure.

I have not been paying attention to pepper plants this year they are all small. I usually feed plants lots of potassium from wood ash but just can't seem to remember to do that this year.

Basil plants I grew from seeds are finally growing. I wish I had planted these in 2 gallon pots so I can move them to shade when it starts getting too hot. Early morning sun then shade at 11am to dark will keep them from going to seed unless it gets hotter. I would like to have some seeds but not this soon in the summer I want basil leaves.

I found a good place to keep 18 lbs of new potatoes out of sun & rain for a few days. Soon as soil dries and wipes off potatoes can go to the kitchen.

[Gary350]

This morning I made French style hash brown potatoes for breakfast. I don't recall the french name for this crispy potato patty. Soon as 4 tablespoons of oil starts to smoke in a small 8" cast iron skillet sprinkle in the potatoes. About 3 minute when golden brown flip it over. Few minutes later while still hot oil drains away easy lay on paper towel for 1 minutes. Red potatoes are suppose to be more healthy than white potatoes because they have about 50% less carbs. I use to make these in a 12" skillet when kids were younger they loved them. This electric stove is hard to cook with the crispy is extra crispy in the center.

Time for me to pick another 1/2 gallon of blackberries before sun gets too high in the sky. I am already tired of picking blackberries and it will be another 2 weeks before all these berries are ripe enough to pick. Grass is still wet from another big rain yesterday about 8 pm.

[Gary350]

Roma Flat Pod beans get 6" long I hate to pick anything shorter than 5" these plants are not big producers like other beans. I found 1 lb 11 oz of beans in an 80 ft row. Maybe it is good there was no rain for a month and I had to replant several times but if I could get a big harvest all at once we would have beans for the pantry. OH well wife is cooking these for dinner along with potatoes & tomatoes.

[applestar]

LOL about the blackberries. I picked about a pint for the first time Yesterday. It’s not very favored here, and DH kept on telling me to eat them or put them away (but the flavor deteriorates once refrigerated) — I told him I wanted to see if older daughter wanted some fresh.

... end of day, she told me she ate them all... Oh well, maybe blackberry cobbler’s worth next time. Bet you can’t wait to se them loaded enough to start making wine.

[Gary350]

LOL about the blackberries. I picked about a pint for the first time Yesterday. It’s not very favored here, and DH kept on telling me to eat them or put them away (but the flavor deteriorates once refrigerated) — I told him I wanted to see if older daughter wanted some fresh.

... end of day, she told me she ate them all... Oh well, maybe blackberry cobbler’s worth next time. Bet you can’t wait to se them loaded enough to start making wine.

Yes your right, put blackberries in refrigerator they get over ripe and loose their flavor. Freeze blackberries it locks in the flavor. Middle of winter I can make blackberry cobbler with frozen berries that taste like fresh picked. My cobbler recipe says, sprinkle berries over the top of the dough then put it in the oven so I sprinkle on frozen berries then wait about 2 hours for them to thaw before putting cobbler in oven.

[Gary350]

I picked our first cucumber today. Time to mix up 4 gallons of Bread & Butter pickle brine then every day I can slice Q-cumbers and toss them into the 8 gallon container. I see about 12 more little cucumber hiding in the vines I will soon be picking cucumbers every day. So far only about 20 plants are large enough to make cucumbers but when all 50 plants start making cucumbers we will have all we need very quick.

[Gary350]

Wife put green beans in a crock pot then she wanted some garden onions. Then she wanted more onions because she is making mustard potato salad too for tomorrow. I decided to thin the carrot bed so we have about 50 small carrots to cook with beans. After beans & carrots cook a while she is going to throw in several red potatoes. I wish we could eat from the garden like this all the time but how is it possible to have a garden 12 months every year. Onion tops are all dead I will leave onions where they are then pull them up when needed.

[Gary350]

This morning I picked about 3/4 gallon of blackberries in about 30 minutes, this is the largest pick in 1 day so far. There was only 1 cucumber today at this rate it will take a very long time to make 5 gallons of Bread & Butter pickles. There was 1 Rudger tomato today. It is very strange I bought a 4 pack of Rudger tomatoes 3 of the plants are making very large tomatoes but the 4th plant is making only small tomatoes. The plants with large tomatoes have 10 to 11 tomatoes per plant very near 1 lb each. The 1 plant with small tomatoes has 49 tomatoes on it probably 3 oz tomatoes. I wonder if the plant with 49 small tomatoes is actually a Rudger it could be a mistake in with 3 Rudgers. Beef Steak tomatoes are usually the large quantity tomato producers every year but not this year.

Wife plans to have, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, beans, carrots, for dinner this evening. No yellow squash yet but lots of blossoms. No blossoms on zuchinni. Corn is looking amazing a few more rains to help kernels grow big would be nice. I wish I had irrigation for the corn, oh well we get what we get wait and see. Only crop doing exceptionally well is Blackberries.

[Gary350]

I went out in the rain with an umbrella to pick cucumbers at 9 am they need to be picked when they are the perfect pickle size. I got 1 Q-cumber yesterday morning and 1 yesterday evening and 2 this morning. 1 plant died yesterday morning and another plant died today. There are not many plants actually making cucumbers yet. Wow this is slow less than 5 minutes work every day. The new Master Gardener Bread & Butter pickle recipe is working good and taste good too and 98% less work compared to old recipes. All I do is slice pickles every day then throw them in the 7 gallon brine bucket with all the other pickles. I have been getting about 15 pickle slices from every cucumber.

[Gary350]

After 7 hours of rain & storms corn is a disaster and about 10 days from harvest. Corn usually does a good job of standing its self up it has about 10 days to get the job done.

[TomatoNut95]

Aww, poor corn. Sorry, Gary. The weather has been wacky this year.

[Gary350]

I picked more blackberries this evening and got a little bit more than last time very near a gallon. Today I had to pick berries with some very evil looking red wasps I had to be careful not to pick a berry that has a wasp on it. I picked 2 more cucumbers and sliced them for pickles. I see 5 more cucumbers in the garden but only 2 will be large enough to pick by morning. I picked a few tomatoes they need to age for 3 days in the kitchen before we use them flavor gets much better. I need 7 quart mason jars of tomatoes to fill the water bath canner.

[MsDDC]

Does slicing cukes for pickles work better with that pattern/tool? I know most commercial pickle chips are cut like that.

I ask because my SIL makes pickles, and while they are tasty, they are a bit...mushy. She uses the crisp-making additive, and it's not terrible, but not great. I don't know that she'd be willing to use it (I *think* she uses her food processor to slice them since she makes so many), but I might buy her one for Christmas if it helps (...me get a few jars of truly crispy pickles).

[Gary350]

Does slicing cukes for pickles work better with that pattern/tool? I know most commercial pickle chips are cut like that.

I ask because my SIL makes pickles, and while they are tasty, they are a bit...mushy. She uses the crisp-making additive, and it's not terrible, but not great. I don't know that she'd be willing to use it (I *think* she uses her food processor to slice them since she makes so many), but I might buy her one for Christmas if it helps (...me get a few jars of truly crispy pickles).

I don't think the cut shape makes any difference how pickles taste. Your SIL might be using 1 of the old cook methods of making pickles. Pickle crisp is suppose to add crunch to pickles I have tried it too but I don't use it. I have a new recipe that works better than all others, the recipe is actually identical to the old recipe only difference is the method of making pickles is different and 98% less work.

1 gallon of white vinegar
1 gallon of white sugar
1/2 cup canning salt
16 tsp celery seed
16 tsp mustard seed
8 tsp ginger powder
4 tsp tumeric
Bring to a boil mix well then remove from heat and let cool to room temperature with a lid on the pan.
Slice 1 large yellow onion add to the pickle brine.
Cut several gallons of cucumber slices add them to the brine mix. As water from cucumbers becomes part of the brine there is more brine than before and more cucumbers can be added day after day. When no more cucumber slices can be added age pickle slices 1 month then pack mason jars with pickles 1/2" from the top of jar. Heat pickle brine to about 180 degrees F fill all the jars to the top. Bump jars on table top several times to knock out the air bubbles. Place seals & rings on jars stand them upside down on a cloth towel to cool. Pickles are ready to eat.

[MsDDC]

I'll share this with her. I think she pressure cans them (she has a huge pressure canner), so maybe that's the problem?

[Gary350]

Abracadabra "60 CUCUMBERS." These Boston cucumber suck 1/2 the plants are died. State Fair cucumbers I had last year were better. NO cucumber harvest today. There are about 25 new plants starting to grow so I still might get a bunch of Qcumbers sometime before Nov frost.

[Gary350]

I picked 16 lbs of potatoes before dark. Some are Rudgers, some are Big Beef. I like Rudgers they have a very good tomato flavor a lot like pizza sauce & spaghetti sauce with no herbs. I will plant Rudgers again next year.

[Gary350]

Today people at Farmers Market said, cucumber Beatles are bad this year that is probably why you have so many dead and dying plants. Today I have more dead plants and small cucumbers that were small yesterday are still small. I learned to buy Chicago cucumbers they do good in TN but no Chicago cucumber seeds available anywhere its probably too late in the season. Today I ordered 3 types of cucumber seeds, Wisconsin, National & Ghargin. I have 4 months to grow cucumbers.

Today I dug up another 10 ft of potato bed and found 22 lbs 7 ounces of new potatoes. This makes a total of 40 lbs of Red Potatoes.

Rudger tomatoes taste so good I decided to make a pot of Chili. I put in 3 large tomatoes cooked it an hour then wife tasted it and said, it needs 3 more tomatoes. 30 minutes later she said, it needs 3 more tomatoes. 30 minutes later after a lot of water had boiled away wife said, that tastes good so we ate about 1/2 of it. Rudger tomatoes have a tiny black bug problem that no other tomatoes in the garden has. These little bugs tunnel into the tomato from both ends, I cut off everything around the center then throw center piece in the trash.

[Gary350]

I have tomato plants with no leaves to block the sun so tomatoes are getting sun burn. I mixed up some muddy water to pour on tomatoes it makes a good sun blocker.

Before dark I picked about 7 lbs of tomatoes and enough blackberries for another cobbler.

[Gary350]

28 lbs of tomatoes today. We ate 1 large Rudger tomato for dinner.

Wire basket of saved Rudger seeds.

3 lbs of Roma Flat Pod green beans for dinner. Wife only cooked 1 lb she put the other 2 lb in freezer.

7 potato experiment. I soaked new potatoes in water 5 hours to remove enzymes,. I want to see if potatoes eyes sprout.

[Gary350]

I picked 38 lbs of Green Beans this morning from 2 rows both 40 ft long. I was in the garden when the sun was coming up getting an early start before it is 98 degrees, Heat index 107 degrees. I have a hard time picking beans, it is hard to get down to pick then harder to get up. I pulled all the plants up by the roots then set in a comfortable chair in the shade and picked beans. Wife is putting more beans in the freezer. My Son is coming for dinner an taking home a LOT of beans.

We have 2 yellow squash today too.

[Gary350]

Today I dug up the last 5 ft of the Red Potato row being very careful to examine everything as I dig it up.

There are several potato cuttings that never grew at all. Online search I learn when you cover potato cuttings with soil 6" is about maximum that new plants can grow through. It appears that about 50% of my cuttings were covered with too much soil and never survived.

Next I find there are plants that are only plants they never grew any new potatoes. 2 of these plants were 12" from other plants so over crowding was not a problem. What does this mean? It seems to mean, just because a cutting has a good growing eye it may not grow any new potatoes.

I learned all the new potatoes grow within 4" from the cutting. About 96% of the new potatoes grow in a donut shape circle 6" to 8" diameter around each cutting. I am finding a few new potatoes 3" to 4" below & above the cutting.

Cuttings with 1 eye often grew 1 very large potato weight about 1 lb. Cuttings with 2 eye grew 2 medium size potatoes total weight about 1 lb. Cuttings with 3 eyes grew smaller potatoes total weight close to 1 lb. This is interesting that a grower has control over what side potatoes he grows. If you want large baking potatoes then plant cuttings with only 1 eye. If you want medium size potatoes plant 2 eye cuttings. Smaller potatoes come from 3 eye cuttings.

There was 30 potato cuttings planted in this 5 ft row. About 14 plants lived and grew. I dug up 13 lbs 9 oz of potatoes. That is slightly less than 1 lb of new potatoes per plant.

What have I learned? When planting potatoes, till the soil, make a 3" deep hole, drop in the cutting then cover it up with only 2" of soil. Cuttings should be 8" apart. Grow indeterminate potatoes like they are determinate potatoes it is much less work and just as productive. Plant 1 eye cuttings for large baking potatoes. Plant 2 eye cuttings of medium size potatoes, Too much nitrogen will grow very large plants with not many potatoes. Potatoes need high phosphorus and high potassium fertilizer. Soil should be 6 ph. My grandfather grew potatoes like this in Illinois 50 yrs ago I never understood what he was doing or why until now. I have 4 more potato experiments to dig up soon.

What is working for me in TN may not work the same for people in different geographical locations and different weather.

[Gary350]

Are cucumbers, determinate & indeterminate? Cucumbers I planted first died but seeds plants a month ago are starting to make cucumbers. No cucumber beetles anywhere. I found a large Q-cumber in side a tomato cage hiding among the leaves. About 7 more pounds of tomatoes. Another whole gallon of blackberries for the freezer.

[Gary350]

7am I dug up the last 7 ft of the potato row and got 13 lbs of white Kennebec potatoes. It was interesting to see potatoes grew like they are laid out on the table. Lots of very small white potatoes near the end of the red potato row. I have 4 red potatoes on the far right of the photo. Farther away from red potatoes I dig the larger white potatoes got. I have never read anything online about this I wonder if white potatoes did not like being planted near red potatoes. This turns out to be almost 2 lbs of potatoes per foot. Kennebec seed potatoes were lost I found them and got them planted 3 weeks later than red potatoes. I did no preparation. I planted whole seed potatoes not cuttings. Too much soil covering up the seed potatoes about 80% of the eyes never grew plants. I have learned not to plant seed potatoes very deep.

I am using my new camera it works great. Date on camera is set correctly like date old camera was & still my computer says 12 noon is midnight even though computer clock says 12 noon is 12 noon. I wish I know how to fix this? The above picture of, cucumber, berries, tomatoes, was uploaded to the forum about 7 pm Friday evening and the date on the forum shows Sat July 18 it should read Fri July 17 for yesterday evening.