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The weather plays a big part of when I harvest my potatoes. If it is a wet year, the plants are actively growing and looking healthy I let them stay in the ground longer. If it is a dry year and the plants start to suffer, I pull them out. I plant over 100 seed potato, so I dig one up of each variety just to see how they look. If the potatoes are small, but the plants look healthy, I let them stay longer. If the potatoes are large and some are starting to grow, you need to harvest them. In my garden, the potatoes will get big and mature and then because it is cooler under the wood chips, they start to put out shoots/leaves and grow if I leave them too long. We eat the potatoes that have started to grow first, they don't keep well. My plants yield anywhere from 2 - 5 pounds per plant. I put in a drip line with 12 inch spacing giving out .5 gallon per hour of water, then I plant a potato on each emitter, I fertilize when I plant with bone meal, blood meal and chicken manure. When I hill the plants up the first time I top dress everything with chicken manure again. This year, my 120 plants gave me about 375 pounds of potatoes.

They are tough and not great to eat, but they add flavor to our veggie broth or chicken broth, so they have some value. I let one go to seed and the seed sprouted nicely!

The next day, I looked and they were all still there, but expired.

yes, they die really fast! Dawn kills every bug I spray in seconds!

Took care of the problem...

Had to pick all my peppers yesterday, 28 degrees this morning. Picked 40 pounds of shoshito, jalapeno, serrano, hatch chile, and habanero. Very few are red. A local store that caters to the Mexican market has red jalapeno peppers this week.

I grew them in the garden, it is really hard to find them for sale anywhere...they turned out great!

You can really see the difference. Compost works wonders...

BT is great for the caterpillars, but Captain Jack's is better for a lot of other pests.

Thank you, Eva and I both love what we can grow and eat!

smells like any mushroom when you stir it up.

I believe it is Red Charm

@@kellymahan861 I think its Diana parks

Thanks! They love it...

Thank you for watching...

Once the numbers of worms really got up there, they tend to make these 'balls' when I put something into the bin they really like. The one thing that has surprised me is their love of jalapeno peppers. They will invade a whole pepper and eat it from the inside out. They also eat Habanero peppers...must not be to 'hot' for them.

@@kellymahan861 That is definitely something I never knew. Thanks for sharing. 😎

yes it is...I bait them with something they really like and then scoop them up. They love the cantaloupe rind, and watermelon, too...When I want worms for fishing, or just to moving into a new bin, this is what I do.

you guys have so much space, you might enjoy a stawberry patch.

It is always a challenge with the rain...one year we had 20 inches in 20 days...the cucumbers were terrible, tasted like water!

I love getting the free wood chips. I spread 5 loads this spring, our son Joe helped. Each load weighs up to 8000 lbs. I have had over 20 loads dumped and spread over this garden so far. It turns into some amazing stuff, after a year. When I spread it over the garden the worms eat about 6 inches per year of it, and turn it into castings (worm poop)!

Thanks, we love this flower...

We love them all.

It is still cool here, in the 40's at night and today's high will be 60. The cool weather garden likes this, but my tomatoes and peppers are just sitting still and waiting for the ground to warm up. I still need to plant okra, watermelon, beans and all of my peppers. Hope you have a good melon and squash crop...I am trying squash under a row cover to combat the SVB and Squash bugs. I plan on growing under cover for as long as I can, using a 10 foot wide ag15 cover over PVC hoops 10 feet long.

You have beetles already? Yuck

@@dianemcalpin4649 No, the beetle is still in the grub stage...but, the little glutton is eating my lettuce, spinach and kale roots off under ground and killing them...I have put down milky spore and nematodes that attack them, but they are still thriving! I'm getting really tired of doing all this work to feed bugs...if you know how to control this monster, please let me know.

@@kellymahan861 Oh those little things! Show no mercy!! I dose my elms every spring with Seven spray for them. Show no mercy!

They are strong, tough and can be really mean. Be careful around these critters!

My first order from Uncle Jim's was supposed to be rid wigglers, however they sent a smaller worm called a 'blue' worm that comes from India. They are ok, but need a warm bin and I have to keep a light on over it 24/7...I was pretty disappointed with it and just went to Walmart and bought 8 boxes of fishing worms. They are really red wigglers and they have increased a hundredfold. I'm hoping the ENC will be a worm that eats the composted wood chips in my garden. Also, would like to use them to fish (:

yes, they are...only two have turned belly up so far.

They do grow really fast. Happy you are seeing a good amount set on the vines. I will be fighting with the possums, coons, and even mice to get my melons in the house.

@@kellymahan861 I don't have any signs of rodents yet... I might put my game camera out there to see what's running around at night.

@@RaoulSnyman I have picked about 30 melons so far. I watch the tendril closest to the melon and when it turns all brown and the melon has a 'yellow belly' I pick it...so far I am having all perfectly ripe melons.

@@kellymahan861 yeah, we just picked our first watermelon yesterday. It was ripe enough.

@@RaoulSnyman nice...I have about 80 cantaloupe this year...and have picked 40 watermelons and still have maybe 15 more to go...

Okra don't like to be transplanted. You have to be really careful if you start the seed indoors and then set the plants out. I sow directly into the soil when it is warm. I have started plants inside and then set the out, but usually loose half of them...and the ones I plant from seed catch up and produce about the same time.

I bet garlic would do well for you...I have some hardneck that I got from Aunt Jane/Uncle Dee years ago and I keep it going from year to year. I have planted softneck just from the local grocery store. They both grow pretty well, here.

@@kellymahan861 I want to get into growing garlic, but I'm still trying to get my tomatoes to be more successful :-D