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Post by shin on Nov 15, 2019 14:14:56 GMT
I'm afraid the crop was a failure this time around. Either the bugs demolished it or the soil was incredibly unsuitable for them. Though the purples had enough time to cover the hills in vines, while the later planted Covingtons were only somewhat viney, under the ground were only a few small potatoes.
I'm not sure what to do next year but to try to amend the soil, get started planting earlier, and do even more than I did this year against the insects. I'd dug up a fresh garden in a new area this last year, it was all just weeds and grass for years past. I added a lot of bags of topsoil and put down some old 10-10-10 granular fertilizer which didn't seem to do anything useful. Didn't want to put down too much as I burned some bushes when I did that. The neem oil helped but not enough vs. the red beetles, and I applied the spinosad pretty late. And all sorts of bugs and even snakes as well liked to burrow into the loose soil hills.
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Post by feather on Nov 15, 2019 14:24:01 GMT
shin, that's so disappointing. We're more northerly than you and we tried to grow sweet potatoes but I don't think it gets quite warm enough for long enough in the summer for them to do well. Some years one or two things do well, then the next year those don't do well but other plants do. It's been hit or miss, year after year. We keep trying.
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