All of my potatoes are out of the ground, with a total of approx. 60-70 plants in two gardens, I go less than one bushel of potatoes.
Severe drought and Colorado Potato Beetls did a number on the potatoes.
South garden I got enough to 1/2 fill a two gallon pail; up North three times that amount.
Even with long watering, it was too dry which put the hurt on potato yield; up North the lawn irrigation system was down all summer because the pressure pump burnt out, and with the city putting in a new water line, silly to replace it before that was done (they are doing it as it write this).
When I dug them up, eight inches down the soil was very dry, you squeezed it in your hand and it would fall apart.
Corn on the other hand, thrived; an hour and one-half of water, plus or minus, every week or ten days was all it needed, though I did put heavy leaf mulch down to stop the soil from drying out.
I am pulling the stalks now for fall corn shock display.
Up North I did not feed the birds (squirrels) much this summer and for the first time ever, I have a lot of corn cobs stripped on the plant by probably squirrels .
Tomatoes, chiles, onions, cucummbers are probably the best I have had in decades, or ever.
Down South, I gave 20 pounds of tomatoes to a neighbor lady and I had no use for them and the freezer is full.
I gave a dozen or so to a neighbor up North also; at the same time I have cucumbers I have no use for and you can only give so many of those away before they have all they can use.
Did make some dill pickles, and , maybe , put up one or two more jars.
The other half made some chilli, which was put in the freezer, which is so full, I took nine bags of frozen carrots and corn and dumped them in the potato holes as compost .
There were 4 to 7 years old and no room for them any more. (there is still another two dozen bags of similar items in the freezer, I/we just do not eat as much as we used to and since most of the extent family is dead, I no longer do large dinners for holidays).
This is the first year I put a 12 by 4 foot strip of the garden in Marigolds and Zinnias, they did/are doing real nice indeed.
It is nice to look out at a garden and see flowers blooming also.
In spite of the nasty drought, it has been a good year for gardening up here; I have mowed the lawn on average, only a little over once a month at either place.
Nice, but it makes one lazy; a world apart from ten years ago when we had a hot and very humid long streak in summer and I was mowing both lawns twice a week and when you were done , you could see it was already a quater of an inch longer.
