Recent content by Joel_BC

My report on 2019's spuds (so far). Well, I asked for advice about red potato varieties, and I tried one variety recommended to me on this thread. (By the way, thanks to all of you who responded with recommendations & experiences.) All varieties showed impressive top growth. Red Norlands...

I know what you mean. Looks like a good prank to electrocute the impulsive sort. :oops:

Anybody here rely on an angle grinder? I have three of them, two different makes. They all use the same size & type of wrench for tightening/changing disks. Normally, I do keep one in a tool tray with various disks, but these wrenches are small and it's happened that I’ve temporarily misplaced...

I learned that the Adirondack Red is both red skinned and red fleshed... which is interesting. The reds I've known about are just red on the outside. Thought I'd give them a try. So I did put some time into a search for A.R. seed potatoes from a western Canadian source, but it seems that the...

Thanks for the recommendation of the Adirondacks. I'll look into seeing if I can get seed for that here in the far west and above the 49th parallel.

Thanks for the reply. Where I live, what we call a "buttercup" is a flowering herb, mostly regarded by gardeners as a weed. (I'm sure it may have herbal uses...) At least 90% of gardeners I know try to weed it out. To me 20# means 20 pounds, so I visualized 20# of that kind of buttercup...

I became intrigued by the idea of hugelkulture two or three years ago — but I didn't try it. Reason being I don't think our soil situation would be conducive to making it work. But I believe I started a thread with a question about what SS members may have tried it. You can probably search...

Usually the ground is dry and warm enough to till and plant early seeds in mid April. Unless it's a very rainy April — in which case the ground might be a bit soggy until around the first of May. We tend to harvest the last of our outdoor-grown stuff by mid November, though killing frost can...

Thanks. Yeah, those were clean specimens. Sometimes we have a fair number where the skins have split, but it's rare that we get scabs from bugs biting them. We grow jalapeno peppers and cucumbers in the greenhouse too. Usually the cuke leaves wind up mottled with yellow areas, but the plants...

Congratulations on the complex project. What have you used the arc-welding capability to do, as yet? :)

I think of the Yukons as a "serviceable" large, and (normally) good yielding variety. We've never disliked their flavor, Bee. The Russets are "okay" flavor-wise, good-yielding, but when baked they're just dry-ish (begging for gravy, lots of butter, sour-cream dressing or whatever). Even when...

Thanks for that Potato Organization link. Very informative. We keep our home-grown spuds, for as long as possible, in our cold room (concrete floor — so not really a root cellar). This is sort of necessary, because we have about five months of no productive gardens outdoors, and a bit over...

The scab that we're familiar with up here is caused by a bacterium that thrives when the soil is a little too high-pH (alkaline). So i have to use sulfur each year to prevent or reduce scabbing. I'd guess that if you're not deliberately cultivating your potatoes, then probably your soil pH is...

Thanks. I haven't grown either of those varieties. I do know that some gardeners in my valley grow the Norlands, but I haven't discussed the variety with anybody. The info I could find on the Red Pontiacs seems to indicate that they're "choice" in terms of flavor and texture, but rarely grow...

I grow Russets and Yukon Golds (neither of them “reds”) as mainstays… Russets are the stalwart French-fry variety all over North America, and Yukons are a yellow-flesh spud. Usually, both these varieties size-up and produce abundantly for me. This year, the Russets did well, the Yukons not up...