When planning the garden for this year, I thought I read that potatoes would only grow about 18 inches. Boy was I wrong! Mine are about twice that! Next year, I need to arrange to have these in the back, or perhaps in front of something early like peas or broccoli. Perhaps I could add a new bed of only onions and potatoes?
Bob's Backyard Garden
A small, semi-urban vegetable garden in Des Moines, IA
Hi Bob! I’m curious if you experienced any pest issues this year? I have and unfortunately will not have a pea, bean or pepper crop because of it! I put egg shells in with the beans in hopes it would stop any slugs, which did help to at least get the plant to grow but now something has attached them again. The few I have are extremely small and I will not get a harvest from them 🙁 My goal is to read up about what pests to watch for and how to organically handle them so next year I am prepared. My first year I had no pests so I was taken by surprise this year!
It seems like I’ve found a little bit of everything this year as far as pests go, but nothing that has prevented a plant from growing or destroying one later, with my spinach being one possible exception (I think I neglected it too much, but it could have been killed by pests). However, my beans (and peas towards the very end) have something that is causing the leaves to turn yellow with brown spots and eventually fall off. I’m still getting beans though, so I’m not going to worry about it.
I’ve found plenty of slugs and earwigs, but blame that on all of the rain. They don’t appear to be causing any problems though. Aphids and leaf beatles were snacking on some plants early on, so I used a spray with neem oil which seemed to take care of them.