Of all the homesteading channels we watch, yours is-hands down-our favorite! I love that you show the real-life moments of things not going according to plan, which I think is such an encouragement to others to see those with big, beautiful gardens like yours saying, "This didn't work, but I am going to try again next year!" Imperfections and "failures" kept me from gardening seriously for a number of years, but the last few years I've adopted the mindset that I am constantly learning, tweaking, and adjusting our techniques, and it is going to be a life-long process ❤️. As an encouragement, the soil under the straw looks AWESOME, so we'll be excited to see how the potatoes do next year for you using this method! We also love and appreciate all the tips to preserve what you have-that has been our biggest game-changer in following your advice and using your amazing methods for the garden medley sauce and brine to rule them all, and our shelves are packed as a result! Thank you! It is not small task to manage the garden and preservation, along with the additional tasks of video shooting and editing, but homesteaders like us are deeply grateful for all of your time in making excellent content that helps us learn, grow our own food, and preserve it for the months to come. May the Lord bless you!
I find it funny when people say their potato harvest was a fail, but they end up with a huge amount. I call that a huge amount! I would be thankful for that harvest! If you put 15 pounds into the garden, you only failed at the harvest if the cost of the seed is greater than the cost of the actual weight of potatoes at market. Technically, my harvest of one pound of potatoes was a success...simply because the seed was free. LOL But seriously. your harvest is beautiful!!!
This makes you think about people in the past that had to grow for survival. One lost or poor crop could be so devastating. We are so lucky to live in the times we do.
I was thinking that the other day too. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong century but when things in the garden go wrong, we have easier alternatives to get food. I’m grateful for that .
Rachel you have such a great attitude. It’s great to see that you don’t let it discourage you and shows me that it’s okay if I have those garden fails too. And at least you get to support your local farmers market for your potatoes. Love the pumpkin by the way!!!!! 🥰
I am blessed to have a potato farm 15 minutes away. This year I will be Supporting him. And still consider it a win, even though I did not grow them myself.
Hi Rachel. Sorry you didn't get a good potato growth, but sweet heart their is still next year. I fell in love with that huge pumpkin. Love, and enjoyed your video. Take care. Hope you had fun with the girls. God Bless you Rachel. Maria.✌️✌️✌️✌️👍👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🐜🐜🐜🐜🥢🥢🥢🥢👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏💚💚💚💚💚💚💜💜💜🧡🧡🧡💛💛💛
From the bugs you briefly showed I'm 90% sure that they are termites. But I also be wrong. I've never saw flying ants, termites look so much like ants.
Yep. I've always been told flying ants are termites. Potatoes were fixing to start rottening very bad. They are probably there because there were already rotten potatoes that they were eating.
Love that dress. Classic. I've made it a point to have that dress (style and color anyway) for the rest of my life. But, I don't have one right now. Have not been able to find the right size and style. I love pockets for working in the garden and the black dress makes it look like no matter what you are doing, you are well put together. HOWEVER, love seeing you as I always do, I was worried about you wearing it to harvest potatoes because of the insects and, for me, I still have poison ivy popping up in my garden and try to wear thick Levi 401's that I now can only get from ebay because they are no longer made in the USA of real, thick cotton. Planning to prepare my first Ruth Stout garden this fall. Great information you have provided. I think I'm going to do it the way Ruth, herself did. Whatever works best, works fine and the less work on certain things leave time for doing more of the things we like most.
I feel your pain. My potatoes fared about the same this year. Normally I harvest 80-100 lbs, and this year I only got 30. Oh, well. All of my other crops did better than expected, so there's that. As for ants, borax & sugar...totally natural & safe in the gardener around the house. Dollar store solo cups work well...just dump some borax in with a little bit of sugar, lay it on its side & weigh it down with a rock or two. Ants can go in & out, rain can't. The ants will go after the sugar and end up carrying borax(boric acid) back to the nest which will kill the queen & eggs and the rest of the colony.
Wow! I love the super moon pumpkin, she is amazing. Oh no, but glad it won't discourage you. At least the red potatoes did a little better. The ants are horrible this year I'm blaming it on all the rain. Hope you had an awesome girls weekend.
Take a scoop out of each of the ant areas and switch them with a scoop from another ant area. Wait a week. The ants will battle each other to the death. Surprisingly effective.
I tried this method for the first time this year. I'm in mid-Michigan! :-) I pulled my potatoes early, as to try and get a second harvest before winter.... I'm glad that I did! While I had real small potatoes... I also had a MILLION giant slugs! They were about the size of a quarter! I've never seen slugs that big... they were larger than the grubs that I've found. Anyway, my potatoes did okay... not great, but I still had several small ones. I am hoping to get a second harvest before winter hits. THANK YOU for showing this process, it's made harvesting potatoes so much more enjoyable for me.
I worry so that you don’t wear garden gloves when you are outside doing gardening or feeding. You are such a lovely person, please take care of yourself. You are so young. You have not one green thumb but two. Your garden and flowers are the prettiest I have seen. I miss gardens and flowers I’m 75 and can’t plant and dig and move things. I loved growing herbs but I miss it all. I watch you everyday and I just remember when Iwas like you. Keep it up and God Bless.
The Rusted Garden gave a tip to get rid of ants recently. I tried it in my mom's new garden and it worked beautifully. In a mason jar add 4 parts sugar, 1 part Borax, and a little bit of water until it becomes like wet sand. Punch holes in the lid and lay the jar on its side for them to crawl in and out of. Can be any jar, just as long as it's glass so no animals chew through it. Good luck.
I had the same results with my potatoes as well. the reds did slightly better but overall I got very few of any that were a decent size. We've had a lot of heavy rains this summer in CT. I also had massive amounts of little black ants in the bed when I was digging up my spuds this week. I've never seen them like that I was wearing gloves when I was digging but wherever they crawled on me and got on my skin around the edges of my gloves I got tons of bites from them. It has been several days and they're still super itchy. I ended up putting my chickens into that bed for a while to let them get some of them. I was thinking about also sprinkling cornmeal in the bed to try to kill them. I heard that when they eat the cornmeal it kills them. I contemplated DE but I don't want to kill any beneficials or earthworms so I'm hesitant to use it.
Thank you for always sharing the good and the challenges! This was our first year trying potatoes, we did Ruth Stout after watching you. We are small scale, only planted 6 seed potatoes, got 8 potatoes and 2 were perfect for tater tots according to our daughter! We started with a draught, then had fits and spurts of rain, I think I may have overwatered in the beginning. We will try again next year. I use DE on our pants, they were mostly in our landscaping not in the veggie gardens, I have treated a few times, it's better but not cleared.
So sorry to hear that your Ruth Stout garden did not perform as expected! We tried growing Ruth Stout potatoes last year and we struggle with yield and vole damage. This season we are a little more prepared for the voles and wait "patiently" to see if we did better than last time. This excessive precipitation this late in the season might be a challenge for us as well, so we might decide to pull them early. Regarding your ant/termite infestation, we have limited experience but DE is a great option, and we have also seen other creative methods - check out @Grow Family Network. Thanks for sharing!
That is the coolest thing ever that you have potato berries! I hope you saved some. You can collect seeds True Potato Seed AND grow potato plants from them. They produce the coolest variety of potatoes in shapes and colors. You can get a small amount from each plant. How fun would that be as a garden experiment?!
I actually saved mine this year for that very purpose! I grew 3 new to me varieties of taters and collected a good handful of berries from some of the plants and can't wait to see what mixes thr seeds will produce!!
I’m so disappointed for you Rachel after all your hard work too but every gardener has probably experienced similar problems, no consolation I know. Your small harvest will taste all the sweeter.
Yes, you had a very weird weather garden season and who would have known that the Ruth Stout would not be ideal for it this year. It's the luck of the draw I guess. But hey, there was something really great to learn about what you harvested today. Diversity works. Planting several different varieties of a veg because if one fails others may thrive. The reds you pulled looked pretty good!
You went through extreme rains, we went through extreme drought. For the first time in years, my potatoes are all scabby from watering with well water and the extremes they went through...soooo, for the first time in years, I know they won't keep...I have to can every one that I want to save...sigh.
I’m in Connecticut and we had a very humid wet summer and my potatoes didn’t do well neither! Too wet I’m guessing ! I love your positive attitude! Blessings
Thanks for sharing the ‘not so amazing’ harvests. It’s reassuring to know that even experienced/confident gardeners like yourself have a ‘sometimes it happens’ type seasons. I find focussing on the positives helps during these times. Not many potatoes but HEAPS of tomatoes. Remember you even got some lovely corn this year. Happy gardening :)
decades ago, I was told by an older friend that bay leaves work to repel ants, and I've used them with much success in my pantry and cabinets ever since. I break them up and scatter a few pieces in the back corners, and also rub them on the edges of the shelves, cabinet doors, and the frames. Never tried a tea/spray of them, or any outdoor use, but might be worth a try.
I’m in Central Florida so we deal with fire ants but they’re the only ants I kill in the garden. Spinosad granules work great for fire ants and probably other ants.
I like seeing other methods of gardening. I have read about Ruth Stout and haven’t implemented it. My problem is a very arid high desert garden so not enough water would be my problem. Beautiful garden you have. I believe it’s not a failure if you try.
As you were pulling your potatoes out I was looking at the beautiful colors from your tomatoes 🍅. Your garden looks great and your pumpkin 🎃 looks great too!!
It is so sad. I love potatoes so much. My favorite is sheet pan breakfast. Roasted diced potatoes with sausage topped with a fried egg and add sauerkraut on the side. Yummy;) Better luck next year. Off to the farmers market, I guess.
Looks like the ant colony was getting ready to swarm. They do it a couple times each year and then spread their colony to other areas. I'd leave the ants as they are good at loosening the soil. We're looking to dig up potatoes tonight. We hope we get a good harvest. It's been a tough, dry summer here! Cheers!
Thanks for sharing! It helps to see your ups and downs. We have terrible ant issues too, and tried both the borax method and the terro bait. Nothing seemed to draw them completely away from my plants. They love my cowpeas. They also can be nasty biters when you inadvertently dig in their spot!
I'm right there with you. The deer ate all our green beans, so I just picked up 2 bushels from our farmers market so I can put some up. Oh and our potatoes didn't do much either, but I'm hopeful for our sweet potato harvest.
I would be interested in knowing the weight of the seed potatoes compared to the weight of the harvest. I have never used Ruth Stout practices in my garden.
We used to spread used coffee grounds in our garden beds to deter crawly bugs. I've even heard that a spray bottle with peppermint essential oil drops works as well. I don't know the water:oil ratio unfortunately. DE works great too, but you have to apply it after each rain.
Ahhhh nooo the potato berries! Look into True Potato Seeds! Our potato plants set berries this year and we kept the seeds. We're so excited to plant them and see what weird varieties we get from them!
Wow! I had more seed potatoes than I could fit in my pots so I planted one Ruth Stout bed about 4'x4'. This is my first try... beginner's luck! The bed was absolutely packed with potatoes! Two had started to rot, but the rest are fine. The pot-grown ones I'm not all that impressed with, but I guess they did okay. I still have some of those to harvest.
I have been adding icing sugar to my DE lately and I can not believe how effective it's been. We had a huge ant problem this spring but from the day after I starting sprinkling it around the problem areas, I haven't seen a single one in those areas.
I'm so sorry to hear about the potatoes. Yes, I believe that it was blight. I also had blight this year. To combat it destroying the entire crop I harvested those plants straight away. Then burned the plant tops. It still spread to the other plants eventually, but not for several weeks. I have found that as soon as they finish flowering and just start to die back I harvest any remaining plants. This is for rainy starts to the seasons in Northern Illinois. Another tidbit is that I keep my potatoes far from my tomatoes, because blight can travel from one to the other. In further research, blight remains in the soil unless eradicated through solar cooking, soil removal or chemicals. I'm still working out my plan of action to solve that here. Frustrating, certainly heartbreaking too. It has gone to my tomatoes. I'll pray that it doesn't travel in your garden. The beautiful moon pumpkin is a blessing. I pray you have plenty of wonderful future surprises in the weeks to come. God bless. 🌞🌻🌞
Shame about that, i had a massive failure with potatoes recently they got hit by various pests, i have switched over to growing in grass clippings and so far they seem ok. Hope you have better luck next season
I would not count your Ruth Stout gardening a failure, a little is better than nothing. And adding in the other factoring issues you dealt with, well, some years are good gardening and some are not so good. Keep pressing on. In Joy
I had anxiety watching Rachel dig in the dirt and straw with bare hands. Maybe, its because I live in S. Florida and have all kinds of biting and stinging bugs to contend with, lol.
I love your channel! you are very brave gardening in that dress. I would be so paranoid. I would have on boots, sweatpants, long socks, and long sleeves. Your garden is still beautiful even though you didnt get the potatoes you wanted. i didnt get a harvest of potatoes my 13 year old dog laid on my bed and killed them all.
DE is what I use and do the entire garden area because the ants (when disturbed) will move the whole colony, Also will use pots of boiling water, or borax. I'll sprinkle cinnamon around the perimeter. We have all kinds of ants including fire ants on our property.
We have been in a drought all summer... This was the first year we battled potato beetles and chose to dig up our plants early. We still got an okay harvest but it was definitely not our best potato year.
real life... you handled like a pro thank you for sharing and im so sorry they didn't turn out ..last years were huge so just goes to show nature is fierce when she wants to be ..good luck on getting them pesky ants to move out hee hee ..unwanted guests aye or should i say pests 💛🧡
I'm sorry Rachel! The rain, heat, and timely just wasn't your friend this year.....never the same huh? You got more than I got 😂 Glad you got even a harvest of a few.
I have clay soil here that in a wet year can ruin everything. I hill my potatoes and that leaves like drainage trenches between the rows. We had a drought this year and I had the nicest potatoes I have ever had. I gasped like I was watching fireworks while I was digging them, because they were so beautiful.
Try The Rusted Gardener TH-cam channel. Gary has some home made remedies for taking care of ants in the garden. I have been infested this year. Picking the beans was horrible and the little bastards would swarm and start biting. I hired an all natural, non toxic pest control service and I am sorry to say it did not work! Not for wasps, not for ants, not for anything. Very disappointing so it is back to doing it myself with home made and over the counter organic pesticides. Just ordered the wasp traps for one problem. Tomorrow I start after the ants if it is not raining. This summer it seems it is always raining which is a big part of the problem!
I also had a terrible potato harvest! I spent close to $50 on seed potatoes, red, purple and kenebec used grow bags and maybe got 8 normal size potatoes and several small ones. SO much rain here this season in asheville! What do you guys do about ground hog and rabbits ??? They are eating all my butternut squash and watermelon that would be so close to harvest! I have premier 1 poultry netting but bunnies can jump right through it w/o getting zapped
Rachael my Ruth Stout failed too when I tried it- If you live in a wooden house I would get those ants checked out as they looked like White Ants (as we call them) they can eat a house out from the inside of your walls & then all of a sudden you have soft border interior walls & house is gone. Cheers Denise- Australia
I live in Louisville, Ky, zone 6b. I have NEVER had luck growing potatoes here lol. I gave up this year. Also, no luck much with sweet potatoes. I have a very limited growing space and both potatoes and sweet potatoes take up so much real estate, I'm not growing either next year. Last year around Thanksgiving, Meijer had beautiful sweet potatoes for 49 cents a pound. I just scooped up a bunch at that price and canned those. They were really nice quality.
Similar results here is TN, though ours are planted row style. We have had miserably hot weather and either too much or too little rain. Last year we had potato blight. Hoping for a better potato harvest next year.
Last year I had volunteer potato plants in Aug. that I dug in Nov They were beautiful. Since we have a longer grower season here in TN, I may try another late crop.
I agree with the comment below. Your channel is the one I watch everyday. I heard you say once you have a sister that lives in Provo Utah. That is where I live. Does she garden and can like you?
My garden is a complete sheet show. I know how you feel. Between the stink bugs eating holes in my Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes & the blight, I’m ready to throw up my hands. 😫
I use a container and put some borax solution in It. It's been the best method we've found and it's 1/2 sugar, 3 tbsp borax, 1 cup hot water. One batch lasts us a little while and it works quickly
i'm in the UP and we had a very hot and humid summer, i did ruth stout potatoes and they did terrible to, really weak plants and lots of tiny potatoes.
Were they termites and not ants? Here in TX if I tried to grow like that the termites would take over. Your pumpkin was such a surprise for you and it was fun to see that excitement. We all know what that felt like. Thanks for sharing.
DE or boric acid mixed with sugar in covered containers that have holes in the sides will probably be best for the ants. My question is... cucumber beetles! They decimated my cukes and squash. Don't want to kill the few pollinators. What do I do?😢
Of all the homesteading channels we watch, yours is-hands down-our favorite! I love that you show the real-life moments of things not going according to plan, which I think is such an encouragement to others to see those with big, beautiful gardens like yours saying, "This didn't work, but I am going to try again next year!" Imperfections and "failures" kept me from gardening seriously for a number of years, but the last few years I've adopted the mindset that I am constantly learning, tweaking, and adjusting our techniques, and it is going to be a life-long process ❤️. As an encouragement, the soil under the straw looks AWESOME, so we'll be excited to see how the potatoes do next year for you using this method! We also love and appreciate all the tips to preserve what you have-that has been our biggest game-changer in following your advice and using your amazing methods for the garden medley sauce and brine to rule them all, and our shelves are packed as a result! Thank you! It is not small task to manage the garden and preservation, along with the additional tasks of video shooting and editing, but homesteaders like us are deeply grateful for all of your time in making excellent content that helps us learn, grow our own food, and preserve it for the months to come. May the Lord bless you!
I find it funny when people say their potato harvest was a fail, but they end up with a huge amount. I call that a huge amount! I would be thankful for that harvest! If you put 15 pounds into the garden, you only failed at the harvest if the cost of the seed is greater than the cost of the actual weight of potatoes at market. Technically, my harvest of one pound of potatoes was a success...simply because the seed was free. LOL But seriously. your harvest is beautiful!!!
you folks always know how to show a calmly beautiful slant on things even if it didn't go as planned. i enjoy watching.
This makes you think about people in the past that had to grow for survival. One lost or poor crop could be so devastating. We are so lucky to live in the times we do.
I was thinking that the other day too. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong century but when things in the garden go wrong, we have easier alternatives to get food. I’m grateful for that .
Glad had good time!! Beautiful pumpkin!! Flowers are gorgeous!! Enjoy being home with Todd!! Love our time together!! Bye for now Janell
Rachel you have such a great attitude. It’s great to see that you don’t let it discourage you and shows me that it’s okay if I have those garden fails too. And at least you get to support your local farmers market for your potatoes. Love the pumpkin by the way!!!!! 🥰
I am blessed to have a potato farm 15 minutes away. This year I will be Supporting him. And still consider it a win, even though I did not grow them myself.
Hi Rachel. Sorry you didn't get a good potato growth, but sweet heart their is still next year. I fell in love with that huge pumpkin. Love, and enjoyed your video. Take care. Hope you had fun with the girls. God Bless you Rachel. Maria.✌️✌️✌️✌️👍👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🐜🐜🐜🐜🥢🥢🥢🥢👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏💚💚💚💚💚💚💜💜💜🧡🧡🧡💛💛💛
Even failures are lessons learned :) thanks for sharing your experience!
Rachel
They love moisture, yuck
So much rain this season
Glad your still happy 😁👍🏻🙏🙏
From the bugs you briefly showed I'm 90% sure that they are termites. But I also be wrong. I've never saw flying ants, termites look so much like ants.
I thought so too....termites!
That's what we had too
That is exactly what I was thinking!😳
Flying ants also called "alates" are mature ants ready for mating.
Yep. I've always been told flying ants are termites. Potatoes were fixing to start rottening very bad. They are probably there because there were already rotten potatoes that they were eating.
Sorry that you had a bad year on the potatoes. Overall the garden has looked good this year. Thanks for another update on the garden.
Too much rain this year. So glad you have Block's Farmer's Market.
Love that dress. Classic. I've made it a point to have that dress (style and color anyway) for the rest of my life. But, I don't have one right now. Have not been able to find the right size and style. I love pockets for working in the garden and the black dress makes it look like no matter what you are doing, you are well put together. HOWEVER, love seeing you as I always do, I was worried about you wearing it to harvest potatoes because of the insects and, for me, I still have poison ivy popping up in my garden and try to wear thick Levi 401's that I now can only get from ebay because they are no longer made in the USA of real, thick cotton. Planning to prepare my first Ruth Stout garden this fall. Great information you have provided. I think I'm going to do it the way Ruth, herself did. Whatever works best, works fine and the less work on certain things leave time for doing more of the things we like most.
I feel your pain. My potatoes fared about the same this year. Normally I harvest 80-100 lbs, and this year I only got 30. Oh, well. All of my other crops did better than expected, so there's that.
As for ants, borax & sugar...totally natural & safe in the gardener around the house. Dollar store solo cups work well...just dump some borax in with a little bit of sugar, lay it on its side & weigh it down with a rock or two. Ants can go in & out, rain can't. The ants will go after the sugar and end up carrying borax(boric acid) back to the nest which will kill the queen & eggs and the rest of the colony.
Love your flower 🌸 garden 🪴 you have such a positive and humble outlook even though your potatoes 🥔 failed. As always love watching your videos.
Could be termites. Ants like to eat them.
Wow! I love the super moon pumpkin, she is amazing. Oh no, but glad it won't discourage you. At least the red potatoes did a little better. The ants are horrible this year I'm blaming it on all the rain. Hope you had an awesome girls weekend.
Take a scoop out of each of the ant areas and switch them with a scoop from another ant area. Wait a week. The ants will battle each other to the death. Surprisingly effective.
Yes this works takes a bit but so worth the wait
😯 oh my gosh what a great idea!
That does work.
Funny, because the government does that to us too. Lol
Wow! Never heard of that before. Definitely going to try it out.
I'm shocked!!!! It has always done so wonderful for you. I use nothing else.
I tried this method for the first time this year. I'm in mid-Michigan! :-) I pulled my potatoes early, as to try and get a second harvest before winter.... I'm glad that I did! While I had real small potatoes... I also had a MILLION giant slugs! They were about the size of a quarter! I've never seen slugs that big... they were larger than the grubs that I've found. Anyway, my potatoes did okay... not great, but I still had several small ones. I am hoping to get a second harvest before winter hits.
THANK YOU for showing this process, it's made harvesting potatoes so much more enjoyable for me.
That sluggo stuff is organic, and it would probably really help with those.
@@1870s Thank you! I've never had slugs in my garden before... so this was a very gross surprise to me when I dug up my potatoes. lol
I worry so that you don’t wear garden gloves when you are outside doing gardening or feeding. You are such a lovely person, please take care of yourself. You are so young. You have not one green thumb but two. Your garden and flowers are the prettiest I have seen. I miss gardens and flowers I’m 75 and can’t plant and dig and move things. I loved growing herbs but I miss it all. I watch you everyday and I just remember when Iwas like you. Keep it up and God Bless.
Glad you had fun with your friends. Too bad about the potatoes
The Rusted Garden gave a tip to get rid of ants recently. I tried it in my mom's new garden and it worked beautifully. In a mason jar add 4 parts sugar, 1 part Borax, and a little bit of water until it becomes like wet sand. Punch holes in the lid and lay the jar on its side for them to crawl in and out of. Can be any jar, just as long as it's glass so no animals chew through it. Good luck.
I had the same results with my potatoes as well. the reds did slightly better but overall I got very few of any that were a decent size. We've had a lot of heavy rains this summer in CT. I also had massive amounts of little black ants in the bed when I was digging up my spuds this week. I've never seen them like that I was wearing gloves when I was digging but wherever they crawled on me and got on my skin around the edges of my gloves I got tons of bites from them. It has been several days and they're still super itchy. I ended up putting my chickens into that bed for a while to let them get some of them. I was thinking about also sprinkling cornmeal in the bed to try to kill them. I heard that when they eat the cornmeal it kills them. I contemplated DE but I don't want to kill any beneficials or earthworms so I'm hesitant to use it.
Your garden looks always great Rachel! We all struggle with something always. You harvest a lot more than I did so consider that a success. 😁
Thank you for always sharing the good and the challenges! This was our first year trying potatoes, we did Ruth Stout after watching you. We are small scale, only planted 6 seed potatoes, got 8 potatoes and 2 were perfect for tater tots according to our daughter! We started with a draught, then had fits and spurts of rain, I think I may have overwatered in the beginning. We will try again next year. I use DE on our pants, they were mostly in our landscaping not in the veggie gardens, I have treated a few times, it's better but not cleared.
We just keep learning. I may have trimmed my tomatoes too much so now my last few are not ripening. Live and learn.
Hi Rachel 👋, your hair is growing out beautifully, sorry about your Tatars. All root vegetable I have planted fail.
So sorry to hear that your Ruth Stout garden did not perform as expected! We tried growing Ruth Stout potatoes last year and we struggle with yield and vole damage. This season we are a little more prepared for the voles and wait "patiently" to see if we did better than last time. This excessive precipitation this late in the season might be a challenge for us as well, so we might decide to pull them early.
Regarding your ant/termite infestation, we have limited experience but DE is a great option, and we have also seen other creative methods - check out @Grow Family Network. Thanks for sharing!
That is the coolest thing ever that you have potato berries! I hope you saved some. You can collect seeds True Potato Seed AND grow potato plants from them. They produce the coolest variety of potatoes in shapes and colors. You can get a small amount from each plant. How fun would that be as a garden experiment?!
I actually saved mine this year for that very purpose! I grew 3 new to me varieties of taters and collected a good handful of berries from some of the plants and can't wait to see what mixes thr seeds will produce!!
I’m so disappointed for you Rachel after all your hard work too but every gardener has probably experienced similar problems, no consolation I know. Your small harvest will taste all the sweeter.
The flowers are beautiful ❤️
My potatoes look like yours.
Yes but, your tomatoes did freaking fantastic!!
i think those may be termites
This is exactly what happened with my potatoes this year also! It was so wet and full of ants.
Yes, you had a very weird weather garden season and who would have known that the Ruth Stout would not be ideal for it this year. It's the luck of the draw I guess. But hey, there was something really great to learn about what you harvested today. Diversity works. Planting several different varieties of a veg because if one fails others may thrive. The reds you pulled looked pretty good!
You went through extreme rains, we went through extreme drought. For the first time in years, my potatoes are all scabby from watering with well water and the extremes they went through...soooo, for the first time in years, I know they won't keep...I have to can every one that I want to save...sigh.
I’m in Connecticut and we had a very humid wet summer and my potatoes didn’t do well neither! Too wet I’m guessing ! I love your positive attitude! Blessings
Thanks for sharing the ‘not so amazing’ harvests. It’s reassuring to know that even experienced/confident gardeners like yourself have a ‘sometimes it happens’ type seasons. I find focussing on the positives helps during these times. Not many potatoes but HEAPS of tomatoes. Remember you even got some lovely corn this year. Happy gardening :)
Those looked more like termites to me. 🍀
It may be chaos as you say, but it is beautiful chaos!
decades ago, I was told by an older friend that bay leaves work to repel ants, and I've used them with much success in my pantry and cabinets ever since. I break them up and scatter a few pieces in the back corners, and also rub them on the edges of the shelves, cabinet doors, and the frames. Never tried a tea/spray of them, or any outdoor use, but might be worth a try.
I’m in Central Florida so we deal with fire ants but they’re the only ants I kill in the garden. Spinosad granules work great for fire ants and probably other ants.
Do you have winged ants or termites? Termites can do so much damage.
Looked like termites to me also.🍀
So would it be because of wood chips do you think?
I like seeing other methods of gardening. I have read about Ruth Stout and haven’t implemented it. My problem is a very arid high desert garden so not enough water would be my problem. Beautiful garden you have. I believe it’s not a failure if you try.
You are so positive, also have a plan B. TFS
As you were pulling your potatoes out I was looking at the beautiful colors from your tomatoes 🍅. Your garden looks great and your pumpkin 🎃 looks great too!!
It is so sad. I love potatoes so much. My favorite is sheet pan breakfast. Roasted diced potatoes with sausage topped with a fried egg and add sauerkraut on the side. Yummy;) Better luck next year. Off to the farmers market, I guess.
You’re good, I would have put jeans boots and gloves on.
Looks like the ant colony was getting ready to swarm. They do it a couple times each year and then spread their colony to other areas. I'd leave the ants as they are good at loosening the soil. We're looking to dig up potatoes tonight. We hope we get a good harvest. It's been a tough, dry summer here! Cheers!
Sorry about the potato harvest. Still got something. Better than nothing. Look to the next year you plant.
Can't win them all. Love your channel, your guys are awesome.
Thanks for sharing! It helps to see your ups and downs. We have terrible ant issues too, and tried both the borax method and the terro bait. Nothing seemed to draw them completely away from my plants. They love my cowpeas. They also can be nasty biters when you inadvertently dig in their spot!
yes I want to know also. I have them in my raise beds
I'm right there with you. The deer ate all our green beans, so I just picked up 2 bushels from our farmers market so I can put some up. Oh and our potatoes didn't do much either, but I'm hopeful for our sweet potato harvest.
I would be interested in knowing the weight of the seed potatoes compared to the weight of the harvest. I have never used Ruth Stout practices in my garden.
We used to spread used coffee grounds in our garden beds to deter crawly bugs. I've even heard that a spray bottle with peppermint essential oil drops works as well. I don't know the water:oil ratio unfortunately. DE works great too, but you have to apply it after each rain.
I use rosemary essential oil (works great to repel cabbage moths too). I generally do 10-15 drops per (normal size) spray bottle.
Ahhhh nooo the potato berries! Look into True Potato Seeds! Our potato plants set berries this year and we kept the seeds. We're so excited to plant them and see what weird varieties we get from them!
Love your videos, thanks for sharing ❤
Wow! I had more seed potatoes than I could fit in my pots so I planted one Ruth Stout bed about 4'x4'. This is my first try... beginner's luck! The bed was absolutely packed with potatoes! Two had started to rot, but the rest are fine. The pot-grown ones I'm not all that impressed with, but I guess they did okay. I still have some of those to harvest.
I have been adding icing sugar to my DE lately and I can not believe how effective it's been. We had a huge ant problem this spring but from the day after I starting sprinkling it around the problem areas, I haven't seen a single one in those areas.
That wasn't a complete failure! You did get some nice potatoes. I have found in the Ruth Stout method ponitac red potatoes do the the best!.
I'm so sorry to hear about the potatoes. Yes, I believe that it was blight. I also had blight this year. To combat it destroying the entire crop I harvested those plants straight away. Then burned the plant tops. It still spread to the other plants eventually, but not for several weeks. I have found that as soon as they finish flowering and just start to die back I harvest any remaining plants. This is for rainy starts to the seasons in Northern Illinois.
Another tidbit is that I keep my potatoes far from my tomatoes, because blight can travel from one to the other.
In further research, blight remains in the soil unless eradicated through solar cooking, soil removal or chemicals. I'm still working out my plan of action to solve that here. Frustrating, certainly heartbreaking too. It has gone to my tomatoes.
I'll pray that it doesn't travel in your garden.
The beautiful moon pumpkin is a blessing. I pray you have plenty of wonderful future surprises in the weeks to come. God bless. 🌞🌻🌞
I was shouting at my phone, telling you to go get some garden gloves and pants on for all those ants.
I just use cinnamon from the dollar store to keep ants away.
My dad's potatoes did great.
Can't wait to plant my Ruth Stout beds
Those pumkin vines are huge holy cow girl how awesome
Shame about that, i had a massive failure with potatoes recently they got hit by various pests, i have switched over to growing in grass clippings and so far they seem ok. Hope you have better luck next season
Better luck next year.
if they are ants, i have poured boiling water on the nest. captain jacks dead bug brew works on various bugs too.
I would not count your Ruth Stout gardening a failure, a little is better than nothing. And adding in the other factoring issues you dealt with, well, some years are good gardening and some are not so good. Keep pressing on. In Joy
My potatoes did terribly in my garden this year also. Maybe next year I can get a better yield.
I had anxiety watching Rachel dig in the dirt and straw with bare hands. Maybe, its because I live in S. Florida and have all kinds of biting and stinging bugs to contend with, lol.
Look like termites from here.
I love your channel! you are very brave gardening in that dress. I would be so paranoid. I would have on boots, sweatpants, long socks, and long sleeves. Your garden is still beautiful even though you didnt get the potatoes you wanted. i didnt get a harvest of potatoes my 13 year old dog laid on my bed and killed them all.
DE is what I use and do the entire garden area because the ants (when disturbed) will move the whole colony, Also will use pots of boiling water, or borax. I'll sprinkle cinnamon around the perimeter. We have all kinds of ants including fire ants on our property.
We have been in a drought all summer... This was the first year we battled potato beetles and chose to dig up our plants early. We still got an okay harvest but it was definitely not our best potato year.
real life... you handled like a pro thank you for sharing and im so sorry they didn't turn out ..last years were huge so just goes to show nature is fierce when she wants to be ..good luck on getting them pesky ants to move out hee hee ..unwanted guests aye or should i say pests 💛🧡
I'm sorry Rachel! The rain, heat, and timely just wasn't your friend this year.....never the same huh? You got more than I got 😂 Glad you got even a harvest of a few.
I have clay soil here that in a wet year can ruin everything. I hill my potatoes and that leaves like drainage trenches between the rows. We had a drought this year and I had the nicest potatoes I have ever had. I gasped like I was watching fireworks while I was digging them, because they were so beautiful.
Try The Rusted Gardener TH-cam channel. Gary has some home made remedies for taking care of ants in the garden. I have been infested this year. Picking the beans was horrible and the little bastards would swarm and start biting. I hired an all natural, non toxic pest control service and I am sorry to say it did not work! Not for wasps, not for ants, not for anything. Very disappointing so it is back to doing it myself with home made and over the counter organic pesticides. Just ordered the wasp traps for one problem. Tomorrow I start after the ants if it is not raining. This summer it seems it is always raining which is a big part of the problem!
I also had a terrible potato harvest! I spent close to $50 on seed potatoes, red, purple and kenebec used grow bags and maybe got 8 normal size potatoes and several small ones. SO much rain here this season in asheville! What do you guys do about ground hog and rabbits ??? They are eating all my butternut squash and watermelon that would be so close to harvest! I have premier 1 poultry netting but bunnies can jump right through it w/o getting zapped
Sometimes it's like that. This yr has been crazy for weather.
Rachael my Ruth Stout failed too when I tried it- If you live in a wooden house I would get those ants checked out as they looked like White Ants (as we call them) they can eat a house out from the inside of your walls & then all of a sudden you have soft border interior walls & house is gone. Cheers Denise- Australia
Oh that looks like termites. I can’t use that method of growing down south because the beds would look exactly like that.
I live in Louisville, Ky, zone 6b. I have NEVER had luck growing potatoes here lol. I gave up this year. Also, no luck much with sweet potatoes. I have a very limited growing space and both potatoes and sweet potatoes take up so much real estate, I'm not growing either next year. Last year around Thanksgiving, Meijer had beautiful sweet potatoes for 49 cents a pound. I just scooped up a bunch at that price and canned those. They were really nice quality.
Similar results here is TN, though ours are planted row style. We have had miserably hot weather and either too much or too little rain. Last year we had potato blight.
Hoping for a better potato harvest next year.
Last year I had volunteer potato plants in Aug. that I dug in Nov
They were beautiful. Since we have a longer grower season here in TN, I may try another late crop.
I agree with the comment below. Your channel is the one I watch everyday. I heard you say once you have a sister that lives in Provo Utah. That is where I live. Does she garden and can like you?
She does not.
Nobody had a good tater harvest this year. That is an awesome pumpkin by the way. Blessings.
The Ruth stout method for potato’s I’ve seen produce tons of large potato’s Was hip high rows with compost and manure mixed in
Same issue Ants and I planted 20# of seed this year lucky if I got 10# back
Hope you had a great time. I did 10 pints of sweet relish.
My garden is a complete sheet show. I know how you feel. Between the stink bugs eating holes in my Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes & the blight, I’m ready to throw up my hands. 😫
Looks like termites
I use a container and put some borax solution in It. It's been the best method we've found and it's 1/2 sugar, 3 tbsp borax, 1 cup hot water. One batch lasts us a little while and it works quickly
i'm in the UP and we had a very hot and humid summer, i did ruth stout potatoes and they did terrible to, really weak plants and lots of tiny potatoes.
Were they termites and not ants? Here in TX if I tried to grow like that the termites would take over. Your pumpkin was such a surprise for you and it was fun to see that excitement. We all know what that felt like. Thanks for sharing.
DE or boric acid mixed with sugar in covered containers that have holes in the sides will probably be best for the ants.
My question is... cucumber beetles! They decimated my cukes and squash. Don't want to kill the few pollinators. What do I do?😢
Just dumped my container of potatoes, none! And like you found, tons of ants. (In Virginia)